Comments by GeorgeDuke

Ralph Betza's 500 Comments to mid-2003, when he left, are labelled 'gnohmon'. Betza's nom de plume 'gnohmon' as 'gnomon' means Basic Unit in mathematics. The gnomon is the Piece needed to add to a figurate number to get the next bigger one. A figurate number, including tetrahedral numbers, can be represented by geometric pattern. For example, dots show 'triangular numbers' 1,3,6,10,15 and so on, as the triangle of dots enlarges. Also figurate, square numbers are 1,4,9,16... So the particular gnomon varies with the pattern. In square numbers, 'gnomon' is L-shaped: just wrap a 1x9 bent once 90 degrees into an L-shape, the gnomon, to get 25, 5x5, the next square number. In Tetrahedral Chess, remarkably ''the Pawn rows completely enclose the pieces in the starting position,'' unlike ordinary cubic 3-D, ''so that play begins with pawn development, as in usual chess.''

OrthoChess apologists like to say religiously there are more possible chess games than atoms in the Universe. We have all read that in Chess columns when they get defensive. [Continued below] Rule Number 26, Selective Immobilization: a) No effect (The following differ from RN 24 'Stoning' in that this Immobilization persists.) b) In addition to normal power, Knight immobilizes adjacent enemy piece or pawn. c) Both Knight and Falcon have the Immobilization effect. d) The power for Knight only is Betza's Basilisk-like along line of attack. e) The capability for Knight is Betza's Medusa-like only if opposing piece/pawn (along its line of attack) can 'see' the Knight. f) Version 26d applies to Knight and Falcon. g) Version 26e applies to N & F. h) The immobilizing ability of 26b excludes Pawns. Cumulative: 23,986,176,000,000,000,000. //[Continued] As far as Chess games exceeding number of atoms, they mean of course game scores of 64-square (32-piece) Chess. What they do not tell you is that includes millions of ridiculous games computer-generated like moving White Bishop repeatedly e4-d5-e4-d5-e4-d5-e4 (because Black is moving too, so no 3-fold repetition). The next '91.5 Trillion...' Comment we will develop how the potential number of game scores compares to atoms (and number of elementary particles) in Universe, considerably fewer than a Googol (10 to 100th). Also whether even the number of CVs, let alone scores, is a Cantorian continuum or merely infinity of the Natural numbers, Aleph-naught. What Cardinality has the number of Chess Variations? Which of the two infinities are CVs, countable or otherwise(C)?

It looks like just-Commented Dragon Chess(tm) with USPatent 6799763(October 2004) 'blatantly copied' (interpreting Commenter Kasparov-F's words) this Zonal Chess. Zonal Chess adds 24 squares to 64[or rather 80] and Dragon adds 24 squares to 100. They both add the 12 squares to both left and right sides of rectangular boards, and both call the extra areas 'flanks'. So the designers of Dragon must have studied this earlier Reshevsky-endorsed commercial Zonal Chess and thought no one would notice. It is still no doubt patentable, but weaker patent because of unoriginality. Any technically novel features and specifics can warrant patent, and about half of patent applications issue in most countries. In field of CVs, since there are millions of possibilities, as typically in other arts, it is not hard to come up with minimally-reasonable novelty and unobviousness, if just wanting to get patent, not overly-concerned about usefulness. 'Kasparov-F' says ''They wanted to commercialize.'' So what? That is what patents are for, whether pharmaceuticals or fireproofing or forensics, any patent being prelude to commercialization. We put this Comment of similarity between Zonal and Dragon(tm) here because Zonal is halfway decent game worth some attention, whilst Dragon(tm) yet another practically worthless game though cleverly worked up to patented Claims(mostly for the board).

Clearly JJ misses the mixture of irony and analysis involved in developing '91.5 Trillion..' toward a Googol variations. Joyce in starting, ''While I'm not up on my math...'', is certainly correct. The unifying theme by the way is 'the best Mutators of CVPage 1995 through 2008'. Nice try at understanding, Joe, but the point of an 'infinite' number of CVs is the real fact that Chess columnists often write that there are more possible chess game scores than atoms in the universe, not really infinite at all of course. Have you read that before? We have read that dozens of times from Larry Evans to Mike Henroid only last month. One message likely would be the utter pointlessness of a Googol (or even 1000 actually) separate CVs(FCVs really are 1 only), becoming even more pointless than [tens of] millions of game scores of one particular form. A second challenge, Joe, would also be how to state a position succinctly as part of your system, or philosophy, not too hard on readers in literal length of text. With thanks for interest, is JJoyce taking offense at drawing attention to reality of so many CVs and thinks to try, however ineptly, to be ironic in turn? [Well, 'ironic' is too nuanced adjective for this case; we guess the attempt by JJ's lengthy Comment is trying to be 'humorous', by use offensive words like 'bazillions', 'gajillions'.]

Well, let us start calling poor 'poor'. Even though taking exception to 'Kasparov-Fisher's, or 'Fisher-Kasparov's, indelicacy at times, as a game to play Dragon Chess(tm) adds nothing to the art, zilch. That is because restricted Queen is bad Chess piece. That goes for all CVs too that use one- or two-step, or one- or two- or three-step, movers in radial lines. The reason they are all poor pieces, whether Rook-like, Bishop-like, or Queen-like, is that there is no rationale not to go to one-, two- three- and four-stepping. As a pretext for making 10x10 board, however, this Dragon Chess(tm) makes sense for them and their own interest.

A significant segment of 'human' population would object to the name of this CV, because of the juxtapositon of 'Whale' and 'Shogi'. The reason starts with the association of Shogi as Japan's national Chess game, Shogi coming into being there up to 1000 years ago. Second, the reported continued, at times indiscriminate slaughter of Whales and Dolphins by Japanese fishermen as matter of current documented, videotaped practice. The objectors would cite the intelligence of fellow sentient creatures being pointlessly exterminated, adults with brains larger than humans' and equally active, and the more pointless because mercury(Hg) levels' in specimen having been determined to exceed standards within Japan itself, excluding most of their uses for foods.

We objected to name of this CV Horus in 2004. (Joe Joyce's September 2007 Falcon King adds nothing to the art when Horus here already has royal Falcons. We have not bothered to rate Falcon King yet.) The use of Horus did not in fact prevent developing Horus in later Falcon Chess poetry. Any rating of Poor, backed by chessic reasoning, or such sociologic factor as naming, or such inventive factor as precedent and prior use, is anyone's prerogative. Horus here re-rates as Good for playability, now the naming not being an issue, as it did not do any expected harm in diluting the Falcon product (because we use 'Horus' enough in later fiction). There is no contradiction in rating once or more Poor and again once Good, from different standpoints, because of the serious reasoning supporting each. Other names of CVs have been objected to because of ecological ill consideration (recently Whale Shogi) by ourselves, ugliness (Charles Gilman's Hump Mitregi) by others, and many, many examples of similar or identical naming.

Remember OrthoChess experts are always saying their game-scores potential is greater than this huge number, therefore, their Rules must never change. We are seeking 4x10^79, the number of hydrogen atoms in Universe. That is considerably fewer than so-called 'Googol', 10^100. It will take some 60 or 80 more Mutators to the 25 already, not so difficult. No one has much wanted to address Proliferation seriously, except to tout their own inclusions, so the experiment is illustrative. Actually, we could achieve the same 4x10^79 in myriad ways, and it could be interesting to do for 20-40 other worthwhile CVs. Appreciate the speck of dust factoid-Comment, because we were going to establish a sort of 'midpoint' which is not much greater, [maybe only encompassing the Solar System. (*Later, not very accurate, only less than Earth, remarkably, Earth having 8x10^49 atoms or so*)]: 'midpoint' in terms of number of zeroes. We actually prefer either 3, or 4, or 5 CVs altogether, no more than 6 or 10, even if it means 'consigning to oblivion' (David Pritchard's words in Intro 'Encyclopedia of Chess Variants') all of the rest.

Superificial resemblance to excellent Weave & Dungeon

We copied over this Falcon King comment not applying to Short Chess or the Play-by-Mail system itself.

We are all familiar with Horus' having royal Falcons. Why another royal Falcon game, when there are only 8 or 10 separate uses of Falcon to date? Specifically 'Poor' is for lack of attribution of prior use in Horus, our particular subjective criterion of highest importance. Otherwise, Falcon King may well be of average playability. However, the piece mix has arbitrary up-to-four-square moving Bishop and Rook. Why not 3 or 5? No particular reason except the whim of the inventor. The embodiment does not justify more or less duplicating the Horus theme of Peter Aronson. In Falcon King there are, instead of somewhat common alternate winning conditions, two-fold winning requirements. One Falcon must be captured, the other checkmated. Some novelty there that may be matter of taste as to effectiveness, but we find that unnecessary complexification. Imagine the point in a game when one player says, 'I have half-won. Now for the other half...' Joe Joyce has some interesting CVs to get to, and the Hero piece here used previously elsewhere by the author will be analyzed separately as one of the multi-path movers.

Moves are made in groups of three actions per turn. A Pawn is at once lost if there is no adjacent friendly piece, and Pawns gain strength from how many same-side there are adjacent. Rook captures radially forward (diagonal okay) without moving (rifle-like) only if just one enemy is along the line. If opponent's King has been captured, one's King gains therewith 'major' power instead of just minor. The piece moves as such are accorded by three actions allowed each turn enabling equipotent movement or effect. Queen 2, Bishop 3, Knight 4, Rook 0 are the levels of contributory capability per piece. There are 3 minor and 3 major to draw on per three-fold action. As one minor power, Summoning a Pawn adjacent to King is like a free drop(pocket Pawn). As implementation of first major power, all pieces may return to normal array, or second alternately all of some one piece-type may be removed(captured) mandatory both sides. Fully the three actions required per turn(no passing) from among normal attack, the Rook's 'Cannon attack', King modality, and one-step other than King. 'Declare a target, and add up the power of all pieces adjacent to that target', 'For most attacks you need two or more pieces next to your target', 'Knight's are best for raiding', 'Pawns cannot move from one cluster of pieces to another. They have to move along the ''shore'' of other pieces' are some of the maxims for best play. Medieval's being invented months before Gridlock makes one wonder how much credit for Gridlock's inspiration it gets.

It appears Mark Leff's Upchess in 1998 copied older Lumberjack. Upchess eliminates the Pawns and has transformation by rank instead of file, as here, on 11x11 rather than this one's 8x8. The same problem to both games is clogging a row that allows Queen or Rook moves.

The second Poor is for 8 piece-types. The first Poor is for name. A third Poor is in follow-up Comment about Whale Shogi dynamics in play. Mark, what are weird are CVPage's philosophy and practice of posting CV after CV that no one plays. For example, Joe Joyce says today he has not played Falcon King. In our view that negligence speaks for itself. Undisconcerted, I expect always to enjoy courteously reviewing(unlike prolificists themselves) any and all such games even hardly played, a practice 'we'(the Falcon team) started in 1992 with hundreds of patents before CVPage existed. Actually I welcome attacks because of mostly not respecting views of those mired in prolificist values(not referring to Mark Thompson who submits occasional well-thought-out CVs). Falcon Chess is the one CV out of 3000 in CVPage with far the greatest number of 'Poors', bar none, and has been for 7 years. We are used to personal attacks too, within 48 hours ''delusions of grandeur'' and ''really really weird.'' To contrary, unfortunate, pathetic is thus to react personally without analysis because of disagreeing about naming well-explained. Weird and shortsighted are indifference to projected loss 1/3 Earth's species within decades and really innocent statement of concern by noting oxymoronic name 'Whale Shogi'. The name as 'Poor' is represented not as my own but likely view of 'significant segment' noticing trends of ecological damage. What is Whale Shogi's following for its 'Darwinian test'? 10 Players? There is no positive 'Charles Darwin's test' for any CV yet, because none of them have significant adherents, not Glinski's Hexagonal, not Fischer Random Chess, not Omega Chess. A pittance is each one's followings compared to FIDE-type Chess (or Monopoly, Bridge, Scrabble, Rubik's Cube, crossword puzzle): no CV has been successful, bar none).

Having played Pocket Mutation several times within Game Courier, I consider it very Poor. Pocket Mutation would get no following outside of CVPage-type insiders mostly adhering to prolificism(coined word). We realize of course Pocket Mutation is one of the couple most played games(What, 30 game scores? 50?) and voted into Game Courier Tournament #3 presently being played out. However, the dynamics of going back and forth to reach rank 8(1) over and over, in order to promote and re-promote to the next level, I have repeatedly found really, really inferior even pathetic. Not to mention the accumulating number of piece-types horrendous to keep track of, cutting into planning. One of CVPage's very worst in playability.

Here is another CV voted into GCT#3 that is surely overrated from couple of standpoints. Firstly, Anti-King is copycat of V.R.Parton's Contramatic from year 1961. In Contramatic one's own move that puts enemy King in check loses. Likewise, by extension, when opponent's King is checked, player must immediately remove the check or lose. The aforementioned is essence of Contrametic. Now Aronson's Anti-King imposes precisely that losing condition on both players initially in the set-up. So, just apply the Contramatic rules logically, and obviously whoever removes that illegal condition first, wins. QED. Near-equivalence of Anti-King (in its particular set-up) and Contramatic, the same games really isomorphic in just tweaking with two King-types for Anti-King(the other one normal check-mating) and differing starting arrays. Contramatic is never cited in Anti-King write-up. Secondly, the counterintuitive nature(King pre-checked) has been commented by others as extreme and unappealing and not popularizable among the majority 99% non-variant-oriented chess players. Unlike new piece moves that can become readily natural, it may be strain to reverse normal checking logic. The intention is to add an older prolificist for analysis, Peter Aronson's body of work(maybe Duniho or Quintanilla later too), having recently Commented on Aronson's Horus, Rococo, and now Anti-King.

Notice the different ways to handle two winning conditions. Peter Aronson's Anti-King requires either to be fulfilled: King checkmated or Anti-King freed from check. Oppositely Falcon King requires both to be achieved: (Royal)Falcon captured AND (Royal)Falcon checkmated.

What a bad game, as for playing by the spatially-challenged! (There are people, otherwise functioning individuals, who have difficulty with Knight move and even can never get it right) So many random, divergent piece moves to keep track of on little 36 squares. Really pathetic, not worth full analysis intended after all, inconsequential. Reminding one of later Outback Chess because of the number of unintuitive move definitions, Whale Shogi hodgepodge of one-steppers has some historical value as far afield as that Outback. We did not bother to find the vague ''offspring'' referred to by David Paulowich as our usual conscientious practice. Who knows what he is talking about(our expertise emphasizes 64+), but whatever derived from Whale Shogi is by name and definition an improvement.

Philosophers Chess being 40 squares, one of the smaller forms, is absolutely one of the 2-3 best under 64 squares. Sheer genius! [One of at most 10 during 1995-2007 of all sizes worth having patented--too late now] Intricate strategy appears with no sense of being played on a small board. Five(or six counting the Thought) piece-types intelligently designed for easy coherence, enabling players to concentrate on tactics. No unnatural truncated radial (Rook here) move-types as so often artificially done by run-of-the-mill designers. The one complexity comes in the list of what each turn may alternately consist of, but the pieces move so naturally and familiarly, players easily adapt and are playing tha game within minutes. It is interesting there are so many as seven(7) in the list to do each turn.

Average 5 of 10. Despite prejudice against near-Extremely Large Category, Chieftain redeems itself with the activation principle (although we suspect some similarity to Gifford we have not reached yet). Jetan's Chieftain is up-to-three-square mover. Joyce erratically cites 'conversations' far and wide, 'Charles Gilman's new game'(Joyce names it not), and not one other CV by name as precedent for some pieces used here. 100-year-old Jetan specifically has one- or two-steppers Padwar, Warrior, and Thoat related to this one's Hero and Chieftain. He could start there or other better places, but Joyce is not alone nowadays in aversion to acknowledging others' prior work at all. Win requires all four(4) Chieftains captured. Four(4) pieces move per turn. (We have to assure ourselves this write-up is in the manner of serious Chess, not like Medieval Chess or Gridlock.) When losing one Chieftain, there are then on three(3) pieces moved, not four. Activation is by a Chieftain within 3 squares, otherwise the piece must just sit there. That novelty keeps us from rating this Below Average, the first inclination. However, article lacks clarity, organization, and non-repetition, not fun or easy to read. ''No piece may move unless activated'' and Hero ''...two square orthogonal leap. When activated it may slide 1; or jump 2...'' are three partial sentences. The latter do not make sense in sounding like the part of sentence before ''When activated'' means Hero has two modes of moving, non-activated and activated, but Joyce does not meant that. We need to study the multi-path moving aspect, if any, for later comparison-Comment.

Re: 'New Rules For Classic Games' not indexed, see link here. Ist ein sehr gutes Buch. Der Schriftsteller weiss viel ueber Schach. I re-open my copy 'NRfCG' every few months for wording or terms and names of games, especially because single longest Chapter about 40 pp. covers CVs. Schmittberger's 1992 is very good read though detracted from by CVPage trend to expand the universe of CVs indefinitely. ''New twists'' in Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble, Risk, Mah-Jongg, Bridge, Poker. Chess always the premier game is last Chapter 13, except for denouement, afterword, Chapter 14 on playing by mail. ''Beyond Chess'' covers own Wildebeest: ''Camels by the way are not as valuable as Knights'' is intelligent assessment. Wildebeest of course = N + Camel, whose previous uses documented in 1994 Pritchard's 'ECV' number twenty or more in serious CVs. Wildebeest is considerably better embodiment than (Whale Shogi or) Omega Chess, which also has Camel compound. Thirty other variants include Pre-Chess (like FRC), Screen Chess (similar to recent Verve), V.R.Parton's Kinglet(nice game), T.R. Dawson's Grasshopper Chess (nice concept), Ralph Betza's Avalanche Chess. These last 3 authors with lately-unheralded Sam Loyd comprise the complete membership of the all-time hall-of-fame, or 'qual'(-ity)-of-fame.

To humour, Joe Joyce is correct some are better than others and they could surely be Centennial Chess etc. instead only by tweaking. Yet with RN27(Philosopher's Chess) making 1.91889408 x 10^20 CVs, they line up for fun like billiard balls, and appear well into visible range of masses having equivalent number of atoms(as CVs). Approaching 10^21(sextillion) means within order of magnitude or two of Howlet's wing or Elephant's trunk. One CV for every atom -- Atom! -- in the tail of a Dolphin. Separately delineated as '1c6e27d', representing one exclusive game, Falcon Chess on 10x10 RNBF..., with Falcon enhanced by Knight leap, and four(4) Philosophers pre-placed in front Pawns, to move 1 orthogonal in lieu of a regular piece move, or 'converting' to either of two other modes of four total (w,x,y,z)always applicable to both sides at once. // End of Rules for '1c6e27d' // Explanation: Philosophers are pre-positioned before Move 1 by agreement in the rank before each side's Pawn row. Philosopher moves conceptually 1 diagonal only(w), or 2 diagonal leaping(x), or 1 orthogonal only(y) default, or 2 orthogonal leaping(z). For conversion (like Philosopher's 2x2), (w,z) and (x,y) are pairwise non-adjacent. (a) no effect; (b)Two Philosophers preplaced. In lieu of a normal move, player may move 2 Phils. or 'convert' adjacently '1o' to (2o or 1d), '2o' to (2d or 1o), '2d' to (2o or 1d), '1d' to (2d or 1o); (c) 3 Philosophers after 27b; (d) 4 Philosophers following 27b; (e) 5 Philosophers 27b; (f) 6 Philosophers 27b; (g) 5 Philosophers 27b, and player may move two (mandatory) or move only one and 'convert adjacently' the same way, in either order. (h) 5 Philosophers according to 27g with three Philosophers moving (mandatory) or two(mandatory) and conversion in any order, in lieu of normal piece move.