Bosworth piece values

Bosworth is touted as "The Game You Already Know How to Play" because the pieces sin the game use the well-known moves of chess -- sort of.

I say sort of, because the pawns actually move a little different than their chess counterparts and Bosworth also doesn't have any of the special moves -- en passant and castling -- of chess.

I think Bosworth could have just as easily been called "knife fight chess" because that's how it really strikes me. The main battlefield is just a  four-by-four square -- a quarter of a chess board -- with an additional four-square "field camp" for each player for most of the game. Into this tiny battle field will foray up to 32 (in a 2-player games), 48 (3-player) or 64 (4-player) chess pieces!

It's a cvery close-range and chaotic fight that will leave players weighing captures and their relative values nearly every turn. But evaluating those captures by the tried-and-true valuations of regular chess is a mistake. The real values of the pieces in Bosworth are different.

In standard chess a pawn is usually valued as a "1." Knights and bishops are "3," with some authors giving the Bishop a slight edge. Rooks are usually valued at "5" while the queen is considered to be worth 9 pawns. The king, naturally, has an infinite value in regular chess because checkmate ends the game.

Pawn

A pawn in Bosworth is actually more powerful than a pawn in regular chess.  While like a normal chess pawn a Bosworth pawn can only move forward, in Bosworth forward is defined as towards an enemy field camp, which means the pawn can move sideways in the three and four-player games. And with a three or four players a Bosworth pawn can capture in any of the four diagonal directions so long as it doesn't end in its own field camp. The Bosworth pawn can even capture on its very first move in 4-player game. The relative mobility of the pawn is also greater in Bosworth because the board is so small. In regular chess a pawn 's normal move can only cover one-eighth of the board. In Bosworth it covers a fourth of the board. Bosworth pawns do give up the ability to be promoted, however.  So we can still rate a Bosworth pawn as being worth "1" for comparative purposes, keeping in mind that it's a a little better than a standard chess pawn if there are three or more players.

Knight

The Bosworth knight retains its value of a "3," largely because of its ability to jump, which has a heightened value on such a congested board. The knight's mobility is constricted compared to regular chess because it's almost always close to an edge. Only from the center four squares can the knight enjoy the full 8 potential landing squares that it enjoys from 16 squares in regular chess. Still, the jump makes up for that and a Bosworth knight is still worth three pawns so long as the board is crowded. In a 2-player game, however, I'd rate a knight as worth just 2 pawns. The jump move is more constricted by the board edges, the board is less crowded and the knight's moves more predictable.

Bishop

The Bosworth bishop is worth just 2 pawns. The small board reduces the value of sweeping mobility  that bishops,rooks and queens have in regular chess. In many squares the bishop has no advantage over a pawn as far as captures. The longest-range strike by a  bishop is just four squares -- and that's only possible to and from the end squares in the field camps.The maximum strike distance from a center square is just two squares.

Rook

A Bosworth rook is likewise not quite a s valuable as a regular rook and should be considered being wortj four pawns. The configuration of the board makes files more useful than diagonal moves. A rook can move up to five squares to make an attack and threatens an opposing field camp from its own field camp.

Queen

The Bosworth queen, on the other hand, is probably still worth 9 pawns and should always be saved for deployment near the end of the game when the battlefield has been cleared and she can use her mobility to the fullest. While the smaller board does constrict her mobility, the flexibility inherent in the queen move makes up for that in the end game.

King

A Bosworth king's value depends on how many kings are left. If he's the last king, then like a chess king his value is that of "game," but in a 3- or 4-player game a king's value has to be assessed against the board situation. Taking an opposing king doesn't just move a player closer to victory. It also instantly changes the geography of the board  as pieces are removed and field camp squares filled and adds a queen to the captor's hand as well.






The overall effect is that pawns in Bosworth play a much more aggressive role than they do in standard chess. They  essentially start at "mid-board" in standard chess terms. Pieces, other than the queen, are relatively less valuable than they are in standard chess, especially in the 3-player and 4-player set-ups. More important than the mere value of the chessmen is the timing and placement of them.

Abalone at 25, new classic or just another game?

Abalone in close up

With a new variant for Abalone called Off Board apparently on its way to America, it's worth taking a look at how the original game has fared now that a quarter century has passed.

Abalone is in that family of games known as "abstracts" or "perfect information" games, so called because there are no hidden or random elements. Both players have complete information about the board situation at all times and perfect control over their own moves. The classic games of chess and go are probably the best known of this type of game, but creating new ones has been a fascination for game designers for generations.

Yet despite thousands of attempts, no new abstract has ever really threatened the preeminence of chess in the West or Go in the East. While neither of those classic games is the top dog among the denizens of Boardgame Geek's gamer hobbyists, both rate reasonably high and neither has any real context in the general culture. Both Chess and Go have their own devoted cadres of hobbyists with their own Internet sites, publications, tournaments, professional players and general infiltration into the popular culture. Some modern games have also achieved this status such as Monopoly and Magic: The Gathering, but there are themed games with random elements and/or hidden information.

Standard set up for Abalone

When it first appeared in the late 1980s and 1990 Abalone caused quite a stir and was widely available in non-game retailers. It won a bunch of awards at various game festivals and publications and the company even started a "North American Federation of Abalone." (Oddly, while abalone is a fish, the game's name is either a play off the graphic design of the word which can be read "3 2 ONE" on its side or from an odd combo of Latin and English  AB (Latin away from) + ALONE = ABALONE (Unity in strength) according to Vol. 1 No. 1 of the NAFA Newsletter in 1991. Evidently there was no issue No. 2.

There were cash prizes for tournament winners and the other trappings of new game hype. I remember seeing a very nice over sized wooden version of the game played at Origins around 1995.

And it is a very nice looking game. The large glass marbles are striking and the unique, patented game board are very eye-pleasing.

Abalone is hardly dead. BoardGame Geek reported plays show it has  steady fan base. In 2011, for example, there were 31 to110 plays reported each month by between 1 and 27 unique users, a very respectable pace for a two-decade old game. Its wide availability is attested by the fact that 3,555 BGG members report owning a copy.

Abalone's claim to fame is it's unique "pushing" mechanic, where the players battle over the board by using groups of two or three marbles to literally push a smaller group of one or two marbles as part of their move. If a marble is pushed off the board it is captured and the first player to push off six marbles wins the game.

It can be a very fast playing game, illustrated by many of ts fans who report playing a couple of dozen games in a session. it's easy to teach to children and unlike many abstracts it has a nice tactile element that's hard to replicate on  a screen, so I think it has some resistance to being replaced entirely by electronic versions.

The original game is just two-player, but more marbles in additional colors can be purchased and there are some multiplayer variants. I have a third set of marbles and have played the 3-player variant. The new Off Board edition appears to be a 4-player version of the game.

"A New Classic" Vol. 1, No. 1, Oct. 1991

Yet despite being widely available, still played and an award-winning game, Abalone is still no real contender for the "Classic" crown. I think the basic problem for the game is that there's really not all that much there there. One problem endemic to evenly matched perfect information games is the tendency to be  drawish. While it's very hard to actually stalemate a game of Abalone (I have read that it's possible) the course of the game between two evenly matched players is likely to be very much like a sumo match. Am awful lot of pushing and shoving that;s opportunistic but very little in the way of actual strategy.

And this, I think, is its problem, While there are plenty of players who aren't into having a heavy dose of strategy in their games, they don't tend to be the players of perfect information abstracts. Abalone is, really, what I like to call a "trivial" game, in that it can be fun, but there's little incentive to indulging in a lot of analysis. In other genres game like this tend to have heavy luck elements such as the card games Fluxx and Munchkin or dice games like Cosmic Wimpout or Can't Stop. Not so much with perfect information abstracts where there's too much of a risk of becoming a solvable puzzle like Tic Tac Toe.

Among all the forum postings about Abalone on BGG there's just one short one on strategy, that points out the value of holding the center space on the board. That's just not much to build a "classic" game on after 25 years.

Games everywhere

Took a ride down to New Jersey today to visit friends. I happened to stop at a urban Dunkin Donuts in Plainfield, N.J. for an ice coffee and came across a bunch of guys playing chess in the coffee shop.

Aside from one older gentlemen, everyone else looked to be 20-something and 30-something African-American men. There were two games going on, each using a set that looks like the tournament sets you can get from the US Chess Federation, similar to this:


I'm not sure if the observers were there just to kibitz or to play. One game wrapped up just before I left and the same two players were setting up for another go. It appeared to me that this was some sort of regular gathering, from the way everyone interacted. It was a nice reminder of how you don't have to be a game hobbyist to get a lot out of gaming. Earlier that day while we were visiting I notice that there was a Monopoly game set up in our friend's living room (and they are definitely not gamers).

I know that Monopoly, and even chess, are looked down on in some hobby gamer circles, but I think it's nice to see any kind of gaming going on out there. There's a lot more to the board game scene than just Settlers of Catan or Tide of Iron

Thought experiment; games you could play via Twitter

I'm recently on Twitter, although I'm not sure I'm getting the most out of it. I don't live the sort of hyperactive urban young professional lifestyle that I think it's most aimed at.

On the other hand, I could see some use for it, one of which is playing a quick PBeM-style game against a friend also on Twitter. So what kind of games could work on Twitter, given its extremely low bandwidth.

Chess would probably be pretty easy. Chess notation is very efficient and there are easily portable magnetic chess sets that would be easy to use for a running game.

I think some other chess-like games might also work, although in some cases you'd probably have to leave it set up at a specific site and you might need to invent a short notation style.
Examples might include Proteus, Navia Dratp and Shogi.

If both players have the necessary books, it should be possible to play Ace of Aces or Lost Worlds, although with so many different Lost Worlds books it might be hard to find a match.

I think Diplomacy might be possible to play with a combination of Twitter and emails. It would be easy enough for a GM to take orders via Twitter and for players to negotiate via the service, but reporting adjudications would probably need an email.

Chess book review: The Immortal Game - A History of Chess by David Shenk

Most chess books are by chess experts, often the top-ranked players of the game. This is all well and good most of the time, but it does leave a gap in the literature for this remarkable game, because most of us are not experts and never will be. Yet chess is more than just a game for experts. It has infiltrated the culture so deeply that every educated person is expected to know enough about how the game is played that they can make sense of analogies to pawns, understand that a contest is over when checkmated and that the queen in chess is the most powerful piece.

With the possible exception of Monopoly, no game has such a lock on popular references, so it's appropriate to look at chess not just as a game, but as a phenomenon. Describing the fascinating history of chess in a way that is not dry or too technical is a challenge, however, but David Shenk hit upon an interesting solution with his 2006 book by framing his narrative around what may be the most famous single game of chess ever played, The Immortal Game played in 1851 between Adolph Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritsky. This astounding game saw Anderssen sacrifice both of his rooks AND his queen on his way to checkmating Kieseritsky! I think it's truly an eye-opening game for any novice chess player to view, because it shook shake them out of any overly materialistic or attrition-based view of strategy.

On his way through describing The Immortal Game Shenk discusses the hsitory of the game from its obscure origins somewhere in the Indian subcontinent, through its popularization by Arab culture to its signifaicnt rules changes at the hands of Europeans that resulted in the game that's become the global standard. He discusses the great figures of chess such as Morphy, Nimzowitsch, Fischer and Kaparov. He explains the different styles of play such as Romantic, Scietific and Hypermodern. And he takes us through a personal journey that any casual player of the game can understand.

Shenk has more than a casual connection to the game. His great great grandfather was Samuel Rosenthal, a noted player in the latter part of the Nineteenth Century himself. Shenk, himself, dabbled in the game as a young man, then didn't play for years before rediscovering the game in 2002. Unwilling to devote the effort needed to become even a bad chess player, he decided instead to write a good chess book.

The Immortal Game is well-worth the read. I doubt experienced chess players will learn much new to them, but for the rest of us it's a great read.

Too cool

Proteus -- when is a chess variant, not?

Steve Jackson must have a soft spot for chess variants. Although Steve Jackson Games doesn't really have a very extensive line, and what it does have tends to be stuff that beats a game theme to death (Munchkin, OGRE, Illuminati, GURPS etc.), SJG has no less than three different chess variants for sale.

Or does it?

Tile Chess and Knightmare Chess are clearly chess variants. Both use the rules and pieces of chess and just add some new twists.

Proteus, however, while it appears to be a chess variant, could arguably be something quite different. It's a different sort of abstract game that merely borrows the moves of chess pieces.

The usual rule for judging whether a game is in the chess family is the knight move, which is unique to chess. Proteus does have the knight move, so it can be considered a chess-family game. And it does use the same board as chess. And, of course, it uses many of the same pieces of chess and their symbols, although also adding one new piece. In all these ways it looks like a chess variant.

But the game plays a lot differently than chess, not the least because the object of the game has been changed. There is no King in Proteus and therefore no check or checkmate. Victory comes from scoring the most points. One can also win by forcing a situation where the other side can't move, but the main way to win is by attrition.

This difference in objective, as well as the rotation of pieces between identities, makes for a very unchess-like game. I think it's different enough, in fact, that I'd hesitate to call it a chess variant at all. It seems to be an abstract strategy game that borrowed some moves and nomenclature from chess, instead.

Tile Chess -- quick review

Chess variants seem to come in two main flavors. In the first, new pieces, rules or squares are added to create a chess-like game that expands the decision-making tree. I haven't done a survey, but this seems to be the most common kind of variant.

The second type of variant takes the familiar pieces of chess and places them in some new environment. This usually creates a game that isn't very chess-like at all, although it can fool you at first. I think the game effect is to create a feeling of delight as you get to see something familiar in a different light. Bosworth (reviewed earlier) is that sort of a game, and so is Tile Chess.

Tile chess appears to dispense with the game board, as players lay down tiles bearing the image of the standard chess pieces and then, once all have been placed, move them in accordance with the standard rules of chess, with once exception. Pawns in Tile Chess can move one space orthogonally in all four directions and capture diagonally in all four directions, instead of just "forward" as in standard chess.

I say "appears" to dispense with the board, because it's really still there, just "virtual." Tile Chess can be played with no changes on a visible grid, and the designer even suggests people do so if it helps them visualize things. Indeed, this might be a use for those unwanted copies of Warmaster Chess 2000!

The actual fundamental rule of Tile Chess is the Unity Rule, which requires that every piece must end its move adjacent to some other piece orthogonally or diagonally and no piece can move in such a way as to break the chain of pieces of stranding a piece. Most of the rest of the rules in the game deal with the implications and complications of this rule.

What you end up with is a game that resembles a knife fight between opponents tied at the wrist. Unlike standard chess, which unfolds with a development phase and involves maneuvering for advantage over the course of several turns while building combinations of supporting pieces, Tile Chess is a bloody close-quarters brawl. Players start fully intertwined and pieces will fly off the playing surface at a rapid clip. The game can be played with up to six players, which will make chess-style long-range planning nearly impossible.

The rules include a few variants for set-up and play, including rules for combining Tile Chess with Knightmare Chess for those who need their chaos squared.

Tile Chess is a wild game. It's really too chaotic to develop much in the way of game theory, particularly in multi-player versions, but it's a fun filler. Games will tend to end quickly and decisively because a player who captures an enemy king can add the surviving pieces from that army to his own, meaning that it's possible to swiftly acquire a dominating board position with a well-timed capture.

About the only caveat I have about the game is that purchasers may find the components a little on the cheap side for the price. All the game is comprised of is a four-page rule book and 96 rather thin tiles with chess icons contained in a thin box. While the $9.995 price isn't steep, it still seems that the components don't justify the price tag. I would have preferred more substantial, euro-style tiles that could stand up to repeated playings.

Warmaster Chess 2000, review of the most hated wargame ever

Warmaster Chess 2000 is probably the most despised wargame ever published.

But it's a chess variant, not a wargame, you protest.

Precisely.

Warmaster Chess 2000 was the issue game in Command No. 49. Evidently the wargame planned for that issue fell through, so editor Ty Bomba, in an epic miscalculation, decided to go ahead and publish anyway, relying on Warmaster Chess 2000, which had been planned to be a mere supplementary bonus game, to carry the whole load. To characterize the reactions of the subscribers as negative would put it mildly. Command, which had established itself as the magazine-with-a-wargame-in-it that actually came out on a strict schedule (As opposed to S&T and Counterattack), had seen that reputation seriously damaged in 1998 as cash flow and printer problems disrupted its publication schedule. Undoubtedly this played a role in Bomba's anxiousness to get an issue out.

Cash flow problems are dangerous for any business, but small businesses are especially vulnerable. It's possible that Command wouldn't have recovered in any case, but the timing of the Warmaster Chess debacle could hardly have been worse. Command had burst onto the scene dramatically with a free issue mailed to thousands of wargamers. Many were impressed enough to subscribe starting with issue No. 2, so issue No. 49 represented a decision point for many who had been loyally resubscribing in 6- and 12-issue increments. I'm not aware of any figures being released, but the fact is that Command limped along with a very irregular and sparse publication schedule from that point forward. It finally expired with Issue No. 54 in 2001.

Warmaster Chess 2000 might have found a receptive audience if published in a general interest gaming magazine or among chess players, but a wargame audience expecting a real wargame was appalled.

(Vol. 1) Issue 49

And. in truth, the initial outing in the Warmaster Chess series was pretty lame. The essential feature of the variant was expanding the playing surface four squares in every direction, ending up with a 16 by 16 grid (256 squares of standard chess' 8x8 64-square grid. That's it. Later there were new pieces, discussed below, but the initial offering was simply a bigger board and a few rules for using it. If some of the later ideas had been included off the bat perhaps the game would have had a chance, but I suspect many, if not most subscribers, were so angry that they never even looked at the later iterations of Warmaster Chess.

The four variants presented in the first volume were "Deep Battle," "Mongol," "East Front" and "Victor Charlie."

Deep Battle Chess is merely standard chess with a standard setup in the middle of the expanded board. This naturally creates a more free-wheeling game because the pieces no longer have to wait for pawn development to open up lines of attack.

Mongol Chess is the same, except only one side (the "Mongol") can move in the "outer" board. If it does, it's "Khan" (king) is immobilized as long as any pieces are on the outer board. Pawns are not eligible for promotion in this variant. The idea seems to be to encourage short flanking moves by the Mongol player.

East Front Chess replaces every piece except the king and the pawns with queens. This naturally makes the game even more free-wheeling. Pawns also can't be promoted in this variant. This one is for those players who always want to play with King Tiger tanks in wargames.

Victor Charlie chess takes advantage of the fact the pieces are counters rather than actual chess pieces to introduce a hidden movement variant where all the pieces inverted, but otherwise act normally. Each player sets up in the same spaces as the standard set up, but can vary which piece goes where. There's no "check" or "checkmate" in this variant and players lose when their king is captured.

Interim grade "F" -- Mildly interesting chess variants presented in a completely off-putting way to a wargame audience. Inadequate value. Some of the ideas presented later (see below) should have been included in this initial outing. Doing so might have salvaged something.

Vol. 2 (Issue 50)

This was a supplementary game in Issue 50, which included a real wargame again (the prescient Back to Iraq 2nd ed.)

Each of the subsequent volumes of Warmaster Chess included the expanded map and enough pieces to play all the variants presented in that issue, so there was no need to have the earlier edition. Still, considering the negative reaction that Warmaster Chess had already engendered, it's amazing that Bomba forged ahead with the project.

Volume two introduced 'Wide & Deep Battle Chess" which took the next logical step of simply doubling all the pieces (except the king and queen) and making a bigger chess game that way. Unlike standard chess, the opposing battle lines didn't quite reach the edge of the board, so there was still room for flanking movements and less corresponding need for pawn development.

Vol. 2 also introduced variants adding a couple of new pieces and a few new rules for existing pieces. The new pieces were the "catapult" which operates similarly to the cannon in Chinese chess and the "Longrider" -- a sort of longer-raged knight. Fairly conventional chess variants. The new rules added a "Rook Charges" which allows a rook to move through a friendly pawn (killing it) on its way to make a capture and "Ricochet Bishop" which allows bishops to "ricochet" off the board edge pool-style. Both of these rules are standard chess variants but are useful in the expanded board of Warmaster Chess. The final rule adds additional movement power to the Queen to create a "Princess" "Empress" or "Amazon." The "Princess" moves as either a bishop or a knight and the "Empress" moves as the rook and the knight, both of which actually reduces the power of the queen, especially on the bigger board used in Warmaster. On the other hand, the "Amazon" moves as a Queen but adds the ability to move as a knight, too, creating a very powerful piece.

Second interim grade "D" -- Somewhat more interesting, although not departing from the usual chess variants. If these rules had been included in the initial version maybe people wouldn't have been quite so mad.

Vol. 3 (Issue 51 - real wargame the Fire Next Time)

This version is mostly about adding new pieces and some odd new rules.

The new pieces include the "Wazir/Sapper" which is a somewhat more powerful pawn and mine remover (see below) and the Uhlan, which can move in just one direction like a rook or change facing. Some new counters that are not pieces are "Mountains" which basically create an impassible square and "Land Mines" which create four potentially "mined" squares. each player places four mines (two real and two dummy) and they will destroy any piece that lands on a real mine.

New rules include "Suicide" which allows player once per game to remove one of his own pieces; "Hop-Skip which allows a once-per-game jump by a bishop or rook over another piece and "Atomic Pawn" which allows a once-per-game suicide blast by a pawn that destroys itself and all adjacent pieces. Some folks may find this piece overpowered and distasteful, given the prevalence of suicide bombers today. Fortunately this rule, like all the rules in Warmaster Chess, are completely optional and can be mixed and matched in any way desired.

Finally there is "Mutually Assured Destruction." With this rule each player secretly picks a counter bearing the name of a type of piece (such as Rook). If the opposing player makes a capture with that piece type the player can expend the MAD counter to destroy the capturing piece, too.

This volume also adds three new ways to play Warmaster: Meeting Engagement -- starting at the board edge; Deep Battle Chess Kriegspiel -- using three sets and an umpire for hidden movement; and Deep Battle Bughouse using two sets for team play.

Third Interim Grade "C" -- Finally introducing some worthwhile and interesting variants. this was far too late.


Variants (Issue 52 & 53 which were published jointly)

This final iteration of the Warmaster Chess 2000 series was the star of the bunch, introducing some very interesting variants and new ways to play. If only this had been first ... .

The first variant is called "Chess Battle" which actually isn't a Warmaster Chess variant at all, but a 1933 Soviet chess variant that translated 20th century military units into chess-like pieces. The game includes Infantry, Tank, Field Gun, Machinegun, Cavalry, Fighter-bomber and headquarters pieces. The HQ is basically a chess king. The fighter-bomber (one per side) is a queen with the additional power of being able to jump over one friendly piece per move. Tanks (one per side) are rooks, but can move just 2 squares. Field guns (2 per side) move as kings but can "bombard" an enemy piece up to five squares away so long as there is no intervening piece. Machineguns (2 per side) also move like kings and can also remove an enemy piece by fire like a field gun, except only three squares away. Cavalry (2 per side) is knight-like in its moves, except it can vary the move from 2 to 6 squares. Infantry ( 15 per side) moves like kings.

The second rule section adds an "airpower module" to Warmaster Chess 2000. This adds four F-22 fighters to each side which have tremendous movement abilities, two altituides and the ability to "strike" enemy pieces (except for the king). Regular pieces have the ability to fire "flak" at passing planes with varying chance s of success based on a d6 die roll. Adding planes to the mix changes the entire nature of the game . Basically, the game will hinge on the outcome of the air superiority battle and nothing much is likely to happen until that's determined. If one side achieve air superiority it will have a powerful tool to set up a winning move later on.

The final section adds five more variant pieces to Deep Battle Chess: Air Cavalry; Bulldozer, Grappler, Phalanx and Mimic. The Air Cav piece can move and capture within two squares of its position in varying combinations that can include capturing two pieces in one turn. It's a powerful piece within its limited range. The bulldozer moves like a queen but doesn't capture. Instead it pushes pieces one square, possibly an entire chain of pieces, making it an interesting support piece. The grappler also moves like a Queen but also has no capturing power. Instead, it immobilizes any enemy pieces that start their move net to the grappler. A grappler can be captured by an enemy piece that starts its move more than one square away, though, so it's fairly easy to counter. A Phalanx moves one square forward or sideways, but any distance to the "rear." It's invulnerable to capture from its front. The final new piece is the "Mimic" which copies the move of the last enemy piece moved.

Interim grade: "B" -- This is, by far, the best offering in the series. If it had been first, especially with "Chess Battle" it could have been sold as at least somewhat wargame-related. Instead it was last and I doubt many subscribers gave it a second glance.

Overall grade: "D" -- Despite finishing strong, initial impressions counted the most and Warmaster Chess 2000 has to go down in wargame history as one of its biggest failures. For players willing to give it a fair shot -- and who have an interest in chess variants -- there's some value in the game. For wargamers -- and they were the audience that counted for a wargame magazine -- there's nothing worthwhile and their disappointment and anger is understandable.

Bosworth has been out 10 years already

I picked up Bosworth just last year, but I've seen it around for a while.

I finally decided to pick it up after reading a few remarks about it on BoardGame Geek.

I'm a fairly indifferent chess player, being unwilling to spend the time and effort required to get good at it, although I like the game and play it fairly often on a purely casual basis. Being a casual chess player, I'm attracted to chess variants. Real chess players generally seem devoted to playing the game as it is, not messing with it.

I figure my best chance of beating a real chess player would be while playing some variant that disrupts his/her advantage.

Bosworth is an especially disruptive chess variant. While the pieces generally move just like chess pieces (the main difference being pawns, which gain a small, but significant improvement in mobility) the constricted 4x4 square battlefield and semi-random deployment of pieces make it seem a bloody as the first day of the Somme and nearly as chaotic.

Consider that, in a 4-player game, as many as 64 pieces are going to be introduced to that 4x4 battlefield (plus 16 more spaces of "camp" that eventually disappear). Further considering that the board situation will change three times between each player's move and you have a game that's opportunistic to the extreme. So the entire character of the game is different from chess, which rewards careful planning, combinations and the ability to "see" several moves in advance. In Bosworth none of these factors are important. Planning is almost impossible. Combinations are rare and unstable. And, especially in 3- and 4-player games, it's really not possible to "see" past your next move -- and maybe not even that.

It's fun, wild and woolly, but not much like chess!

Top Go player beaten by computer

This BoardgameGeek thread discusses: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/2230504#2230504

I think that it's likely that all nonrandom pure abstracts can be eventually "solved" once computing power and program sophistication improve enough.

Checkers apparently is there already and chess is nearly so. Go has had a reputation for being deeper than chess and the difficulty programmers have had creating skilled AI for it supports that view.

But without random elements any game is subject to having its decision tree mapped out completely in theory, although in practice it may involved too many variables to be doable. Consider, for example, a super chess that has double the number of pieces or adds new pieces such as Warmaster. The possible games might approach the number of atoms in the galaxy.

This is why the 9x9 game of Go will be solved long before the 19x19 game, unless, of course, programmers can discover the organizing principles that human minds use to narrow the number of choices to a manageable number. It may turn out that intuition may be quantifiable. For example, chess masters can more easily remember the locations of pieces when they are in legal positions than illegal setups because of the pattern recognition involved.

Pattern recognition is the secret to human intelligence and computers are likely to have trouble competing in tasks involving this skill until it's secret is discovered.

Bobby Fischer

I followed the 1972 Fischer-Spassky match closely, although I was far too weak a chess player to fully appreciate what was going on.
Still, it was nice to see a board game capture the attention of the public. The match catapulted chess into the American consciousness and things have never been quite the same for the game. Even people who've never played have an appreciation and respect for the game.
My children's elementary school had a chess club, like many across America. Here in New London there's ChessFest every year. Each is a small legacy of Fischer.
It's a shame that Fischer, himself, was such a troubled and self-centered person that he doesn't seem cared much about the impact he had on others. And there's no denying that he became a distinctly unpleasant person with obnoxious political views.
Fortunately for him, though, the memory of his antics will fade with time. But the brilliance of his game play will endure among students of the game for centuries to come. He won't be the first brilliant chess mind to be revealed as a flawed human being, but like his predecessors that won't matter much.

Game of the Week: Military Chess

After about half a century of board wargaming, it's easy to forget how ground-breaking Charles Roberts was with his Tactics wargame. His innovative design broke through the chess-like mindset that hamstrung wargame designers up to that point.

Military Chess (1959) a contemporary of Roberts' Tactics design, shows the limits that kept chess-like games from evolving into real wargames as we understand them today. Set on the familiar 64-square battlefield and using abstract capabilities similar to chess, the game isn't much of a military simulation, despite the hype on the box.
It isn't really even a true chess variant, as no piece in the game has the chess knight move, which, being unique to chess, is considered its signature move.

The game board is an 8x8 grid of squares, with an alternating pattern of lighter and darker spaces overlaying a military-style contour map with various military symbols here and there. None of that affects play and is purely decorative. Even the light and dark squares don't serve any game purpose, as there is no diagonal movement or bishop's move in the game.

The two sides are separated by a river that divides the board in two, crossed at four spots by bridges. This gives the game a slight resemblance to Chinese Chess, which also has a water obstacle. Each side also has two minefields with divide its own sector into two parts. The mines obstruct two square boundaries, leaving a couple of passes.

There are 12 plastic pieces on each side showing military figures in the "flats" format that was formerly pretty popular for toy soldiers.
Deployed on the second row, in line with the bridges are four "advance guards" (pawns). These pieces have more movement capability than chess pawns, being allowed to move and capture up to two squares distant forward or sideways, but never to the rear. Like pawns they can be promoted if they make it the 8th row.
Deployed on the first row are more powerful pieces. On each flank (in the chess rook position) are "cannons." These are slow-moving but powerful pieces. They can move just a single space forward, sideways or backwards, but can "fire" up to three spaces distant to eliminate an enemy piece. The only restriction is that they have to be aimed in the proper direction, which takes a move and therefore may give the endangered piece a chance to escape. Alone among the pieces in the game, cannons are allowed to point and fire diagonally, otherwise there is no diagonal movement or capture in the game.
Next to each cannon (in the chess knight position) are "infantrymen." These are fairly weak pieces, with the same 2-square move as the advanced guards, except the infantrymen can also move backwards.
In the middle four squares are the "general" (king) "tank" (rook), "engineer" and "recon."
The engineer (also called a bazooka-man in the rules) and recon (depicted by a jeep) move exactly the same, up to three squares forwards, backwards to the side. This makes them somewhat more powerful than most other pieces, but still much less dynamic than chess bishops or knights. The tank moves like the chess rook, making it the most powerful piece in this game, which lacks a queen-equivalent. The general moves one space like the cannon. The game is won by capturing the enemy general OR advancing your general to row 8.

Overall, the game play is slower than chess, with only one piece per side (the tank) able to traverse the whole board in a single move, compared to five in chess (queen, 2 rooks, 2 bishops). In that way is resembles Chinese Chess a little. Overall it's harder for pieces to support one another, so there's less scope for intricate combinations like chess.

Apparently, despite its patent, the 1959 game is based on an 1880s-era game with the same name and similar pieces. Judging from a photograph of the older game there were fewer pieces, just infantry (6) cavalry (4) and cannons (2). Without a general there must also have been some significant rules differences as well.

All-in-all, there's not much to recommend Military Chess as a game. It's not anymore of a military simulation than regular chess and not as interesting as the parent game. It is of some interest as a collectible.

Variants:

In order to make the game a true chess variant, it needs a piece with a knight's move. Fortunately a suitable piece is at hand. Give the Jeep (recon) the option of changing direction once during its move (which is otherwise prohibited in the game). This gives it the functional equivalent of a knight's move.

The game as published has no difference between the recon (jeep) and engineer (bazooka-man), which is a missed opportunity. Besides giving the jeep the knight's move, as a further variant give the engineer some special movement powers as well by allowing it to cross minefields or rivers so long as it starts its move adjacent to the obstacle. This gives the piece some engineer-like powers while opening the game up a little more.

With these two variant rules these two pieces gain powers making them more like true chess major pieces instead of slightly souped-up pawns.

Game of the week: Chess and Chessfest 2007

Chess, similar to Go, is a tough game for the "gamer" to get into. By a "gamer" I mean the sort of person who likes games generally, as epitomized by the folks over at http://www.boardgamegeek.com/.
The problem is that Chess,like Go, is a profoundly deep game of longstanding and intense devotion among a fairly large group of players. It has its own literature, clubs and professional players. It's been intensely analyzed to such an extent that a casual player will have no chance of winning against an aficionado. Unlike Backgammon or Poker, where the presence of a certain amount of luck provides scope for an upset, in Chess and Go there's no external factor that can help the casual player.
Being a gamer of eclectic tastes then, it's no surprise that I'm only an indifferent chess player. I have a few books, coached my kids' chess club in school and fiddled around with playing for about 40 years. But I've never devoted any study to chess openings, which is pretty much a prerequisite for serious play, so I don't consider myself a serious chess player.
But I do enjoy watching a good game and like to see the game become more popular, so it was nice to see that the local Chessfest event in New London seems to be off to a good start. I missed it entirely last year because of military duty and I wasn't able to take part this year because of some local "family taxi" chores, but I did get to observe some of it. It looks like several dozen people took part in three divisions -- youth, amateur and open. It was a diverse group too: Male and female, tiny and grey-bearded, American- and foreign-born.
I do think I'll go ahead and take a stab at it next year. I may not do very well, it it sure did look like everyone was enjoying themselves.