Chess and I
2024-2026
2024-2026
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My gmail dot com address is emanuelesaiu
Chess and I: Contents
Paradigm30 ⁂ Paradigm Chess30, an outstanding variant
Spartan, Weak Dual, etc. ⁂ On Spartan Chess and Spartan Mirror, and other variants with more than one king per player
Shogi ⁂ The day I learned how to play shōgi (shogi, Japanese chess)
My favourite chess variants: see the list below, on this same page
Personal proposals ⁂ My own heterodox chess: the kind of variants I would like to propose if I proposed any
Piece symbols ⁂ 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?
Pictures (... some are very nice!) ♡
Shogi ⁂ More pictures: my shōgi board and pieces (shogi, Japanese chess) ♡♡♡
Some other pages soon(er or later) to appear, maybe, in this web space:
on hexagonal chess;
on Chinese chess, Korean chess, and Synochess;
on spending too much time on chess platforms.
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 -- with human opponents in either case. I have never studied theory but am a good amateur.
For online chess, I mostly play blitz and bullet. My favourite clock settings are 3|0, 2|1, 1|1 etc. -- standard chess, touchscreen playing. I use both lichess+pychess and chess dot com; and greenchess too. [Update, December 2024. I have recently started playing standard chess more offensively, more beautifully -- well, I'm trying. I sometimes watch GingerGM's videos.]
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;
King of the Hill;
Three-Check;
Crazyhouse (and Bughouse);
Seirawan (and Illescas Dragon);
Paradigm 30;
Duck;
Spartan and Spartan Mirror.
I also try to elevate my soul by resorting to very scientific chess variants such as
Torpedo; Sideways Pawns; Capture Anything; No Castling; Opposite Castling.
In December 2024 I began using the Hungarian website greenchess too. It's really a great heterodox chess platform, though without any chess clock.
The following greenchess.net variants can be added to my favourite ones: Weak Dual Chess, Royalty Transfer Chess; Knightmate (on pychess-alternates too); Nightrider Chess II (on pychess-alternates as well), Augmented Knight, Asymmetric Augmented Knight; Berolina Chess II aka Berolina Plus Chess; Perfect Chess, Chigorin Chess; Reversed Royals (that is normal chess with reverse aka rotational symmetry).
Here are other greenchess.net variants that I like: Coregal Chess (on pychess-alternates too, with different castling rules), [Strong] Dual Chess, Capture all; Berolina Chess (on pychess-alternates too); Bouncing Chess, Bouncing Chess II, Cylinder Chess; Circular Chess; Almost Chess, Sort of Almost Chess, Superqueen Chess, Top-heavy Chess; Active Chess (9x8 board), Superqueen Chess II (9x8 board); Corner Rook Chess, Adjutant Chess; Narrow Chess, with several stimulating subvariants; Far Chess; Near Chess. Hexagonal chess: McCooey's Chess, McCooey-Capablanca Chess, Gliński's Chess, Gliński-Capablanca Chess, Brusky's Chess (greenchess simplified ruleset), De Vasa's Chess, Shafran's Chess, Mini Hexchess.
Lastly, some other greenchess.net variants I have tried and might play again: Grasshopper Chess (on pychess-alternates too); Upside-down Chess; Monster Chess; Centaur Chess (10x8), Janus Chess (10x8), Capablanca's Chess (10x8), Gothic Chess (10x8), Nightrider Chess III (10x8); Short Rook Chess II; Advanced Pawn Chess; Pawn Endgame; Shifted Chess, with three subvariants; Diagonal Oblong Chess; Balbo's Chess; Cross Chess; L-Chess; Ladder Chess; Wide Chess; Los Alamos Chess, Diana Chess, and some other small-board variants. (I never play 3- and 4-player chess variants. Should I?)
In Spring 2024 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 (update: on pychess-alternates).
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 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. [Update, November 2024. I'm now familiar with Spartan Chess and Spartan Mirror. I like them very much, especially the latter. As for Synochess, maybe it's not for me.]
Why I like Reformed Courier Chess by Clément Begnis [new, June 2025]
I am against large board variants. Sometimes I do play Gothic Chess (aka Trice's Chess), on a 10x8 board, and it's ok. I may say I like it... But I'm against large boards.
Reformed Courier Chess by Clément Begnis (to be played on pychess-alternates) has a 12x8 board. That's very large. In spite of that, I find it's a very beautiful and interesting variant, for several reasons.
Shall I list and explain my reasons?... Well, too long. Anyway:
it's the best modern adaptation of the most important medieval "heterodox" chess variant in Europe;
it includes interesting and not so common fairy pieces, which are not super-strong pieces.
As for the names and symbols of the pieces, my opinion is that a (modern) bishop should always look like a (modern) bishop, and so on. I could repeat the same principles I expressed on my pages On usable and sensible names and On player-friendly piece design -- but I won't. I like the design choices of the pychess-alternates version better than the ones declared by Clément Begnis himself.
Here are some web links:
pychess-alternates.onrender.com/variants/reformedcourier
www.chessvariants.com/rules/reformedcourier-spiel
To conclude, a little piece of information about the French name Clément Begnis: the final S is to be pronounced -- not silent ("but there have already been debates about this in the family", personal communication).
Not only chess
Some other chess-style games that I like and practise:
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);
xiàngqí (xiangqi) aka Chinese chess;
[new, 2025] shōgi (shogi) aka Japanese chess;
[new, 2025] ASEAN chess (modernized form of South-East Asian chess, developed in 2011 -- cfr. makruk aka Thai chess, etc.).
[KEYWORDS FOR GOOGLE SEARCH]
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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
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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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hnefatafl tafl Viking game Viking chess Copenhagen Tablut-w World Tafl Federation wtf aagenielsen.dk
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emanuele saiu palamidessi emanuelesaiu saìu
--- italiano
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tre scacchi triplo scacco re della collina