On Mar 23, 11:41 am, swmey...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
> Rich,
>
> Click on the box that says "Grand Chess Hex Dame Boards and Sets."
> The sets are way out of my price range but they do look nice.
Ok, I did see it. I wonder if there is a way in the USA to get it. I
didn't see exactly where to click, but I see the pieces.
> I would caution against an 8x8 variant of the game. Freeling's 10x10
> board greatly increases piece maneuverability and alleviates the
> staleness that tends to haunt the opening in chess-type games.
I will explain how gating works below (it is a concept that is seen).
The way it works in an opening it makes the opening not fixed.
> What is "gating," by the way? Is that some special method of entering
> chess pieces onto the board?
Gating is a specialized version of a drop, that is a way t get new
pieces on the board, from a non-fixed position. The difference
between a drop (Shogi style, placing pieces on a board in a zone) and
gating, is that gating is connected to pieces on the board by some
rules specific to the game. Pawn promotion would be a form of
gating. In this, the pawn is taken off the board, and a promote piece
is added.
Besides promotion, multiple chess variants in the past have used
gating in different ways. One starts with a chess knight that can
leave behind a piece on a space it vacated.
In 2007, Seirawan and Harper, thinking what to do to make chess
exciting again, used gating as a way to get pieces on the board in the
start of the game. They have a NR and a NB piece off the board. As a
piece in the back row moves out, a player can bring either the NR and
the NB into the game. The end result is a very wide open book, and a
game that is more dynamic. This approach can be used to bring other
pieces into chess. They don't call it gating though. It is just part
of their game. To be able to have it recognized as a new move type
for IAGO, it was called gating. When gating is referred to, the
version Seirawan and Harper use, is what is meant.
So, with gating, you not only get the new Capablanca pieces and a way
to a non-fixed opening. You also have a way to even add different
pieces later, or change the number of pieces off the board.
What is going on with IAGO is that the initial conversations with the
Seirawan chess people had been negative. They don't want the game
involved with IAGO (in form of IAGO World Tour) and don't want their
game changed in any way. They also have little regard for the variant
community (their changing the name and look away from the traditional
Capablanca and Grand Chess look and names is proof of this), so IAGO
has been looking for alternate way to use gating. The IAGO rules, as
a result, are sufficiently different from Seirawan Chess, and also set
up to be an evolving game of chess that can continue to change and
adapt. I will be looking, fairly soon, to get the rules up for IAGO
Chess on the chessvariants website for discussion.
- Rich
|
