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Bindi Cheng seems to enjoy all my posts as he says here,
http://www.chesstalk.info/forum/show...62811#poststop
and I haven't posted for a while, so Bindi, here's to you and to the hope that you respond with some PROFANITY! :D
Full Court Chess
================
In 2007, U.S. chess GrandMaster Yasser Seirawan and his Canadian friend, Bruce Harper, invented a chess variant they called "Seirawan Chess". It is also called "S-Chess". You can find details on that variant at http://www.seirawanchess.com web site.
One might suppose that a key motivation of the variant was to mostly eliminate the role of opening theory memorization in match results. They decided to add 2 extra pieces to each side, but the extra pieces were not placed on the board at the start of the game: instead, a player could place them on the board when moving any other major piece (including King) for the first time. Either of the new pieces would take up the square just left by the move of the other major piece. This way the chess board could remain at its current size (8x8). And at the same time, opening theory would have too many possibilities to become stale. This was an excellent idea and I took note of it.
But there is a problem with Seirawan Chess: it is now 5 years on and the game has not caught fire, there have not been any major events, and the web site seems terribly out of date as if even Bruce and Yasser both are no longer involved or care about the project.
One issue in my opinion is that the two new pieces that were created are too powerful, and in fact, their movement is too difficult to grasp immediately. One combines moves of Bishop and Knight, and the other combines moves of Rook and Knight. These pieces both cover a lot of ground. It is really difficult to plan strategy in Seirawan Chess.
Another problem was the naming that Seirawan and Harper chose for their new pieces: Hawk and Elephant. Neither name fits the medieval / royalty theme, and neither name connotates any kind of power. One look at the pieces that Seirawan and Harper actually designed, and you can't help but chuckle. Chess players they may be; marketers, definitely not.
And as further proof of that, note that both Seirawan and Harper spent many months trying to get an online presence for their new game AFTER they had launched it. There was a lot of frustration among early adopters. They shouldn't have even made the new game public without a web site being designed, tested, and ready for action.
Therefore Seirawan Chess or S-Chess stands as an example of how to fail in creating and launching a chess variant that was legitimately meant to become the "next" version of chess (or so it would seem).
* * * * * * * *
Full Court Chess is my proposal to hopefully improve on Seirawan Chess. And just like S-Chess, it is meant to mostly eliminate the role of opening theory memorization in chess results, without changing the opening setup and introducing more complicated castling rules as chess960 does.
So here are the details:
FC Chess also adds two new pieces, and they get added onto the board the same way as in Seirawan Chess. They can only be added onto the board when some other major piece in the back rank has just moved for the first time. The new piece takes the empty square left behind by the just-moved major piece. And if by chance you have moved all your major back rank pieces and forgot to add on either or both of the new pieces, your opportunity to do so has vanished for the rest of the game.
However, these new pieces do not have the same powers as in Seirawan Chess. Instead of combining Bishop and Knight or combining Rook and Knight, the two new pieces in FC Chess are as follows: the Archbishop combines the moves of King and Bishop, and the Champion combines the moves of King and Knight.
Thus their new powers, the moves that distinguish them from regular Bishop or Knight, are rather small in comparison to the Hawk and Elephant. Not only small, but much easier to visualize and to bring into the sense of strategy within a game. The Queen remains the most powerful piece on the board, as befits her station.
You will see also that the Archbishop, unlike the Bishop, can change it's square color of diagonal movement at any move by moving like a King onto an adjacent square that is of opposite color.
For game annotation, their initials are unique (A and C). The actual piece design could be done by anyone who has an extra set of pieces. Simply take a White and Black Bishop from the extra set, and paint the top portion of each a bright yellow (to denote the more powerful ArchBishop). Similarly, take a White and a Black Knight from the extra set, and paint some kind of decoration on the horse head, such as a cross in bright red. For diagramming, the Knight and Bishop fonts could be added to with small crosses to indicate Champion and ArchBishop.
Note: some Bishop fonts already show a cross, so that font could now become the Archbishop font and the new Bishop font for that font set could become the Archbishop font with the cross removed.
When making the move that brings these pieces into the game, annotate it similarly to the Seirawn Chess method: follow the original move notation with (in brackets) the placement of the new piece, i.e.
1. Nf3 (Cg1) Nc6 (Ab1)
Pawn Promotion: a Pawn may promote to ArchBishop or Champion ONLY if the original ArchBishop or Champion for the promoting side have been captured. There can never be two ArchBishops or two Champions of the same color pieces on the board at the same time.
By the way, the short name "FC Chess" makes for an interesting possibility for the CFC if it were to take up FC Chess: it would then become the FCCFC.
Do I expect anyone to actually take this idea up? Well, it would be easy to create these new pieces if you have more than one set of pieces and some red and yellow paint, and then once you have them, just try a game against somebody.
But no, of course not, nobody is going to try this. Maybe I'll write a program that plays it someday... and launch a web site for it... just for Bindi Cheng! :D
http://www.chesstalk.info/forum/show...62811#poststop
and I haven't posted for a while, so Bindi, here's to you and to the hope that you respond with some PROFANITY! :D
Full Court Chess
================
In 2007, U.S. chess GrandMaster Yasser Seirawan and his Canadian friend, Bruce Harper, invented a chess variant they called "Seirawan Chess". It is also called "S-Chess". You can find details on that variant at http://www.seirawanchess.com web site.
One might suppose that a key motivation of the variant was to mostly eliminate the role of opening theory memorization in match results. They decided to add 2 extra pieces to each side, but the extra pieces were not placed on the board at the start of the game: instead, a player could place them on the board when moving any other major piece (including King) for the first time. Either of the new pieces would take up the square just left by the move of the other major piece. This way the chess board could remain at its current size (8x8). And at the same time, opening theory would have too many possibilities to become stale. This was an excellent idea and I took note of it.
But there is a problem with Seirawan Chess: it is now 5 years on and the game has not caught fire, there have not been any major events, and the web site seems terribly out of date as if even Bruce and Yasser both are no longer involved or care about the project.
One issue in my opinion is that the two new pieces that were created are too powerful, and in fact, their movement is too difficult to grasp immediately. One combines moves of Bishop and Knight, and the other combines moves of Rook and Knight. These pieces both cover a lot of ground. It is really difficult to plan strategy in Seirawan Chess.
Another problem was the naming that Seirawan and Harper chose for their new pieces: Hawk and Elephant. Neither name fits the medieval / royalty theme, and neither name connotates any kind of power. One look at the pieces that Seirawan and Harper actually designed, and you can't help but chuckle. Chess players they may be; marketers, definitely not.
And as further proof of that, note that both Seirawan and Harper spent many months trying to get an online presence for their new game AFTER they had launched it. There was a lot of frustration among early adopters. They shouldn't have even made the new game public without a web site being designed, tested, and ready for action.
Therefore Seirawan Chess or S-Chess stands as an example of how to fail in creating and launching a chess variant that was legitimately meant to become the "next" version of chess (or so it would seem).
* * * * * * * *
Full Court Chess is my proposal to hopefully improve on Seirawan Chess. And just like S-Chess, it is meant to mostly eliminate the role of opening theory memorization in chess results, without changing the opening setup and introducing more complicated castling rules as chess960 does.
So here are the details:
FC Chess also adds two new pieces, and they get added onto the board the same way as in Seirawan Chess. They can only be added onto the board when some other major piece in the back rank has just moved for the first time. The new piece takes the empty square left behind by the just-moved major piece. And if by chance you have moved all your major back rank pieces and forgot to add on either or both of the new pieces, your opportunity to do so has vanished for the rest of the game.
However, these new pieces do not have the same powers as in Seirawan Chess. Instead of combining Bishop and Knight or combining Rook and Knight, the two new pieces in FC Chess are as follows: the Archbishop combines the moves of King and Bishop, and the Champion combines the moves of King and Knight.
Thus their new powers, the moves that distinguish them from regular Bishop or Knight, are rather small in comparison to the Hawk and Elephant. Not only small, but much easier to visualize and to bring into the sense of strategy within a game. The Queen remains the most powerful piece on the board, as befits her station.
You will see also that the Archbishop, unlike the Bishop, can change it's square color of diagonal movement at any move by moving like a King onto an adjacent square that is of opposite color.
For game annotation, their initials are unique (A and C). The actual piece design could be done by anyone who has an extra set of pieces. Simply take a White and Black Bishop from the extra set, and paint the top portion of each a bright yellow (to denote the more powerful ArchBishop). Similarly, take a White and a Black Knight from the extra set, and paint some kind of decoration on the horse head, such as a cross in bright red. For diagramming, the Knight and Bishop fonts could be added to with small crosses to indicate Champion and ArchBishop.
Note: some Bishop fonts already show a cross, so that font could now become the Archbishop font and the new Bishop font for that font set could become the Archbishop font with the cross removed.
When making the move that brings these pieces into the game, annotate it similarly to the Seirawn Chess method: follow the original move notation with (in brackets) the placement of the new piece, i.e.
1. Nf3 (Cg1) Nc6 (Ab1)
Pawn Promotion: a Pawn may promote to ArchBishop or Champion ONLY if the original ArchBishop or Champion for the promoting side have been captured. There can never be two ArchBishops or two Champions of the same color pieces on the board at the same time.
By the way, the short name "FC Chess" makes for an interesting possibility for the CFC if it were to take up FC Chess: it would then become the FCCFC.
Do I expect anyone to actually take this idea up? Well, it would be easy to create these new pieces if you have more than one set of pieces and some red and yellow paint, and then once you have them, just try a game against somebody.
But no, of course not, nobody is going to try this. Maybe I'll write a program that plays it someday... and launch a web site for it... just for Bindi Cheng! :D
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