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Seirawan Chess. invented by GM Yasser Seirawan, a conservative drop chess (zrf available).[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Nov 3, 2011 07:13 PM UTC:(III) More general fault in S-Chess is carryover lack of symmetry. That is, RN and BN since conceived around year 1617 are two distinct types. What is the compulsion that they occur together always? Actually in Janus Chess are two Carrera Centaurs(BN) on 8x10. In CVs obviously Rooks get paired R+R, Bishop B+B, Knights N+N in all sub-genres even Carreras. Most in the Carrera/Capablanca camp rather tend to add only one each of Marshall(RN) and Cardinal(BN). All sub-genres tolerate even emphasize several interchangeable names too, as here, understanding Centaur/Archbishop/Cardinal/Janus/Hawk are one and the same compound of Bishop plus Knight, according to cv-context and chosen definition. The CV-field is that way at once peculiarly fluid and precise. Now, that there are 8 piece-types not 6 counting Pawn is more disruptive 8x8 than 8x10 and 10x10 when adding one only Hawk and Elephant -- to the detriment of these thinkable S-Chesses. Usual aesthetics dictates paired same-types: Bifurcators, Sissa, Unicorn, Centennial's Murray Lion, Betzan C.D.A. Half-Duck, Falcon, Mastodon, Shako Elephant, Bent Hero and Shaman. Note that some of the above are embedded Track Two novelty CVs, notional artwork, and others intended Track I Next Chess replacements of f.i.d.e.-incomplete 8x8 and that one's random chess subvariants. Anyway the ideal of all the others is to keep pairing same-types across the board, excepting those self-designated special-case Carreras with late incarnation S-chesses suffering same affliction.
(IV) Generally Hawk and Elephant will both enter the game before move 10. Keeping such power in reserve disadvantages the player. So basically two near-Queen-value pieces are added without strengthening the Pawns at all. Top-rank designers tend to provide Pawn enhancement when raising the power density like that. On large boards array-Pawn may acquire three-step option too. On little 8x8 Pawn may get a promotional boost where the pieces are rather strong, or additional one-step option. S-Chess design so far leaves Pawn unchanged. This style of brute force is common for beginners. Unfortunate throwaway Pawns and less subtle play that result may have to describe the imbalanced milieu where indiscrimateness or arbitrariness as to Piece/Pawn offset obtain. Artists and designers must think through the implication to avoid over-skewing important factors, not least relative strength of all pawns to that of the Piece field.
(V) Is there then something implied really special all the centuries about Carrera year 1617 Centaur(bn) and Champion(rn), so not subject to time-honoured design considerations? How could that be so if the types, unlike R-N-B-K-Q-P, figure in less than 0.5% the space of Chess tracts, histories and monographs? Even mediaeval Alfil and Ferz get mentioned more in passing reference. It appears the literature has plenty of catching up to start doing on nuance of B+N and R+N, a real gaping momentary lapse. For instant starter, how to get maximum potential advantage if opening '1 Knight g1-f3... 2 Elephant drop -g1...'? Will this '2 Elephant -g1' become standard? Think thump trunk-derivation instead, and Castle/00 (!) may become the favoured modern move to open Elephant(rn) line of attack. That scenario would lead up to '5 Elephant-h1...' where the vacated rook sat before the Castle. There are superficially 8 possibilities in the back rank, but really 10 or 12 when Castling is considered. 'Ten' possibilities because King and Rook must themselves go to an otherwise impossible square with subsequent immediate plant of the off-board Hawk or of the Elephant, upon the Rook overstep, at either vacated King's 'e1' or Rook's 'a1/h1' next turn. All the contingencies cry for complete analysation where none exists. How and when to vacate and to drop them, the Hawk and Elephant, are virgin territory. Besides, S-Chesses in their cautious original serial drop technique open the door to other related, interesting but different from each other piece-types to be used and introduced just by designing what cvers call 'subvariants'. The same conservative near-rank same-side drop can be used for other pairs than those ancient upstart, awkward rn-bn. If Centaur and Champion turn out again not to be the cat's mieow, there are many other related pairs to try in their place: Cannon and Canon, Duke and Cavalier(Renaissance Chess), Falcon and Hunter (Schultz's year 1943 Hunter-Falcon), Left Schizzy and Right Schizzy(Schizophrenic), Bent Hero and Shaman. Examples only all of the foregoing, because the list since year 2000 has to reach 100 or even 200 of intriguing, connected pairs of p-ts clearly delineated from each other. Extending the S-Chess concept to warrantable subvariants brings them on board in familiar environment for trial one by one as two only each new CV under S-Chesses 8x8 -- rather than the usual paired fixed pre-placement approach 8- or 10- or 12-wide.
S-Chess back-rank drop is good idea, but conflating the vacating and the drop in one move is bad idea. So these comments just ignore it to now, otherwise adhering to the S-Chess pieces and board. Drops from Shogi to Pocket Mutation are individual stand-alone moves with few exceptions. Technically the revision to require postponement of the drop to the very next move after piece leaves its array spot amounts to ''subvariant,'' and S-chesses could play well enough either way with better off-board piece-types. It actually makes more conservative the S-drop-mechanism to split into two moves. The author analogizes his proposal, making the drop part and parcel of the exit, to Castling. That way makes Castling itself with a drop tantamount to a triple move, which is too extreme for Chesses not deliberately plural-move category. The original S-Chess Castle with Hawk drop of the inventors means ''King slide, Rook slide over, Hawk drop,'' a three-mover. No way, too radical any prospective Track One, so under discussion only here are the revised natural first move of any piece, then next move optional drop to the piece's departure square instead.
Look at other CV works having drops. Para-Xiangqi is Black's design with drop restriction by special piece's needing to be present. Follow-up will examine those drop-cvs of Winther and Nelson.
Novelty classic Pocket Mutation, http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/pocketmutation.html, has the wide Shogi drop mechanism practically anywhere on board. In contrast, S-chesses are cautiously restricted to one specific square when at all. Broadening the S-chess drop could allow placement of the one Hawk or the one Elephant, two pieces per player, anytime to a vacant a1, b1...h1. Beyond that liberalization would no longer be serial S-chess family of subvariants, let's suppose. The essence of S-Chesses in their entirety would seem to be in the drop to vacant back-rank square. Cousins still S-chess family could work, in other words, on larger boards than 8x8, or with different better-received off-board pieces, or by allowing more than one near-rank square. Probably core-essence of an S-chess should also include starting OrthoChess R,N,B,K, and Q, but the solid innovation to note is straightforward back-rank drop. Full-range drop rather is appealing Pocket Mutation, having so many kinds of pieces, following prototype of regional Shogi. However, restricting the drop is promising Track-One Mutator for one, two, or three cv pieces. Which other better mechanisms keeping piece-drop to only one or several squares can be devised? Outside the S-Chess school are other possibilities of restricted post-array placement from reserve, among them: http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MLaccessorychess, and http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MLalternativeche, to contrast and compare.
S-chess deserves sub-genre status now established by these comments since 28.October.2011. Other CV sub-genres include
year-1961 Ultima copycats and offshoots, year-1617 Carrera improvements on 8x10 and 10x10, Shogi revisions, Xiangqi revisions or look-alikes, and Mutator plural-move CVs -- to name five other examples. Now S-chess criteria are twofold in first back-rank drop and, second, array RNBQK permutated flexibly. The only one embodiment in Seirawan's write-up here is extendable by changing the reserve pieces to better ones, enlarging the board, or allowing more than one square to drop. Those three factors in combinations become thousands of CV sub-variants for thought experiments within this subgenre. In general, S-chesses are very able to introduce trouble-free new piece-types on familiar 8x8 or enlarged 8x10 preferentially, such as Bifurcators from the mid-aughts, year 1992 Falcon, Bent Hero and Bent Shaman of year 2006. Easily a thousand and more other piece-types, half developed since year 2000, are possible to bring on board post-move-one the same S-chess manner. Daunting but attainable is task to continue winnowing across subgenres those all inventive piece-types to just a few and also an auxiliary surrounding group of novelty 50 or 100 of the best cv p-ts to date. But is the S-Chess technique better than other placement techniques? Alternative_
Chess and Accessory_Chess, require instead the drop behind a Pawn to rank 2. Next question can be to compare the two, S-chesses and A-chesses, as to mechanism and effect. One or the other selected and justified, ideally, would exclude the competing idea most purposes. Designers should be able agree on an answer -- Rank 1 versus Rank 2 (or 3) at issue here. The same way problem-themes settle ''Which is the best move?'' to one right answer. Or cautiously would there be something else instead in carefully-selected hybrid? Basically, is it A-chess or is it S-chess?
Should drop be in A-Chess or S-Chess manner? Consigning the other to oblivion, there has to be unequivocal answer. Track One represents replacement chesses of the obsolete f.i.d.e. singlet. Board can remain 8x8 or expand to 8x10, 9x9, and 10x10. Even 10x10 CVs improve by invoked optional accepted drop-mechanism. At the extreme for Track One, typical '10x10' will have Queen-type and King and four pairs. The drop of one or two or three reserve pieces could mean 8th piece-type and 9th piece-type, thus maintaining the aesthetic sub-near-10% ratio of 20th-century f.i.d.e. standard, 6/64. Ask in advance, what should be the value of preferred off-board pieces only later to occupy the board? Comparing historic Shogi drops and estimating piece-values comprehensively relevant and shifting to probably more suitable 8x8 and 8x10 ought all be part of the equation. Draw on all quarters. Basically, is it S-chess or is it A-chess?
H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Dec 18, 2012 03:04 PM UTC:I have set up a web page to act as a turn-based server for a group of people that wanted to play S-Chess over the internet. For those interested, the page is at: http://hgm.nubati.net/schess/play.html
I've played over a couple of old Game Courier logs of Seirawan chess that apparently relied on at least 2 presets available through Mr. Winther, but now the links to them are broken, it seems. Not sure if they were rules enforcing, but at least they showed the extra two pieces each side has at the start of a game. There is a non-rules enforcing preset on Game Courier currently, at least, but it shows nothing but a chessboard & pieces, and the players need to be wary that they ought to each drop their non-visible Hawk & Elephant on their own first rank in good time. Not sure if all this has caused the popularity of Seirawan Chess to drop in Game Courier play for some time now.
Regarding my last post on Seirawan Chess, pertaining to Mr. Winther's presets: I had tried to find them through the credits section of the logs of fininished games, and discovered the links to said Winther presets appeared broken when clicking on them. However, it seems the Winther presets can be accessed via the 'All Games Played' page on Game Courier, by using either of said presets as given beside 'Seirawan Chess'. My apologies for any confusion.
Here's wikipedia's entry on Seirawan Chess, which includes the rules that it gives for the game, in case some of the finer points are ever difficult to find out otherwise:
It seems to me that Seirawan Chess is just one special case of Pioneer Chess invented by Mats Winther in 2009.
It seems to me that Seirawan Chess is just one special case of Pioneer Chess invented by Mats Winther in 2009.
No, there is a difference between the rules. In Pioneer Chess, you must place each additional piece behind the piece whose space it may occupy after the piece moves away before play begins. So, each additional piece has only one space it may be dropped on. But in Seirawan Chess, each additional piece has eight possible spaces it may be dropped on, and where it will be dropped is determined during the course of play, not before play begins.
H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, Feb 19, 2023 11:32 AM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from Sat Feb 18 10:09 PM:It seems to me that Seirawan Chess is just one special case of Pioneer Chess invented by Mats Winther in 2009
Musketeer Chess is a version of Pioneer Chess. Except that it allows introduction of two pieces, rather than just a single one, through the Pioneer-Chess gating mechanism.
Actually I like the Seirawan gating mechanism better. It doesn't require a game prelude governed by additional rules, and offers an interesting dilemma for when to gate the pieces: a piece that still might appear anywhere could be worth more than a piece in a known location that you currently do not need yet, but as the number of gating opportunities decreases during development of the other pieces such an advantage decreases, and turns into the risk that you might not be able to gate at all.
You are right thank you. Indeed I was confused.
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