rabbitoid: A great idea. With your game, one will get the feeling of living without the tedious effort of thinking. I wonder whether WhisperzQ's suggestion wouldn't cut off some of the playing thrill though :-)

WhisperzQ:
right, I totally missed that aspect :)

rabbitoid: ... and a further improvement could be the ability to have an "automove" setting which randomly selects a piece to move, then randomly moves it. then you would only need to look in your Message box to see if you won or lost!

How cool is that :)

rabbitoid: What a brilliant idea, though I would have called it "Ludo Chess".

I've invented a new variant, I call it "Fencer random chess". It carries a certain element of luck. The game is played on a 8x8 chessboard, usual pieces, standard starting positions. moves are identical to regular chess, but capture is prohibited, so the number of pieces remains the same throughout the game. Since the captures are eliminated, the usual target which is the enemy king is no longer the object of the game.

So how is the game ended? simple: After each move, A Fencer random generator, at a probability to be determined, posts a message "white has won", "black has won" or, at a lower probability "draw".

The advantages of this variant should be obvious. The strategic calculations, which are so exhausting in the other variants of chess, are greatly reduced here. Anyone can easily master the techniques involved (OK, I have doubts about some members, but you can't have everything)

In my humble opinion, this game should become very popular on this site, in view of the quality of the other recent additions.

Beren the 32nd: A somewhat easier variant (easier in the sense of calculating probabilities) assigns probabilities based on number of pieces that can be moved. For instance, for the first move, 8 pawns and 2 knights can be moved, giving an 80% probability a pawn has to be moved, and a 20% chance of a knight. After 1 e5 c5, white can move 8 pawns, 2 knights, 1 bishop, 1 queen and 1 king, so he has to move a pawn with chance 61.5%, a knight with a 15.4% chance, and there's a 7.7% chance for each of the queen, king and bishop.

Playing a game of Dice Chess at the moment has given me an idea for a new variation "Probability Chess" (better than dice chess I think).
Instead of a simple dice dictating which type of piece you can move, piece probabilities are calculated first, based on how many moves with each type of piece are possible.
For example, for white's first move there are 16 possible pawn moves, 4 knight moves but no others. Based on this Pawn is assigned 80% and Knight is assigned 20%. Then a randomiser determines which type of piece must be moved accordingly.
To illustrate this further, let's look at how a game might proceed. If white must move a Pawn and plays 1 e4, and then black must move a pawn and plays 1 .. c5, then white has 30 possibilities for the 2nd move: 15 pawn moves, 5 knight moves, 5 bishop moves, 4 queen moves and 1 king move. Based on this Pawn is assigned 50%, Knight 16.67%, Bishop 16.67%, Queen 13.33% and King 3.33%. White has a good chance now of being able to develop a piece, but if Pawn is chosen again then white should choose a move that takes into account how this will affect the probabilities of being able to move certain pieces next time. Later in the game you will be affecting your opponents piece probabilities too!
This is where a lot of the skill in this game will be, and what makes it more fascinating than Dice Chess.
Who thinks this sounds like a good game for BrainKing to support?

Fencer: Fine then. The ECV doesn't give more details, but I like it the way the rules are.

AbigailII: Ah, of course you are right, this kind of giving a check is allowed. What I meant was a situation when both kings (none of them made the first move) give a check each other - that would not be allowed.

Fencer: I don't think that regular chess rules actually forbid the king giving check - that would be a redundant rule: in regular chess, the only squares a king can ever attack are the squares directly surrounding it - but since it cannot be next to the opposing king (as it would threaten the square), it cannot give check.

But if giving check is not allowed, I would like to report a bug. In this game I played a move (6... d6) that emptied the diagonal between the kings, and it marked the move as "giving check". I do not know whether my opponent was forced to move his king - but he shouldn't if the king wasn't allowed to give check.

coan.net: Then our memories do agree. It would be worth to check which way the rules were implemented - and which way they should, which is not obvious. I'll see if the Encyclopedia of Chess Variants is more precise than the chessvariants.com entry.

nabla: I don't think you can move your king into check - and you can't move another piece that will in turn put your king in check - so if the system would have let you play e5xd4, then your king would have been in check (and then game over.)

If say your opponents king had already moved (so it is back to it's 1 space at a time mode), then letting your king (in it's queen move mode) check your opponent would have been acceptable.... as long as you don't put your king in danger.

Even though Fencer below says a king can't give check - I could have sworn that it can in this game while still in "queen-move-mode" against a "king-move-mode" king.

Fencer: Are you sure ? In that position : Échecs du Chat de Chester (mangue contre nabla) , my remembrance is that the system did not let me play e5xd4, which I interpreted as normal since the pawn was pinned by the enemy king (my king would be in check by the other king). But if what you say is true, e5xd4 would have been a perfectly valid move.

Or maybe my memory is at fault ?

AbigailII: No and no. The only difference between normal and cheshire cat chess (regarding king moves) is in the king's ability to make the first move as a queen. Only to make a move, nothing else. It still cannot move to an attacked square, cannot give a check, cannot capture opponent's king etc.

Can you give check with the king? Can you take your opponents king with your king? In normal chess, this is impossible, but in CCC, the first time a king moves, it moves as a queen, so it's possible to have a situation where one king has moved, and the other hasn't, threatening the other king.

The rules aren't clear about this; it's not mentioned in the differences with regular chess (that only mentions the king moving like a queen on his first turn), but such a situation is (obviously) not covered by the rules of regular chess.

In case Fencer wants to introduce yet another chess variant: chess-3

Single elimination tournament. 1 win match. 7 days per move and standard vacation. Only rated players.
Eat, eat, eat! (Anti Chess)

joshi tm: I thought there must be a rational explanation, just couldn't see what it was :)

Ok, I think the image sever did'nt load all the pics I really couldn't see the bishop at c8, so I thought there was castle possible.

joshi tm: Since you have completed 211 games of chess I hope that link was the wrong one. You couldn't possibly believe castling was an option in that position.

joshi tm: I'm not a chess expert, but doesn't have to be no pieces in between the king & rook?

Hi people,

in this game: Amazone Schaken (MadMonkey - joshi tm) Brain King refuses me to castle in this move... Why?

coan.net: And maybe turn the landed on square back to a normal square when the Super peice moves away with the Super piece then becoming a regular piece after it moves to the new square?

coan.net: I hope you are aware that Super Chess is something totally different, look here:

http://www.superchess.nl/

While playing a few games of Cheshire Cat Chess, and idea for a variant came to me. I figured I would post it here before I forget. (nothing test, or played in real life) - feel free to comment.

Basically the same as Cheshire Cat Chess - when a piece moves, the space it was at turns red (I think of it as Lava - and normal pieces can no longer land in those spots)

But you can now get a "Super" piece which is allowed to land in the red spaces.

What is a "Super" piece - A Super Piece is any piece on the board that has captured another piece. So as soon as your queen captures any of your opponent pieces, it turns into a "Super" piece (I image it as the same piece with a green glow - like my black rook icon, but maybe with a "S" on it to make it easier to tell it is "Super")

Anyway, at that point, the super piece can land on any space, even the red spaces. The super pieces can be captures just like any other piece.

So, what do people think?

joshi tm: I would also think it would be illegal since C6 is an unavailable space for your opponent to finish there move.

joshi tm:
I think 11.dc it´s a ilegal move because any piece can go to square c6 and if white could play en-passant then the white pawn would go to c6.
You suppose 11.dc is a legal move, then as consecuence black could play 11...bc and a black pawn could land in the square c6.
c6 is closed until the end of the game so 11.dc it´s, in my opinion, a ilegal move.

Just a thought...

If I would play in this game 10: .. c5, is my opponent able to capture en-passant?

Sorry, andreas, I think it was 25 moves: from white's 27th to black's 52nd. Anyway, more than 20, obviously.

about knn+kp or kbp+krp, I know the issue.

About the pawn, I see a problem here as we are not supposed to know what the player played. I do not like the idea of a flag appearing. Personally.

I would even prefer, if it does not make much sense maybe, 50 moves without exchange and without a visible pawn move.

mangue: The pawn rule is a part of the draw rule for regular chess: the game is declared a draw after 50 moves without neither a piece capture nor a pawn move.

This rule should be seen as an extension of the more easily comprehensible 3-times-repeated-position rule. The idea is that after 50 moves without an essential change to the board nothing more is likely to happen. The pieces are just dancing around.
So why the pawn clause? because a pawn move IS an essential modification: it is not reversible.

By the way, for regular chess the debate about this rule is still open, because there are endgame position which are known to be won, but the way to the win takes more than 50 moves. For example, K+N+N against K+P.

Whether all this is pertinent to dark chess is another point.

good point about the pawns. I would then vote for 50 full-moves without capture, and I would add "at least 50"

All right, 20 is not enough, but in my opinion, 50 moves is far too long for DC. Perhaps 30 or 40? Anybody ever had a game with 60 or more half-moves without a capture?

And I still can't understand why does a draw have to have anything to do with pawn moves. What is the point of making a draw dependent on something the players can't know?

Lawless: 40 half-moves (i.e 20 full moves) limit is too low. As a consequence, many position, which are still full of life will be declared a draw, e.g. in this game: Dark Chess (andreas vs. Lawless) there were no captures for 28 full moves.

As alternative proposal I would suggest to keep 50-moves rule from the chess, i.e. if no capture or pawn move is made in 50 moves, a player get an option to declare the game a draw. Since players can't know when this occur, the situation should be detected by BrainKing automatically. But instead of automatically ending the game, a new button should appear on the game page: "Declare draw by 50-moves rules". The players then have an option to continue the game or finish it with a draw.

I wrote an article about what might be sensible draw rules for Dark Chess:
http://brainrook.com/archives/82-Dark-Chess-draw-rules.html


I propose the following rule:
if 40 consecutive half-moves are made without any pieces being captured, the game is declared a draw upon request of either player.

Please express your opinion.

I have not played this game for awhile, and not since the more recent rule changes.

I was wondering from the players who have - do the new rules fix the balance of the game?

I am trying to find a nice and elegant solution to my "unfortunate" , not symetrical Cheversi ... one thing is certain ... the problem is in the last attacking move for Black where White are left without any weapon to counterattack ... we were trying to offset this difficulty by "punishing" Black and forcing them to lose their most powerful piece, Queen, at the very beginning of the game ... it didn't work, Black still had long-range pieces to make the killing move ... there seams to be only one solution to this dillema ... just to create a rule that forbid Black to use any long-range figure in the last move ... in another words, the only piece that can be used in a last move by Black is King ...
it looks fair, Black has the freedom of the last move but it cannot be left without any guard from White, and the only guard is a weakness of the last used piece ...
We have to also remove the first mandatory move for Black side, still keeping White opening as KIng ... so, the whole answer into Cheversi problem is found at the end of the game, not in the very beginning ...
I was thinking about some othe restriction, like forcing both sides to play Kings as last moves, or even forced bothe sides to follow some kind of chain of moves in the last phase of the game, but it would be to limiting for the freedom of the game ...
***
Summary: remove the first mandatory move for Black side, keep mandatory move for White (KIng) and force Black to use only King as a last pieces in the whole game ...
So, what do we have now ? White cannot attack at the very beginning, Black cannot attak at the very end of the game ... seams, that the whole battle will take place in the middle of the game ... both sides may wait for the 7th (for Black) and 8th (for White) move to use their Queens, or may chose to use them somewhat earlier ... game can be defensive from the very beginning or agressive, depending on how Black will move and, of course, how White will follow ...
These new rules will ensure that there is some kind of symetry and distribution of power ... there is no ideal game for both sides, look at chess, reversi, five in a row, renju ... there is always some problem ... I hope my new rules King FIrst/King Last will make this game more enjoyable.
Regards,
Andy.

Fencer, would it be possible to test the game Cheversi on a 6x6 board ? What I think, by eliminating some rows and columns we could eliminate the power of the last Black move ?
Regards,
Andy.

I opened 8 Cheversi games and I play White, the color that loses ... I want to test the game deeply ...
please accept these games, risk is on my site deliberately ...
We know that after the first moves (White King and Black Queen) Black has the big advantage, but at the same time it loses his/her best piece ...
What is tactic for White now ? To block powerful Black Queen with Knights or use Bishops to block and reach for many points at the same time ?
I want to try these two ways of play ... one thing is certain to me now ... White better start attacking to the point, that Black in the last move has to stop
last White piece and White should chose such an attacking square in which Back wouldn't be able to
gain many points ...
Please accept my challenge.
Andy.

dicepro: Look at go rules. For illustration white would start with 8 points, black with 0, exact value would be either calculated somehow from game evaluation or just determined from experience, with black/white wins ratio closing to 1 as a target.

komi ? what's that ? sorry, but but I am not catching it ?

dicepro: What about just adding komi calculated from some game statistics?

Should the initial number of points, even before the first move, be displayed and taken into overall count, or not ?
Who should move first, just White like in any other chess variants, or maybe, the one who has MOST points, to offset the last opponent's move ?
Or maybe just a player who has less points before the game starts ?
The depth of Random Cheversi is completely unknown and we cannot judge which color has a real advantage ... the one (White which attacks)
or Black (which has the last move) .
Or maybe we should add 16 more moves (8 each)
and let the players put their pieces one by one on the board and then start moving them (one by one again) and collect points ?
I am in a the eye of brain storming ... waiting for your opinions.
Andy.

this number is so great that there is not possible to even touch the "debiut theory" ... colorful game, never the same (compare to any other board game).
Thanks Abigaill.

dicepro: can you calculate how many different placemet of 16 pieces can be on a board with 64 squares

That's fairly trivial. Not counting rotations and reflections of the board, the number is (6462605856545250*49) / (2^6) which equals 159708538424128885551360000. (You might want to turn of the stupid smileys).

when I started to think about improving Cheversi I cannot stop, lol ... one thing is for sure with random placement of the pieces ... someone will have an advantage from the very beginning ... does this advantage really mean much ? Look at Ludo for example ... the other thing is, that with random placement White (starting color) has usual advantage as a first player (leader) like in Five in a row, or Reversi ... but Black has the last move which balances this advantage by White ...
To play well random placement Cheversi is a real art and I think that computer power should be emplyed in order to solve this game ... by the way, can you calculate how many different placemet of 16 pieces can be on a board with 64 squares ... ?
This is how many starting positions we may have.
In our lifetimes we will never encounter the same position. And this makes Random Cheversi an exciting game.
and that's it for now.
Andy.

here is another idea ... let the program randomly put all the pieces on the board. Players then move their pieces, one by one, and the piece that just moved becomes "dead" for the rest of the game.
After each move a score for a player is updated.
The number of possible moves and responses is astronomical ... the one advantage I can see now by using this version is as follow: as a White I can choose such a move that Black player wouldn't be able to block my paths and I can gain advantage righ away, which is impossible with the current version simply because a Black player is able to block my long shot wit any "weak" piece ... by having pieces randomly on the board I can manouver much more freely ...
I think we should give it a try. What do you think ?
Andy.

how about changing the whole philosophy of the game, reverse the goal and state that the winner is one who has the least points after the last move ?
Regards,
Andy.

joshi tm: I think what AbigailII was meaning, and I some-what agree - even if they were to make the worse first move they can think of - I would still want to be the one with the last move since 85% of the time you can win with that move - no matter how bad the start was.

I still like my idea of making each player play at the same time so there is no advantage for either player. (and if the 2 pick the same spot to play on, then they try again with that spot unavailable to choose on the next try)

AbigailII: that's why White has the swap option, so Black played the ""first"" move instead.