MindSports

Thank you for this site, very interesting and as good a job

It is not easy to reinvent the game of chess. I have invented a game that is different from all other chess variants. To see my new chess variant game go to this URL: http://connectcapture.blogspot.com/

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Rick Nordal

Very good site!

I just read your blog, I really love it

Regarding the history of Draughts - it occurs to me that there is a tendency to focus too much on the mechanics of the game and so disregard the influences of the cultures in which they arose.

Take Chess, for example. In Islamic cultures, the game is meant to be meditative. While in Western cultures, the emphasis is more on a rapid pace. So when Chess traveled from Persia to Medieval Europe, it went through a period of innovation to speed up the game. The Queen and the Bishops were given their long ranges and the Pawns gained their initial double-step. This means when a modern player, who is accustomed to FIDE Chess, tries playing Shatranj they tend to find the game slow and tedious, when it is really meant to be thoughtful and patient.

Looking at it from this perspective, it is no wonder that Checkers developed diagonally in Western Europe and orthogonally in Turkey. In Turkish Checkers, the Men do advance, just not as rapidly as their diagonal brethern. The Turkish Man progresses from a number of factors. First, because it can never move backwards, every move forwards makes progress inevitable. Second, because the two forces start off on opposing sides, combined with the element of cumpulsory captures, pieces will naturally be drawn towards one another. Third, in order to promote, a piece must reach the back rank.

In Western, diagonal Checkers, the Men advance at a more rapid pace. They are constantly compelled forward owing to the movement of the pieces themselves. In Turkish Checkers, progress is more ponderous and is due more to the underlying structure of the game.

It was better the chessboard small

Just found this site (EXCELLENT!)

Nice website! I think there's a typo in the Podolsky-Domsev game (http://www.mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/draughts/62-games?start=6): move 45, which in Traditional notation is 19-13, should be ed7, not ed8. This typo appears both in the Diagonal list of moves and in the Java applet.

Something is wrong with the co-ordinates for the new board for Go. The co-ordinates should be letters running horizontally and numbers vertically so that the A1 node is bottom left.

Thanks for developing site. Keep it up )