From: Jeff Mallett CRUZIO COM> Date: 1 feb 1996 Subject: Re: Shogi, Chess, Football, Soccer, Hockey, and Sushi!!! >P.S. Have you heard of Western Chess with drops? I have but I have never >played. There are lots of chess variant on Western chess that use drops. For example, Pocket Knight Chess was popular in the late 19th-early 20th century and decent-sized tournaments were held. More recently, chess GM Ray Keene organized an OTB tournament of Mad Mate (a.k.a. Chessgi of NOST) that was won by chess GM Murray Chandler. Of course the most popular variant is Bughouse (Madhouse, Siamese, etc.). For more info on bughouse you can find a link directory at: http://www.students.uiuc.edu/~koo/bughouse.html The Internet Chess Club usually has one or two bughouse games going on: http://www.hydra.com/icc/ > I guess it would not have the same balance that Shogi has. Nor of >course, the tradition. Incidentally, according to D.B. Pritchard, "a chess variant in which a player could drop a piece on a vacant square instead of moving dates back to at least 1827." This was well before M.C. Perry obtained a treaty in 1854 re-opening up the ports of Japan to the west. Jeff ----------------------------------------------------- Jeff Mallett jeffm cruzio com Strategy Labs, Inc. http://www.cruzio.com/~tao/ Voice: (408) 338-6324 Fax: (408) 338-6325 -----------------------------------------------------