A super pawn for chess variants, characteristics

[musketeerchess]

Hi
I saw whereworf chess. Quite interesting. Although the piece property is imho much more "disturbing" as it has none of the other pieces characterictics but it also introduces a plenty of new possibilities.

In my trials, i always tried to "respect" the general spirit of the rules of the chess pieces.

I understand that my rules to introduce the new pieces are "disturbing" but how can we introduce two new pieces, by previously defining the strategies of both sides.

[Ferdy]

With this option the center files are full of pieces this is based from my game trials. It seems the full drop gives the player some options and allow them to create opening stragegy.

Maybe because your Evaluation Function adds the piece values of the Elephant and Hawk only when they appear on board?

No, I have on-hand pieces covered in the eval. You will observed this when you play a game or do infinite analysis.

Another possible reason for the full pieces center is the Lack of proper Opening Book. I remember testing Rybka without opening book wanders both its Knights in the opening in a strange way.

This is not comparable to chess because the engine knew that 2 new pieces can be dropped in file d and/or e at 1st and 8th ranks.
Normally knights are developed in f3 and c3, then later after castling you can now drop a piece in e1/e8. Then either move the new piece from e1 then next drop a piece in e1/e8 again, or move the queen and then drop a piece in d1/d8. So what you have is an opening full of pieces at central files. It is difficult to maneuver these new pieces and does not contribute much in allowing the players to develop some strategic plans because the drop squares are fixed.
It is very different when players are allowed to drop pieces in any squares in the first rank.

[musketeerchess]

Hi
The only advantage i see from dropping the new pieces on e or d squares is to define the strategy for both players from the beginning.

I agree with you that the major drawback is: must castle to have the right to introduce the new pieces, or must move the queen. This really limits the possibilities.

What do you suggest sothat we can introduce the pieces more easily but with the obligation to "define" the strategy from the beginning. This is important to respect one of the fundamental principles in chess: Initial piece placement on the board is known in advance, which helps both sides prepare their strategy.

[Ferdy]

What do you suggest sothat we can introduce the pieces more easily but with the obligation to "define" the strategy from the beginning.

One way is to expand it from d1/e1 to also include b1, c1, f1, and g1.

But of course this needs to be tested run some games and observe the play, then correct obvious undesirable defects if there is.

[Evert]

I didn't vote because all options sound like possible variations on a pawn with their own repercussions, and each of those will result in a different flavour of game. In general I'm not a big fan of fiddling with pawns too much. Above all make sure you do not add too much to their move options: it makes them more like weak pieces (like the different types of generals in Shogi-variants) than like pawns.

The term "super pawn" has been used before, and it may even refer to a particular type of piece; I'd check chessvariants.org, but it seems to be down at the moment.

Have a look at http://superschaak.nl/indexengels.htm, they list a bunch of ideas for different pieces and pawns (most of them poor, in my opinion, but there are some interesting things there and it's always good for some inspiration).

[musketeerchess]

Hi Evert
Thanks for your interesting post.

I share your concerns about the fact that we don't have to mess too much with the pawns. But we should add some possibilities with some restrictions that make them a little bit more powerful and that could prevent some of the drawbacks of the current pawn move rules (it should be possible to prevent fortress under certain circumstances, potentially the "super pawn" could under promote from the 6th, or 7th rank. This under promotion should be by adding for example a Knight or Bishop capabilities to the pawn, he can either decide to continue it's path to the 8th rank sothat it could promote to a Queen, A rook or any other of the strong available new pieces in musketeer chess, or the pawn with his new features can move like a knight or a Bishop but when reaching the 8th rank it can "promote to another piece" (either changing from a Knight to a Bishop or promote to a Rook etc...)

Thanks again for sharing with us.

Zied

[musketeerchess]

Hi all
What name would you give to this "super pawn"?

[Nordlandia]

How much is the leopard piece worth compared to rook?

I assume 6 or 7 points right?

[musketeerchess]

Leopard would be in the beginning more valuable than the Rook. I assume arround 6. In the middle game and especially in the ending, i think the Rook is a better asset. So the value of the Leopard drops to around 5, but the Value of the Rook is certainly bigger than 5.

[hgm]

A leaper with 16 targets is typically worth 7 on the Kaufman scale (R=5. Q=9.5). The Leopard is not a pure leaper, though, as four of its targets are bockable. But I would be surprised if that would devaluate it by more than 1.5 Pawn. So it would still be stronger than a Rook.

If you want to know it exactly, just let Ferdinand's engine play some 1000 blitz games against itself where you gove one side the FIDE setup, and for the other side replace the Rooks by Leopards.