Check out Atomic Chess, our featured variant for November, 2024.

Enter Your Reply

The Comment You're Replying To
H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Nov 1, 2016 06:53 PM UTC:
files=12 ranks=12 holdingsType=1 promoZone=3 maxPromote=1 promoChoice=!P*N*B*R2*S2*W*C2*V*A1*M1*Q1 graphicsDir=http://www.chessvariants.com/membergraphics/MSelven-chess/ whitePrefix=w blackPrefix=b graphicsType=png startShade=#80FF90 symmetry=mirror pawn::fceFifmnDifmnHfmW::a3-l3 vao::mBcpB:dragon:c1,j1 knight:N:::d2,i2:4 wizard::::d1,i1 bishop::::e2,h2:4 cannon::::e1,h1 champion:S:::c2,j2 rook::::b2,k2:4 archbishop::::b1,k1 marshall:::chancellor:a1,l1 queen::::f2:2 king::KisO4isO3isO2::g2

Gross Chess

The 'diagram of the week' is for Gross Chess, a large-board variant that complements the FIDE army with some fairy pieces known from several other popular variants: the Archbishop and Chancellor from Capablanca Chess, the Champion and Wizard from Omega Chess, and the Cannon from Xiangqi plus its diagonal cousin, the Vao.

The moves of most pieces are not very special, and have very basic descriptions in Betza notation, all supported by the Interactive Diagram script. The main challenge was in the promotion rules. The diagram allows you to specify a list of legal promotion choices, and even allow you to specify that these pieces come from holdings that accumulate captured pieces, as well as some pieces that start there. But has no standard mechanism for making this choice rank-dependent. For this a small extra script routine had to be added, which corrects any invalid choice to a non-promotion.

The flexible castling is achieved in the diagram by specifying all possible different castlings as separate moves on the King: isO2, isO3 and isO4. This is needed because unlike with other Betza atoms, a range specifier on the O atom in the XBetza extension used in the diagram indicates an exact range, rather than a maximum. That the castling partner is not at the board edge poses no special problem, because the diagram always allows castling with a virgin piece that moves as a Rook. (Which actually is in violation of the XBetza specs, which would need an extra j modifier to specify the castling partner is one square away from the board edge. But which is almost always what you want.)


Edit Form

Comment on the page Gross Chess

Conduct Guidelines
This is a Chess variants website, not a general forum.
Please limit your comments to Chess variants or the operation of this site.
Keep this website a safe space for Chess variant hobbyists of all stripes.
Because we want people to feel comfortable here no matter what their political or religious beliefs might be, we ask you to avoid discussing politics, religion, or other controversial subjects here. No matter how passionately you feel about any of these subjects, just take it someplace else.
Avoid Inflammatory Comments
If you are feeling anger, keep it to yourself until you calm down. Avoid insulting, blaming, or attacking someone you are angry with. Focus criticisms on ideas rather than people, and understand that criticisms of your ideas are not personal attacks and do not justify an inflammatory response.
Quick Markdown Guide

By default, new comments may be entered as Markdown, simple markup syntax designed to be readable and not look like markup. Comments stored as Markdown will be converted to HTML by Parsedown before displaying them. This follows the Github Flavored Markdown Spec with support for Markdown Extra. For a good overview of Markdown in general, check out the Markdown Guide. Here is a quick comparison of some commonly used Markdown with the rendered result:

Top level header: <H1>

Block quote

Second paragraph in block quote

First Paragraph of response. Italics, bold, and bold italics.

Second Paragraph after blank line. Here is some HTML code mixed in with the Markdown, and here is the same <U>HTML code</U> enclosed by backticks.

Secondary Header: <H2>

  • Unordered list item
  • Second unordered list item
  • New unordered list
    • Nested list item

Third Level header <H3>

  1. An ordered list item.
  2. A second ordered list item with the same number.
  3. A third ordered list item.
Here is some preformatted text.
  This line begins with some indentation.
    This begins with even more indentation.
And this line has no indentation.

Alt text for a graphic image

A definition list
A list of terms, each with one or more definitions following it.
An HTML construct using the tags <DL>, <DT> and <DD>.
A term
Its definition after a colon.
A second definition.
A third definition.
Another term following a blank line
The definition of that term.