Hostage Chess - a variant with a free program

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  • Hostage Chess - a variant with a free program

    An old friend of mine developed "Hostage Chess" back in the 90's and has since moved to Victoria. John Leslie is a retired prof. from the University of Guelph. He is a decent Go player and prefers Shogi to chess. His variant "Hostage Chess" is somewhere between Shogi and Bughouse for Two. Recently he has offered a free download of playing software. Definitely my favourite chess variant. He asked me to pass this message along:

    HOSTAGE CHESS COMPUTER PROGRAM---FREE
    A powerful computer program that plays Hostage Chess can
    now be downloaded, free, from
    www.hostagechess.com

    In Hostage Chess, releasing an imprisoned man ("a
    hostage") allows you to rescue a man from the enemy prison.
    You then "drop" the rescued man onto almost any empty
    square. Games hardly ever end in draws!

    "..With only a few rule changes, Hostage Chess creates
    a marvelously exciting variant on the classical game":
    Lawrence Day, International Master.
    "..I believe Hostage the most interesting, exciting
    variant that can be played with a standard chess set":
    Grandmaster Larry Kaufman.
    [ ..MESSAGE FOR "BUGHOUSE" ENTHUSIASTS: You could think
    of the game as One-Board Bughouse. Ray Kaufman's experience
    with Bughouse "drops" helped him do well against GM Larry
    Kaufman.]

    The computer program wins over half its games against
    experienced Hostage players whose rating at standard western
    chess is FIDE 2000 (Expert), even when they give it just ten
    seconds per move for its thinking.

    Originally "SWAT" but now renamed "HostageMaster", the
    program is the creation of Paul Connors, skilled both at
    western chess and at Shogi.
    Shogi is chess as played by millions in Japan. Captured
    men change sides, then parachute back onto the board to
    fight their former allies. Imitating Shogi with the western
    board and pieces, Hostage avoids the mad violence found in
    other imitations. [Shogi men are mostly weaker than western
    chessmen, and there are more of them. A man can change
    sides, therefore, without much altering the strengths of the
    battling armies. Try that with western chessmen and mad
    violence is what you get. In Hostage, however, changing
    sides never happens. You instead acquire paratroops by
    handing over prisoners of equal or higher value, putting
    them on the enemy "airfield". To get a knight to "drop", you
    may sometimes supply the airfield with a droppable queen.]

    Paul has commissioned a book from me, title "Hostage
    Chess". TO JOIN THE FOLK WHO'LL BE TOLD WHEN THE BOOK IS
    PUBLISHED, just e-mail me and ask to be added to the list.
    The book might still have room for a few more games. If
    you've recorded any specially good ones, please e-mail or
    post them to me. Similarly with ones you play against the
    computer program.

    The book already includes games by Grandmaster Kevin
    Spraggett playing FIDE Master Robert Hamilton; Grandmaster
    Larry Kaufman playing his son Ray, an International Master;
    Lawrence Day, another International Master; and David
    Pritchard. David played chess for England in the days before
    International Master titles were awarded for such feats. His
    "Popular Chess Variants" (a Batsford paperback) gives an
    entire chapter to Hostage.

    You can read how these experts react to Hostage when you
    go to www.hostagechess.com to download the free computer
    program.
    To install the program, it's simplest if you say you want
    to RUN the download. Then, when reaching the screen that
    asks what additional icons you want, put a check mark in
    both boxes. The Hostage chessboard and controls will
    afterwards always be reachable quickly. The HostageMaster
    icon (a red knight) will appear on the screen you see
    whenever you start up your computer. Just click on it.

    At www.hostagechess.com you'll also be told how Hostage
    is played. Then I recommend the menu command "Computer plays
    both sides" so that HostageMaster battles against itself.
    Watch how prisoners come parachuting back into the fight.
    After that, begin your first game, but you'd best set the
    computer to one of its lowest strengths.
    "Undo move" lets you take back blunders or investigate
    variations. Clicking it repeatedly allows you to reverse
    through a game. Then you can move forward again with "Redo
    move", writing down each move if you want to make a game
    record.
    [Warning: Make sure you understand the rule about seventh
    rank pawns! They can step forward only if able to promote
    by changing places with imprisoned pieces. If that's
    impossible, they can't even give check. Forget what this
    rule implies, and you'll wrongly think the computer is
    cheating you. (1) Perhaps, when a pawn seems to check the
    computer's king, it won't do a thing about it. That's
    because the situation will in fact be "pseudocheck".
    There'll be no "promotion piece" with which the pawn could
    change places. (2) Again, the computer may answer a check
    by turning it into a pseudo-check. It gets rid of a
    promotion piece through exchanging hostages. (3) Also, it
    may stop you making a capture which would create a promotion
    piece. Your king, instead of continuing in pseudo-check,
    would be being checked genuinely if you made the capture.]

    The computer program's strength depends on how long you
    allow it for thinking, from "1 second" to "5 minutes" per
    move. Take as long as you like over any move, but think
    twice before setting that strength to anything above "10
    seconds". Hostage is a game of great skill! Yet -- which
    keeps things exciting even when beginners play experts --
    weak players can hope to win when they attack at the right
    moments. Having the attack can be far more important than
    being ahead in material. And Hostage has so many tricks that
    you should almost never resign.

    For the back cover of my book David Pritchard (who listed
    hundreds of alternatives to standard western chess in his
    "Encyclopedia of Chess Variants") calls Hostage "probably the
    most remarkable variant of the last fifty years". A chess
    professional of near Grandmaster strength wanted to call it
    "a deeper game than standard western chess". I wouldn't let
    him say that on the book cover, for fear of offending many
    folk. Still, Hostage does capture the spirit of Shogi, and
    that's a game beyond western chess in depth. When prisoners
    can come parachuting back onto the board, the tree of
    possible moves branches much, much faster.

    The forests of Hostage will often be too thick for you
    to see far through them. However, that's true for everyone
    who plays it, so beginners sometimes ambush champions. And
    win or lose, Hostage is fun.

    "..In Hostage Chess creativity and imagination flourish":
    Peter Coast, former Scottish Chess Champion. "..Beautiful
    roads keep branching off in all directions": FIDE Master
    Robert Hamilton. "..Fascinating, exciting, extremely
    entertaining": Grandmaster Kevin Spraggett. Try out Hostage
    to find why it's praised like this, and PLEASE SPREAD THE
    NEWS BY FORWARDING THIS E-MAIL TO YOUR FRIENDS.
    Thanks in advance: John Leslie
    ( johnlesl@uoguelph.ca or 2066 Gourman Place, Victoria,
    British Columbia V9B 6E1, Canada )

    P.S. Maybe you'd like to see RULES and NOTATION:
    -- RULES OF HOSTAGE CHESS, as given in my "Infinite Minds"
    (Oxford University Press) when I discuss whether chess
    variants could be infinitely complex:
    Western rules, except these. Each player owns two areas
    at the side of the board---a prison for captured men, near
    the player's right hand, and an airfield near the left. In
    each turn you (i) move normally, or else (ii) rescue one
    man from the enemy prison by transferring one of equal or
    higher value from your prison to the enemy airfield, then at
    once parachuting the rescued man onto a vacant square, or
    else (iii) parachute one man from your airfield. [Values
    run from PAWN upwards to KNIGHT-OR-BISHOP, then ROOK, then
    QUEEN. Pawns cannot parachute onto first or eighth ranks,
    but parachuting can place your bishops on squares of the
    same colour. Pawn jumps from the second rank and acts of
    castling can involve parachuted men.] A seventh rank pawn
    can move forwards, give check, or prevent castling, only if
    able to be promoted by changing places with a piece in the
    enemy prison.
    -- NOTATION FOR RECORDING HOSTAGE CHESS:
    Normal chess notation with these additions. N*c7 means
    a knight from an airfield parachutes onto c7. (R)N*c7 means
    an imprisoned rook goes to the enemy airfield and a knight
    is thereby rescued, the knight then at once parachuting onto
    c7. gxf8=R means a pawn on the g-file captures on f8 and
    promotes to rook by changing places with a rook in the enemy
    prison. f8=B means a pawn steps forward to f8 without
    capturing anything, then promotes to bishop by changing
    places with a bishop in the enemy prison.

    Once again: PLEASE FORWARD THIS E-MAIL TO YOUR FRIENDS.

  • #2
    Re: Hostage Chess - a variant with a free program

    did you get that GM title for Larry Kaufman?
    His FIDE is well under 2400. no minimum of 2500, at least?
    w/ three norms?

    Comment


    • #3
      Another variant: Super En Passant Chess

      Hal, thanks for this post, I will definitely check this out.

      I've become very interested in chess variants and have written up documents on variants of my own (which perhaps have been previously invented).

      Here's one that I believe makes a lot of sense. In regular chess, we have the En Passant rule, which allows a pawn on the 5th rank to have the option of capturing an opposing pawn that moves 2 squares past it on an adjacent file. The logic is that the opposing pawn is briefly on a square that is a capture square of the 5th rank pawn. The 5th rank pawn must make the capture on the immediately following ply of the 2-square move of the pawn it may capture. The capture possibility only exists for that brief moment in the game.

      My variant (actually one of many variants of mine) is called "Super En Passant Chess" unless someone comes up with a better name. It is based on the proposition that this en passant capturing shouldn't be limited to pawns.

      In short, the rules are the same as regular chess, except that whenever any piece moves more than 1 square in any direction, it is subject to En Passant capture by any opposing piece that attacks a square it is passing over. For example, you move a Rook 4 squares along a file. One of those squares is covered by the enemy Queen. The enemy Queen may make an immediate reply of capturing the Rook on the covered square. As with regular en passant, the capture must be made immediately. Otherwise the opportunity disappears.

      A couple of points:

      (1) any piece or pawn, including the King, may make an en passant capture (for the King, this means not moving into check in the process).

      (2) Knights are immune to en passant captures. They can logically be pictured as "jumping" to their destination squares and thus don't actually occupy any intermediate squares. If Knights were subject to en passant capture, it would mean that every time one moves a Knight, the exact path of the move would have to be specified. That would be annoying. The logical exemption for them is very convenient! It also makes Knights possibly more powerful or valuable than Bishops!

      (3) en passant captures may be chained! You move your Rook 4 squares to capture a Knight, the Rook gets en passant captured by the enemy Queen on the first square it passes over (which means the captured Knight is reinstated), but you en passant capture the enemy Queen on a square that the Queen passes over (let's say you have that square covered with a Bishop) to make the en passant capture of the Rook! Which means the Rook gets reinstated WHERE IT CAPTURED THE KNIGHT, and the Knight once again is captured. There is no limit to the chaining of en passant captures. If in this example your Bishop can be en passant captured by an enemy pawn, you opponent may do so, which reinstates his Queen capturing your Rook, which removes your Rook from the board and reinstates the enemy Knight that the Rook originally captured!

      As you can see from this, you would have to be very aware of all the squares your pieces cover at all times and be aware of all squares they are passing over in their moves! This game I believe would be very very difficult to master and dominate.
      Only the rushing is heard...
      Onward flies the bird.

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