The one thing I don't understand is whether or not each chess round is a new game, or if the chess round is paused to start the boxing round. I'm just at the minimum requirement for chess, and not that many of my games end in a draw.
> The concept of chessboxing was first coined in the 1979 kung fu film Mystery of Chessboxing made by Joseph Kuo. In homage to the film, the Wu-Tang Clan brought chessboxing into popular consciousness for the first time in 1993, when they released the song "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'".
Not to mention the preprogrammed (memorized) series of follow up moves to the move you just made. This basically throws unpredictability in an otherwise predictable set of moves. If I’m thinking of taking your queen, and that action requires me to setup no more than 4 moves to do it, how can I be sure a giant f$&@ duck doesn’t ruin my plans? Brilliant way to keep the game fresh and “in the moment”
This is damn genius and seems pretty fun! The fact the new figure is in joint control is mind-blowing and throws most traditional strategies out of the window hahaha
hah, what a fun variant. Some of the most fun I've ever had playing chess has been "bughouse" (aka tandem chess). It's basically 2v2 chess with the trick being, you and your partner play opposite colors. Whenever you capture a piece, you hand it to your partner, and they can drop it anywhere they like on their board.
.. it's not that extremely buggy. Once in a while you can't move or something, but then a page refresh solves it. Less than in 1 game out of 1000 games or so. (I just estimated according to the number of my games and memories.)
You might also look at Japanese chess (Shogi) - when you capture a piece, you take it off the board and then can drop it back on the board as your piece as a future move. The pieces are not colored, so you tell who has which piece by their orientation.
The language describing the rules is not 100% clear:
> Each player’s turn always consists of two actions: (1) making a standard chess move, and then (2) moving the duck to any empty square on the board. (The duck must be moved – it cannot be left where it is.)
You have to make your move, and move the duck. Do you have to do them in that order? (ie, is it legal to move the duck first, then your piece?)
I suspect there is an implied "in order" there, otherwise the impact of the duck-block is not as profound.
It might be hair splitting, but I've seen rules fights on smaller points!
edit: yea, I need to read more carefully. I missed the "and then" which is the clarification I was after. Thank you for pointing that out.
Yeah, the "and then" implies you first move and then move the duck. At least that's how it makes sense to me. That way you're blocking your opponent's move with the duck.
> In passing, we note that if it were Black to move in the above position, he would have an immediate win with Qxg2@f3, followed by capturing White’s king next turn
I don’t understand. Since there is no check in duck chess, couldn’t white king just capture black queen (Kxg2) following this move?
Unrelated, but reminds me of another story featuring Chess and a Duck, and also relevant to the HN audience, which relates to the old videogame Battle Chess: https://bwiggs.com/notebook/queens-duck/
Maybe, originally, chess did have the duck, but when presented to the emperor, he wanted to have it removed. So duck chess is actually now reverting to the pure, original form!
The creator of this game must clearly have been inspired by another of the 20th century’s great contributions to the dynamic puzzle canon: 1983’s Chuckie Egg:
”Eight levels are played initially under the watch of a giant caged duck. [The player is then] pursued by the freed duck flying around the screen and homing in on him.”
I just received my copy of Iro today [1], which I backed on Kickstarter. It's similar to checkers and I'm enjoying it so far. I think I might need to try it with a little rubber duck.
Interesting! Not sure I would describe it as a draughts variant, given that the pieces all move differently. It seems like it would be very hard to evaluate a board position but maybe you get used to all the colors.
You could reduce the first-player advantage a tiny bit by allowing Black to place the duck at the start of the game, instead of starting it off the board. Presumably Black would place it on d3 or e3.
(Some people think reducing the first-player advantage would be valuable. I'd rather increase it, like in tennis).
Curious to think about the endgame implications of this. I am wondering if queen and king is even enough to win against a king only.
I guess the winning pattern is to force the opposing king to move into your king at the edge of the board but not clear how to march the king into a corner if he has an untakeable blocker to move every turn. Any ideas?
You can utilize the fact that the other player HAS to move the duck each turn.... put it in the place you want to go, then they have to move it somewhere else on their turn.
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 106 ms ] threadIndeed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing
3m chess round, 3m boxing round, 3m chess round, 3m boxing round, etc
> The concept of chessboxing was first coined in the 1979 kung fu film Mystery of Chessboxing made by Joseph Kuo. In homage to the film, the Wu-Tang Clan brought chessboxing into popular consciousness for the first time in 1993, when they released the song "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'".
(I feel it should be grey not yellow.)
.. it's not that extremely buggy. Once in a while you can't move or something, but then a page refresh solves it. Less than in 1 game out of 1000 games or so. (I just estimated according to the number of my games and memories.)
It was also an excellent way of introducing chess in a fun way, much like Duck Chess.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bughouse_chess
Game 2000: AlphaZero learns to defend against AlphaZero's duck use
Game 3000: AlphaZero learns ways around AlphaZero's defenses against AlphaZero's duck use
> Each player’s turn always consists of two actions: (1) making a standard chess move, and then (2) moving the duck to any empty square on the board. (The duck must be moved – it cannot be left where it is.)
You have to make your move, and move the duck. Do you have to do them in that order? (ie, is it legal to move the duck first, then your piece?)
I suspect there is an implied "in order" there, otherwise the impact of the duck-block is not as profound.
It might be hair splitting, but I've seen rules fights on smaller points!
edit: yea, I need to read more carefully. I missed the "and then" which is the clarification I was after. Thank you for pointing that out.
I don’t understand. Since there is no check in duck chess, couldn’t white king just capture black queen (Kxg2) following this move?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_variants
Maybe the duck is putting off the purists.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9137736
Each player has a pole, and you can place it or pick it up with a move. Nothing can move to through or capture the pole.
It leads to more draws but also weird and fun tactics.
Unrelated, but reminds me of another story featuring Chess and a Duck, and also relevant to the HN audience, which relates to the old videogame Battle Chess: https://bwiggs.com/notebook/queens-duck/
Apparently there's a new-ish version on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/200150/Battle_Chess_Game_...
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/E4loQjf7v-M/maxresdefault.jpg
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuckie_Egg
”Eight levels are played initially under the watch of a giant caged duck. [The player is then] pursued by the freed duck flying around the screen and homing in on him.”
[1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/khanat/iro
Duck to Queen's Bishop 3!
(Some people think reducing the first-player advantage would be valuable. I'd rather increase it, like in tennis).
I guess the winning pattern is to force the opposing king to move into your king at the edge of the board but not clear how to march the king into a corner if he has an untakeable blocker to move every turn. Any ideas?