Chess and I
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Chess and I: Contents
My own heterodox chess: the kind of variants I would like to propose if I proposed any
Some other pages soon to appear in this web space:
on Chinese chess, Korean chess, and Synochess;
on Spartan Chess, and other variants with more than one king per player;
on player-friendly piece design (graphics / symbols / set of pieces), or, in the figurative sense: who is willing to play blitz tournaments on a porcelain chessboard?
on usable and sensible names and identities for fairy chess pieces.
Who I am
I am Italian (Tuscany region) and was born in 1983. At the age of 9 I learned and loved the wonderful rules of the amazing game of chess. So, among other things, in several periods of my life I have played a lot of chess games, over the board or on digital devices. I have never studied theory but am a good amateur.
For online chess, I mostly play bullet. My favourite time settings are 2 0 and 1.5 0 (standard chess, touchscreen playing). I use both lichess+pychess and chess dot com.
In Spring 2024 I discovered I like some chess variants (heterodox chess) very much. I have a strong preference for 960 and other "scientific" variants: I mean the ones where only one rule or two/three interrelated rules are modified. -- Read this illuminating article! www.chess.com/news/view/new-alphazero-paper-explores-chess-variants.
My favourite chess variants
Some exciting variants help me to bear the pain of human condition:
960 aka Fischer Random,
Paradigm 30,
Seirawan,
Duck,
King of the Hill,
Three-Check,
Crazyhouse and Bughouse.
I also try to elevate my soul by resorting to very scientific chess variants such as
Torpedo, Sideways Pawns, Capture Anything.
I was enraptured by already mentioned Paradigm Chess30, a not-so-famous but very remarkable variant, invented in South Africa in 2020: paradigmchess30.com. It can be played on chess dot com, www.chess.com/variants/paradigm-chess30, and on one fork of pychess.
Paradigm Chess30 has 30 starting positions. If we apply the principles of Fischer Random, we'd get to 1320 starting positions. I'm looking forward to playing Paradigm Chess1320 too, how I suppose it should be called! (Precisely the principles of Fischer Random, with Fischer Random castling etc. In this case the result is 1320 instead of 960, because Paradigm Chess has no colour-bound pieces, and the Fischer Random constraint on opposite-coloured bishops would make no sense.) Here's my page on Paradigm Chess30, and 1320 as well -- with an important update on 1320 and its implementation on online platforms!
As far as very heterodox chess variants are concerned, for the most part I am little interested in them. However, I think I'd like to learn and practise Synochess and Spartan Chess -- providing a more player-friendly and self-explanatory piece design (graphics) will be available.
Not only chess
Some other chess-style games that I like and practise:
xiàngqí (xiangqi) aka Chinese chess;
hnefatafl, that is nieftable or fisttable or fistboard, aka tafl or the Viking game (Copenhagen variant and Tablut-w; see the World Tafl Federation website, aagenielsen.dk).
[KEYWORDS FOR GOOGLE SEARCH]
chess clock time rapid blitz lightning bullet 3 0 2 0 1 0 1.5 0 3 2
online touchscreen mouse over the board otb in person
lichess chess dot com chess.com pychess fics free chess
Paradigm Chess30 chess 30 Paradigm dragon bishop-xiangqihorse hybrid bishop-horse hybrid bishop xiangqi horse hybrid compound piece Dragon Bishops chinese knight chinese horse xiangqi knight MRL Chess Club Cape Town South Africa van Niekerk Willenberg - Miguel Illescas dragon chess
colour-bound color-bound pieces, constraint on opposite-coloured opposite-colored bishops castling 60 16 960 60 22 1320
960 Fischer Random Fischerandom, randomize randomise randomization randomisation Paradigm 30, Seirawan, Duck, King of the Hill koth, Three-Check, Crazyhouse, Bughouse
unambiguous words terms vocabulary wording
Torpedo, Sideways Pawns, Capture Anything petrify petrified chess no castling opposite castling heterodox chess non-orthodox unorthodox chess
Chinese chess, Korean chess, Synochess, Spartan Chess
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xiangqi xiàngqí Chinese chess janggi changgi cāngki cangki Korean chess
hnefatafl tafl Viking game Viking chess Copenhagen Tablut-w World Tafl Federation wtf aagenielsen.dk
italy italian tuscany tuscan florence chess club
emanuele saiu palamidessi emanuelesaiu saìu
italiano
circolo di scacchi circolo scacchistico di Montecatini Terme Valdinievole Pistoia Lucca Pisa Prato Firenze Toscana chiesina uzzanese ponte buggianese buggiano biblioteca fondazione poma pescia scacchi efimov
varianti scacchistiche scacchi eterodossi pezzi eterodossi pezzi fiabeschi pezzi magici
ortogonale diagonale ippogonale
pezzi ibridi pezzi composti cavallalfiere cavalloalfiere cavallotorre cavallodonna cavalloregina cavalloré cavallore torreré torrere regale non regale
amazzone cammello imperatrice cancelliere maresciallo consigliere giraffa cavalletta grillo principessa arcivescovo cardinale zebra elefante falco
scacchi trascendentali scacchi mostro scacchi con eserciti diversi
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scacchi cinesi scacchi coreani gioco vichingo scacchi vichinghi tavolo del re tavola del re tavolo del pugno tavola del pugno
scacchi del papero scacchi dell'anatra scacchi dell'anitra paperoscacchi anitroscacchi
pedoni missile pedoni siluro pedoni torpedo pedoni di lato cattura quel che vuoi cattura tutto catturatutto mangia tutto mangiatutto scacchi Seirawan scacchi suicidi antiscacchi scacchi atomici
tre scacchi triplo scacco re della collina