Talk:Chess variant

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 Chess variant was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Reviewed version: March 23, 2008
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Add articles for recognized chess variants:

  • Courier chess, see here or article from German Wikipedia.
  • Pocket knight chess
  • Hostage chess
  • Smess
  • Wildebeest chess

with the diagram templates preferably.

Add articles for:

  • Shatar (Mongolian chess, see external search link)
  • Hyperchess, and 4D Chess (like Parton's Sphinx chess) in general; preferably in one article. (see Hyper chess)

Expand articles for:

Create diagram templates for:
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[edit] Simpsons Chess

i dont see Simpsons Chess on this page i played it as a kid all the time

Simpsons chess, if I remember correctly, is just the "regular" version of chess with Simpsons characters replacing the normal pieces. As such, it wouldn't be a "variant" and so it doesn't belong in this article. -Abcfox 06:26, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Zillions of Games

From the text; "Since the creation in 1998 of Zillions of Games, a Windows compatible program which enables non-experts to quickly design and playtest chess variants using an AI opponent, the total number has been increasing constantly and rapidly." I think this statement is misleading in that it assumes the increase in chess variants is directly tied to the computer program Zillions of Games. While ZoG deserves mention, it is not, in my opinion as a variant designer, the reason for "the total number has been increasing constantly and rapidly." Rather, I suspect the existence of the website http://www.chessvariants.com/ has had more to do with this increase than ZoG. In otherwords, ZoG has had a lot of existing variants translated into it's own program rather than being a breeding ground for new variants that then become popular. neoliminal

Although many chess variants obviously predate the existence of the ZOG program (1998), the chess variant pages is mainly, merely a reference resource for playing chess variants manually- not a powerful set of tools for inventing, playtesting, refining chess variants (as well as automatically playing an AI opponent with rules enforced). Of course, your personal methods as a game designer may differ from other creative people and considerable time is typically required for something new to become popular. Nonetheless, the ZOG program has been a great catalyst to the development of many new games (in addition to the implementation of many old games), some of which may be of higher quality than even possible for popular, traditional chess variants. The statement rings true in correctly ascribing cause-and-effect to my experience and so, is not misleading to me. Of course, neither your opinion nor mine is being sought. The fact is the growth in the number and variety of chess variants in recent years cannot likely be attributed to any other event or development than the advent of the ZOG program. --AceVentura
The fact is the growth in the number and variety of chess variants in recent years cannot likely be attributed to any other event or development than the advent of the ZOG program. Again, I disagree. Can you site some proof of this? I suppose we could take a sampling of chess variants before ZoG and after, and see how many were created using ZoG or were simply translated into ZoG after being created elsewhere first. This may be a confusion of cause and effect. I bet there were tons of good variants that were added to ZoG because it's a great medium for new variant... but that doesn't mean ZoG caused these variants to be created. I guess I would like some evidence to support your claim.

No evidence. The correlation could be completely dismissed as an astonishing coincidence ... if you wish to belittle the significant contribution and stimulation the ZOG program has held for chess variant development since 1998. Personally, it has been quite valuable to me. Moreover, many others in the chess variant community have made similar remarks in various forums. --AceVentura

I suspect that the group you refer to as "the chess variant community" is actually the ZoG using community. Since you are part of this community what you aren't seeing are the variant creation efforts which do not use nor rely on ZoG. From such a perspective it would indeed appear that ZoG was the reason behind any increase since you're seeing all the development of Zog based games and any conversion of variants designed without ZoG that someone has created a ZoG file for. neoliminal 18:17, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
Is there any practical way for an independent arbiter (for instance, a Unix or Lunix user, perhaps) to evaluate the claims the ZoG using community has made? Although there may be at least one website where ZoG has achieved a level of preeminence, that's a far cry from universal acceptance. I don't wish to belittle the achievements of the author behind ZoG, but not everyone has access to a Windows compatible environment to try it out, and see if it does, indeed, facilitate - or even automate - creation of "new chess variants" never before seen anywhere else.
If there isn't evidence, the statement shouldn't be there. Wikipedia should be based on verifiable sources, not on what we personally think. Mdwh 01:06, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Such positive statements about the capabilities of the ZOG program are based upon verifiable sources. The way to investigate is to get a modern NT-based version of MS Windows and the ZOG program. Then, you can see the evidence for yourself instead of lazily and irresponsibly deleting the truth. People with inadequate knowledge and experience should be humble and step lightly here. --AceVentura

Please see Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research - "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." Downloading a program and seeing how good it is comes under original research - and I'm not sure how one could come to the conclusion that it has helped chess variant growth simply by looking at the program itself. I'll put a citation requested tag for now, but it doesn't look good based on reasoning put forward so far. Mdwh 23:05, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, here is a reference:

Currently, 1430 games (most of them new) have been written and published expressly for the Zillions Of Games program since 1998. This number could be regarded as compelling evidence of recent growth attributable to the introduction of a program. --AceVentura

How many of those are Chess variants? How many Chess variants are there that are not produced with Zillions Of Games? Mdwh 00:41, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Check www.chessvariants.org for an idea. Hundreds of games there are not implemented into Zillions for the very simple reason that no-one has implemented them! Even the variants on this website are not all there is. It's the easiest thing in the world to invent a chess variant. (Just add a piece or a square somewhere and you have one, in a sense.) --Sibahi 09:01, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Zillions Of Games ... has helped chess variant growth. I doubt that this statement is true. Since nobody provided a reference for it, I will remove it. Andreas Kaufmann 20:52, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
As a result a large number of chess variants were implemented for Zillions of Games.
The reference already provided indicates that the ZOG program (by enabling people without programming skill to create chess variants) has increased the number of new chess variants since its introduction. Indisputably, the ZOG program has increased the number of ZOG chess variants (est. several hundred). Does anyone doubt that ZOG chess variants exist or that they are a legitimate type of chess variants? Therefore, it has also increased the number of chess variants (of various types) to some extent. I guess the simple arithmetic concepts of greater than and lesser than or transitive logic are too difficult for a few editors to grasp.
In any case, the quoted statement is correct, more conservative and it seems to satisfy editors on both sides of this argument (including myself). --InfoCheck


The popularity of Zillions-of-Games is in stark contrast to its actual performance. For example if you click here you can see it went 6 wins, 7 losses, 1 draw to finish in 5th out of 8 places in a 2004 tournament featuring dedicated programs. The 3 programs it outperformed were EGM 0.1, a program only 2 weeks old from Poland, CapaGNU Modified which was Bill Angel's DOS program from the 1980's, and Max Gothic, a program from Germany that allows people to play against one another over the internet that also has a 2-ply search function.

Zillions is a great prototyping tool, no doubt. But it is just that. Strong programs are what generate more interest in a game, especially a variant. Talented players then try to raise the bar in their own play to outdo the software. When you beat a program game after game after game, like whatever is offered in the Zillions engine, you don't say "Wow I really want to learn more about this game!" ChessHistorian 00:44, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Patt-Schach

Someone should add Patt-schach to the article. See http://www.chessvariants.org/diffsetup.dir/pattsch.html Krakatoa 16:06, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Could someone please explain, why there "are no legal moves"? Why couldn't the foremost pawns moved? I really don't understand at all. 82.130.21.5 18:13, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

White pawns move up on the diagram (i.e. most of them one step before queening) and black move down. This is why there is no legal moves. Andreas Kaufmann 21:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Derivation of Capablanca's Chess

We see several games listed here that were derived from Capablanca's Chess. But wasn't Capabalanca's Chess (1924) derived from Bird's Chess (1874), and wasn't Bird's chess derived from Carrera's Chess (1617)? From my understanding, Capablanca fixed a bad feature in Bird's board by swapping locations of the Bishop and Archbishop on the queenside, and the locations of the Bishop and Chancellor on the Kingside. Yet nobody seems to acknowledge this anywhere in talking about Capablanca. Comments?

ChessHistorian 00:45, 6 August 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Siamese Chess

At my school we invented a variant where two members of a "team" are playing two games simultaneously. Whenever a capture is made, one player can pass the piece to his teammate,who can place it anywhere on the board other than on top of another piece. When game ends, the captured king is passed to the teamate, so that he has two kings and is harder to defeat. the game is onlyover once all of one team's Kings are captured. Is this worth adding?

It is already there, see Bughouse chess. Andreas Kaufmann (talk) 12:09, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Non-Notable Variants

It seems that all non-notable variants (by Wikipedia standards) should fairly be removed from this main page based upon whether or not they have their own Wikipedia pages. I consider this a valid acid test. If a Wikipedia page is created later for an individual game (which successfully defies any attempt to delete it on the grounds of not being notable), then this would justify its description upon this page being restored. If Andreas Kaufmann and others are in agreement, then I will carry the needed cleanup he started thru to its completion. A lot of people have been putting a lot of clutter on this main page for a long time and some of them have been successful ... thusfar. --BenWillard —Preceding comment was added at 23:33, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Not all notable variants has own pages, so they should stay here. I already removed all not notable variants, no further cleanup is needed. There are only two variants where I was not sure if they notable or not. I put a request for citation there. If no citation is added, I will remove them as well. However, there are some variants without citation, for which I simply didn't have time to add one. If you doubt about there notability, please discuss first. Andreas Kaufmann (talk) 08:33, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
By the way, just existing of web-page for the game, created by its author doesn't qualify it to be notable. A very good criteria for notability is if the variant present in The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. This book is just recently printed and probably all notable chess variants can be found there. Other source of notable variants is Variant Chess Magazine. All variants described there are notable as well. Andreas Kaufmann (talk) 08:42, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I remain skeptical that chess variants lacking a Wikipedia page and ANY dedicated web site anywhere in the world (other than a standard entry upon The Chess Variant Pages and/or the Zillions Of Games web sites) could possibly be notable (by Wikipedia standards).

The chess variant references you mention, although excellent, reflect the personal editorial biases, specialization, tastes and interests of the editors who wrote the aforementioned book and magazine.

I still strongly advocate a more thorough cleanup in strict accordance with Wikipedia guidelines. Anyone who has more substantive reasons for keeping any of the following "low-profile" games needs to state them soon: Patt-schach, Upside-down chess, Pawns game, Peasant's revolt, Weak!, Doublewide chess, Infinite chess, Lord Loss chess, Millenium chess, Admiral's (or Baron's) chess, Benedict chess, Builder's chess, Double Domination Chess, Guard chess, Hierarchical chess, Refusal chess, Replacement chess, Rifle chess, Jedi Knight chess, No Stress Chess, Schrödinger's chess, Synchronous chess, Zonal chess, Anti-king chess, ChessWar.

--BenWillard

Any of variants found in Pritchard are automatically notable by Wikipedia standards. Most of variants you listed can be found in this book, please don't remove them before checking Pritchard's encyclopeida. The criterias you mentioned ...chess variants lacking a Wikipedia page and ANY dedicated web site anywhere in the world... are not relevant if it should be included or not. What is important is whether it is described in some of reliable sources, like Pritchard's encyclopedia. Andreas Kaufmann (talk) 19:27, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Very well. Since you own Pritchard's Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants and I do not own it (or even wish to), I will defer to your judgment on which marginal games shall stay.

Two parting observations though:

1. In a world of over 6 billion people with internet access available in most nations, where is the single fan (that allegedly exists) required to create a web page dedicated to any of these "low-profile" games hiding?

2. The Classified Encyclopedia Of Chess Variants was entirely the work of one man, DB Pritchard, who is recently deceased. I have no assurance that his choices for inclusion of games within this reference book were not totally arbitrary, unilateral and selfish. Consequently, it would be far preferable if you could list more than one "reliable" source, in this case, for these "low-profile" games.

--BenWillard —Preceding comment was added at 22:12, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

By the way, notability of many chess variants can be checked also without using Pritchard's encyclopedia. As one example, I take Guard chess listed above. If you check the article by Hans Bodlaender, you will see 2 references for it. Andreas Kaufmann (talk) 22:41, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA Fail/Nom removal

Because this is a list, rather than an article, it cannot reach Good Article status. The correct place to list this page is at Featured List Candidates. Thanks. Nikki311 16:29, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pheasant

I have played a further variant on peasant's revolt called Pheasant, where one player has eight pawns and a king, the other has a king and two knights, however I can't find any reference to it with a quick google search, if anyone feels like looking it up... though I suppose that this is proof enough of it's non=notability. SirEelBiscuits (talk) 13:09, 29 April 2008 (UTC)