Sherwin Chess Variants A and B

[Michael Sherwin]

A. Black has option of knighting a pawn on reaching the second rank.
B. Both sides can optionally knight a pawn on 7th/2nd rank respectively.

Would anyone be willing to try this variant? Any thoughts about the idea? I'm very interested in the dynamics of A above as it would imo create some very intense situations between white's first move initiative and black's increased possibilities.

[musketeerchess]

Hi
Interesting ideas, but the A Variant if black survives brakes at some point of the game the equilibrium in Chess.

In Musketeer Chess, there will be in the next few months the release of my final piece aka the Musketeer which will be a super pawn. The idea of A Chess Variant could be interesting to test (it was one of the ideas in the box concerning the rules of the Musketeer). The Musketeers will replace some of the pawns in Classic Chess, sothat this gives that same possibilities for Black and White.

The advantage consisting of White is the first to move is not a huge plus for White simply because this advantage fades with good play of both parts for other tactical and strategical considerations. And if white is not precise in his moves he can loose!

[Michael Sherwin]

I wish you luck with Musketeer Chess. It might turn out to be a popular new game. You must realize that millions of, standard_chess, players have invested (hundreds of) thousands of hours in study and perfecting their sport. It is an investment that the vast majority of competitive chess players would not be willing to abandon. The best way to grow MC might be IMHO to license the idea to a game company that will in turn ship it to game stores. I don't mean to sound at all pessimistic about MC, I'm just trying to be honest.

The advantage of variant A is that it still allows the players to keep their investment as all the standard openings would still be viable. And as far as testing it, all it would take is a couple of readers here to play some blitz games and report back their experience. Any takers?

[Evert]

A. Black has option of knighting a pawn on reaching the second rank.
B. Both sides can optionally knight a pawn on 7th/2nd rank respectively.

Would anyone be willing to try this variant? Any thoughts about the idea? I'm very interested in the dynamics of A above as it would imo create some very intense situations between white's first move initiative and black's increased possibilities.

My current development version of SjaakII can now play this. I need to clean up the code a bit (and try to reclaim some of the speed hit this causes) but so far I don't have the impression it matters much for the outcome of the game, but I haven't played a statistically significant number of games.

I'll update when I know more.

[hgm]

It sounds like something you should never do. You would settle for a Knight when one move later you could have a Queen. Adding moves that no one would want to play won't alter the game. You might as well add the rule that black can also promote to white pieces.

If you want to create an asymmetry of that kind, it would have far more impact if you declared stalemate a win for black.

[Evert]

It sounds like something you should never do. You would settle for a Knight when one move later you could have a Queen. Adding moves that no one would want to play won't alter the game. You might as well add the rule that black can also promote to white pieces.

You say that as though it has no practical value at all

Anyway, even if this doesn't add much to the game, the effort of adding additional promotion zones isn't wasted, since SjaakII can now implement "by file" promotions. All I need now is a few interesting variants that have it. I've seen one source claim that Chaturanga had this, but I haven't been able to verify it. The only other game I managed to find that has it (apart from Grande Acedrex) is Viceroy Chess (which I'm fairly certain can't be a wholly modern invention). I'm sure there are more if I keep looking though.