Favorite piece

Out of the 3 doubled power pieces (Queen, Chancellor, and Archbishop), which one is your favorite piece, and why? My favorite is the Archbishop, because it can checkmate by itself.

another position

I have another position, white to move, and mate in 2. The key for the pieces are WK- White King, WC- White Chancellor, WA- White Archbishop, BK- Black King, BQ- Black Queen, and BC- Black Chancellor. The coordinates for the pieces are WK- H1, WC- I4, WA- H6, BK- J8, BQ- I7, and BC-H8. I have found 7 solutions to this puzzle. See if you can find them all. Good luck!

interesting facts about Gothic Chess

Here are some interesting facts about Gothic Chess that you can't say about regular chess. There are four pieces that move like knights, 4 pieces that move like bishops, and four pieces that move like rooks. In Gothic Chess, you have a quadruple battery on a file. In regular chess, the most you can do is a triple battery, unless you get more rooks or queens with pawn promotions. In Gothic Chess, you can have a triple battery on a diagonal. In regular chess, the most you can do is double battery on a diagonal, unless you get more bishops or queens with pawn promotions. In a closed position, the queen is not the most powerful piece, the Archbishop is. Tell me what you think.

position, mate in 2

I am going to give you a position where it is white to move, and mate in 2. I am going to give you the amount of pieces, and their coordinates, and you figure out the puzzle from there. The Key for each piece is WK- White King, WC- White Chancellor, BK- Black King, and BC- Black Chancellor.

WK-F5, WC-G6
BK- J8, BC- I7

Lets see who can figure it out. Good luck

Can you checkmate in 3 with the Archbishop?

The Archbishop moves like a Bishop or Knight on any turn. This unique piece is very powerful. With white to move, can you checkmate the black King in 3 moves from this position?

Gothic Bughouse

Who here likes to play bughouse with Gothic Chess. I have played a few times, but I would like to play it more than that. It is intense, and awesome. Tell me what you think.

The Fischer vs. Karpov match

You gave me authoring priviledges here in the blog and maybe after this post you will regret it but here goes anyway! OK it's been a while since the whole Karpov vs. Fischer or Fischer vs. Karpov match in Gothic Chess has been discussed. You know lots of people said bad things about this whole thing. Stuff like 'there's no way this is gonna happen' and 'this is all a stunt for publicity' and 'nobody can recover all of that money so it's all a bunch of bull'.

So how do you respond to all of this? We know you were on the radio and talked about it but you still left a lot of questions unanswered.

Where in the world are you?

So tell us all, where are you from?

Ed Trice
Philadelphia, PA

What are the Gothic Chess pieces worth?

I am sure most people would agree that a Queen (Rook + Bishop) is stronger than a Chancellor (Rook + Knight) which is stronger than an Archbishop (Bishop + Knight), but when exchanging a mix of pieces, how do you evaluate them? I know the standard reply "it depends" can be painted with a wide brush stroke here, but let's foresake that approach and come up with some opinions of what a list of generally accepted values could be.

For example, in 8x8 chess, we have...

pawn = 1.0
knight = 3.0
bishop = 3.0
rook = 5.0
queen = 9.0

...as a standard, with some other rules thrown in, such as:

Add 0.5 pawns to the side with a bishop pair.
Subtract 1 pawn if you trade an active Bishop + Knight in the opening for your opponent's Rook + Pawn

etc.

Here are some things to think about before you toss out some numbers of your own.

Is a Queen >, <, or = a Chancellor + Pawn?
Is a Chancellor >, <, or = an Archbishop + Pawn?
Is an Archbishop + Knight >, <, or = a Queen?

Is an Archbishop + Rook >, <, or = a Chancellor + Bishop?
Is an Archishop >, <, or = a Rook + Pawn?

Is a Queen + Pawn >, <, or = an Archbishop + Bishop?

Some tough questions to ponder!

Guess the Incredible Move -- Position #1

The position shown here is white to move after 8...d4 by black. Click on the picture for the full-size board.

Can you guess the incredible next move by white and offer an analysis of the interesting tactic that followed?

Gothic Chess "Blog", by popular demand

I must admit, it took me a little while to get around to it, but here it is, finally, the Gothic Chess Blog. Many of the (former) discussion board posters grew tired of the "spammers" posting endlessly on there. Even while the discussion board was "under lockdown", some of them had "sleeper" accounts that they reactivated to continue posting the ridiculous ads to sites I would not visit even with rubber gloves on...

Anyway, today starts a new day, so blog away!

I will integrate the blog link to the GothicChess.com main site some time today, making it easier to access.

Feel free to post any "non-spam" material that is relevant to Gothic Chess, and I'll do my best to comment (where required) or otherwise offer any insights.

Enjoy!