Has anyone out there organized (unrated obviously) Seirawan Chess tournaments?
If so any participant reactions would be appreciated.
I would, if I could. I’ve tried to hold Chess variant tournaments, with no real success. Promotion is so difficult, unless of course you are willing to shell out some serious coin. A few years ago I did hold an event, advertising every way I could think of that didn’t cost anything, and a whopping five people showed up, but each of them were interested in a different one of thefive variants played that day. (Shogi, Xiangqi, Makruk, Chess960 and a non-Chess game called Cannon.) The variants that have drawn the most interest have been Shogi and Chess960.
Right now, I have a google ad running with Shogi and Chess960 themes, and the Shogi is way outdrawing the Chess960 in terms of search term hits.
But since you mentioned it, I’ll probably add Seirawan Chess as a search term.
Here is the link for Seirawan Chess - seirawanchess.com/
USCF Sales is the only place that sells the add-on pieces or full sets (so it’s all matching) -
uscfsales.com/SearchResults. … awan+chess
I just ordered 20 full sets for my chess center after someone that attended the Seirawan lecture got as hooked on this variant as I did, and offered to buy all 20 sets so long as I hold events.
Another local organizer here picked up 10 of the add-on pieces to do events at the club that’s by his home.
It’s a wild variant. Yasser was going over different puzzles with myself and GM Akobian when he was here. Totally wild. The elephant can put the queen to shame!
Um, could one of you please tell the rest of us, what is Seirawan chess?
Bill Smythe
:mrgreen:
Two new pieces are introduced - the hawk and the elephant. The hawk moves like a bishop and knight. The elephant moves like a rook and knight.
You use an 8x8 board. When you vacate a square on the back rank, you can go ahead and place the hawk or elephant on the same move as when you vacate the square.
So if you go 1. Nf3, you can immediately (on the same move) drop the hawk or elephant onto that square. But it has to be done immediately (like en passant). So if you go Nf3, Ng1, Nf3, you can’t drop anything onto the g1 square.
Now take this example: 1. e4 d6, 2 d4 e5 3. dxe dxe. Now white can capture the black queen, but since a vacancy is being made on the d1 square, white can drop the elephant at the same time and deliver checkmate!
Well good luck with that. When you hold a first event, please let me know. I have family in your neck of the woods, and I might make some excuse to take a trip that way that just happens to coincide. At the very least, I’d do what I could to drop a line in some places where it might be seen by others who might be interested, but don’t frequent Chess circles.
Interestingly, the hawk can checkmate a king by itself (e.g., white hawk on f6, black king on h8).
The N+B piece, and the N+R piece, do add tactical styles beyond what standard chess is capable of.
GOTHIC CHESS:
You can see these in action at GothicChess.com. Some combinations are well worth seeing at least once.
However, Gothic Chess has a big disadvantage compared to Seirawan Chess: ANY increase in the board size pervasively changes the game. On Gothic’s larger board, the only purpose of knights is to sacrifice themselves for a key pawn. Gothic bring immensely more firepower to the game, plus a wide open board for them all to travel. It does not feel like chess when being played (maybe better or worse than standard chess, matter of taste). The tactical combinations are cool, but Gothic could never become broadly popular.
Looks like the GothicChess.com website has died and no longer exists. GothicChess.org has almost no content.
The following Http URL to Chessville.com has some combination examples, but unfortunately they are notated in SAN instead of LAN, making them a tedious chore to comprehend. FWIW:
http://chessville.com/GothicChess/miniatures.htm
CHESS960:
I have become convinced that the best way to promote chess960 is to choose and announce (weeks in advance) one good setup to be reused in all games. Make it a setup that (a) has no bishops starting on any CORNER square, and (b) has the two white knights starting on the SAME shade of square.
Otherwise the openings are too disorienting, and there is no interesting growth from game-to-game in understanding any non-traditional setup.
Intensive statistics are being accumulated about all 960 setups at Http URL:
http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404FRC/opening_report_by_eco.html
Some setups seem to give White a bigger advantage than in the one traditional setup, while other setups give White a smaller advantage than traditional (making the game more fair). There are also big differences in the draw rates.
Most cool is there are a handful of setups that both (a) more fair to White and (b) have a lower draw rate — compared to traditional!
Sadly for me, the one chess960 setup that I have been pitching as the one stable setup to reuse, RQNKBBNR S#506, apparently gives White a bigger advantage than traditional.
Mark Week’s weekly chess960 blog is at:
http://chess960frc.blogspot.com/
.
Oh, goody. Elephant-drop soup.
Bill Smythe
C’mon Bill I expect to see you at the first S-Chess tournament at the chess center :mrgreen:
I’d probably fall into the S-Chess equivalent of the fool’s mate my first three games or so.
Bill Smythe
I haven’t been able to drum up lots of support for Chess variants, but I did manage to get a “click” on a google adwords ad on the phrase “Seirawan Chess” today. At least someone is out there looking.
I also managed to score impressions, but not clicks, for “martian Chess” and jetan. The game was featured in a John Carter of Mars book, and I thought there might be some interest following the recent movie release.
This is a really fun game, and I have ordered multiple sets of Elephants and Hawks.
But, it would be a great side event, say, like bughouse?? I wonder if it would have
the appeal, say of bughouse at major national scholastics??
Rob Jones
I won an expanded-board chess side event at some nationals almost twenty years ago. It had a bishop+knight piece and possibly the other as well. The names are on the tip of my tongue; I think they were from part of a royal court, like ‘councilor’ but not that one.
You’re thinking of Capablanca Chess. Chancellor is the name you’re looking for.
That’s played on an 8x10 board.
The nice thing with Seirawan Chess is that it’s played on standard board.
I’ve thought of a varient (maybe it’s out there already just don’t know) where the King and/or Queen can also move like a knight (King/Queen on horseback). That might add a little bit more speed to the game while making it a bit more challenging to mate the king. I’ve never really tried playing that way though.
How about unknown-piece chess? (I just invented it this second.)
Initially, the pieces are placed on the first rank, and the pawns on the second. The pieces are randomized, as in Chess 960. But you don’t know which piece is which. They just show up as blobs on the computer screens both players are using in lieu of a chessboard.
You gain clues as to what each piece is by trying to move it. If (based on the identity of the piece) the move is illegal, the computer tells you so, and you make another move (with either that piece or another, or a pawn).
For example, if you try to move a blob from g1 to f3, and the computer tells you it’s illegal, you know it’s not a knight.
All move attempts, and the computer response, would be visible to both players, so that both could glean the same information from the move attempts.
Bill Smythe
If you were playing on a computer, you could play a “fog of war” variant in which you could identify your own pieces but not your opponent’s, unless one was in a square adjacent to one of yours.
ETA: Apparently it’s been done.
That’s a little like Kriegspiel, which can be played without a computer, using a third person as a referee.
In Kriegspiel, the pieces are not randomized, so both players know the initial position. The players play on separate boards, out of sight of each other. The referee keeps track of the true position on a third board, out of sight of both players. After each move, the referee announces “white has moved” or “black has moved” but does not reveal the move to the other player. Captures are announced to both players (by square), as are checks (by direction – rank, file, NE-SW diagonal, NW-SE diagonal, or knight). If an attempted move is illegal (moving through an opponent’s piece, pushing a blocked pawn, leaving yourself in check, etc) the referee announces “illegal” and the player makes a different move (with the same or a different piece).
Kriegspiel is hilarious for the spectators. It is also hilarious for the players, on later playback (the referee, or a fourth person, should keep score during the game).
Bill Smythe
Played a number of Kriegspiel games in college and refereed even more. From my blog →
Kriegspiel. Requires three sets and a referee. Players are told if
a move is legal and, if a check, where it came from: the rank, file,
long or short diagonal, or with a knight. They are told where captures
happen and if a pawn can capture anything or if a move is legal.
Kamikaze. Players arrange their pieces on their side of the
board behind a partition. The partition is taken away and the clock
started.
Kamikaze-Kreigspeil. From the people who brought you WW II the
above two are combined.