Everyone is very familiar with chess, but there is a whole world of its various variants, in which the details of the basic chess rules change, and sometimes the whole game is rethought (to improve the gameplay or update it). There is even a website dedicated to different chess variations.
Today I want to tell you about several varieties of classical chess: Crazyhouse, Grand Chess and Shogi. I also want to offer you a combination of the first two options - I think when I try to play it, this game will become my favorite.
I
Shogi is a version of chess native to Japan and is very different from Western chess - both Western chess and Shogi have evolved continuously from the Indian game of chaturanga. The main difference between shogi and our familiar Western chess is that the player who captures an opponent's piece can later display it as his own. However, if the games differed only in this, then the games in shogi would be insane. The pieces in western chess are so strong and the king is so weak that the game would be filled with dangerous situations. Players needed to be constantly vigilant about losing pieces, and if you don't pay enough attention, you can get mate in a few moves.
In fact, this version is exactly the game of Crazyhouse, and its peculiarity both makes the game so beloved and fun, and prevents it from being taken as seriously as traditional chess. There are two solutions to this problem: the king can be strengthened, which will give him more mobility, which will allow him to better dodge the madness created by the fallen pieces, or the pieces can be weakened, which will make them much less powerful. In particular, it is possible to reduce their influence over long distances. In shogi, the figures are weakened. Ranged and powerful chess pieces have been replaced by pieces with limited mobility. So, for example, a spear in shogi moves like a rook, but can only move forward (thus, the spear can only take a position on the path in front of it). Uma (from Japanese - horse) moves like a horse,but it can only move to two extreme positions in front of itself. Shogi also has silver and gold generals that can move in subsets of the king's directions. Since each individual piece in the shogi is not much stronger than the king, it is easier for the king himself to dodge the threats posed by individual pieces. Checkmate, in turn, can be put only when the pieces are used consistently to create a trap for the king (this is the basis of tsume-shogi, an analogue of chess problems with checkmating. They are interesting to solve, and I recommend trying them in order to understand shogi is different from mate in traditional chess).it is easier for the king himself to dodge the threats posed by individual pieces. Checkmate, in turn, can be put only when the pieces are used consistently to create a trap for the king (this is the basis of tsume-shogi, an analogue of chess problems with checkmating. They are interesting to solve, and I recommend trying them in order to understand what is mate in shogi is different from mate in traditional chess).it is easier for the king himself to dodge the threats posed by individual pieces. Checkmate, in turn, can be put only when the pieces are used consistently to create a trap for the king (this is the basis of tsume-shogi, an analogue of chess problems with checkmating. They are interesting to solve, and I recommend trying them in order to understand shogi is different from mate in traditional chess).
I think Shogi and Crazyhouse can solve my problems with traditional chess: games often end in draws and endgames are rarely interesting. Sometimes there are interesting puzzles in traditional chess endgames, but shogi finals are usually more fun and exciting.
I a (view from the side)
Continuing the theme with shogi and Crazyhouse, I should note that the figures in the Japanese game are noticeably different from the traditional ones:
I really like the way these shapes look. They also solve the problem of eliminating pieces: if you use traditional chess pieces, you need two sets. Each player's army can be doubled because they can capture enemy pieces. Shogi pieces can be simply turned upside down in relation to the opponent - thus, one set of pieces will be enough. However, although this solution works, it seems to me that playing in Crazyhouse with shogi pieces is wrong - Crazyhouse is still based on traditional chess, and it seems to me that it is better to use ordinary chess pieces. For me, the ideal solution would be to use asymmetrical traditional shapes with a familiar design: you can flatten the top and bottom of the shapes,so they can be flipped and changed color (one end will be black and the other will be white). The color separation line can be made diagonal so that one player sees one color and his opponent sees another.
II
It has been repeatedly noted that in traditional chess, completeness and completeness are felt: the rook and bishop move in certain directions - perpendicular / parallel to the battlefield or diagonally, respectively. If you mark 5x5 squares around each piece, then there will be places where the knight can get, but the rook and bishop cannot get. And the queen is, in fact, a combination of a rook and a bishop. All these rules seem to be interconnected, almost perfect and platonic. Almost perfect, because in traditional chess there are no two combinations: rook + knight and bishop + knight. But it would be just such figures (they are called marshal and cardinal, respectively) that would be interesting to play, although I will not argue - it is better to play chess without them. There are several versions of the game with such figures, the most famous is Capablanca Chess, great chess,invented by world chess champion J.R. Capablanca and game designer Christian Freeling. A distinctive feature of this game is that it uses a field of 10x8 cells (wide sides to the players), while in large chess, a 10x10 board is used, on which all pieces have free columns behind (except for rooks, they are in the corners ). What about castling? It's simple: there is no castling in big chess.there is no castling in big chess.there is no castling in big chess.
Changing the board width in Capablanca Chess and Grand Chess allows you to add marshals and cardinals to your armies. Apart from the extra pieces and the enlarged board, big chess has the same rules as normal chess. However, I think that they should be seriously considered as an alternative to traditional chess.
III
Perhaps it would be worthwhile to write an introduction to various variants of chess, but this is not the point at present. Of course, three varieties of non-traditional chess are presented in this article, but the choice of them is very limited. In the world of alternative chess, there are truly crazy, stupid, funny and ingenious ideas, which I will not touch on in this article. This text is about a game that can become a real replacement for traditional chess - a crossover of large chess and Crazyhouse with minor changes that will deal with the mechanics of knocking out pieces from Crazyhouse. Obviously, Capablanca and Grand Chess were originally conceived as competitors to traditional chess. Shogi, in turn, solves the problem that worries me: I believe that traditional chess too often ends in draws, and the endgames are less exciting.than Crazyhouse and Shogi. The ideal game for me will be more like Crazyhouse, because the mechanics of eliminating pieces make the games more fun. As I wrote earlier, while Crazyhouse is a fun game, it is too stressful and unpredictable to challenge traditional chess (at least that's what I was thinking about when I thought of this post). There are two solutions to this problem. The first is to use rules similar to shogi - to weaken all pieces to the level of a king to make it easier for him to survive, but then the game deviates significantly from traditional chess. We will get not just a variant of chess, but a completely different game. I like it, but there is no chess spirit in it. I need a game that retains the heart of traditional chess, but adds dynamics by eliminating pieces - but more balanced and sensible.than at Crazyhouse.
Let's take a look at one of the Crazyhouse balance fixes: instead of weakening pieces, you can strengthen the king. It can be made more agile and given the ability to survive in the face of mass dropouts. I have not tested this idea yet, but it seems appropriate to me to add the ability for the king to move back 4 positions available to the knight. The king will have a moderate amount of mobility, and the restriction on backward movement ensures that he is a defensive element and does not receive an attacking force. Playtests can show that this is too weak an ability (I never thought it would be too strong). If this turns out to be so, then it is worth changing the possibilities of the king's movement in another way. It is clear that increasing his mobility will add balance to games with massive elimination of figures.
Perfect chess
So, the differences between chess ideal for me and traditional chess will be as follows:
- The game should be played on a 10x10 squares field (instead of the traditional 8x8). I believe that a wider board will make the game more fun and deep.
- The game should have marshals (rook + knight) and cardinals (bishop + knight), and the pieces should be placed as in big chess (to exclude castling)
- When a piece is captured, the player who captured it must be able to take it onto the field (works the same as in Crazyhouse or Shogi)
- In addition to its normal moves, the king should be able to move back 4 squares from the knight's moves. Pieces can be captured by such moves.
Ideally, the game would be played using the tall, two-colored, antisymmetric shapes that I described in section Ia of this post.
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