On Jun 14, 2:25*pm, David Richerby
wrote:
Rich Hutnik wrote:

... because 10x10 boards are not readily available in North
America...

Last time I looked, Canada was in North America.

And 10 by 10 boards aren't available readily there (here) either,
since we play our Checkers the same 8 by 8 way they Draughts in the
mother country. But I don't know about Mexico.

John Savard

On Jun 14, 1:58*pm, Rich Hutnik wrote:

In order to get a regulation ACF checker set, you have to order from
their store directly. *There is a more than favorable chance that such
equipment will be available elsewhere pretty soon.

I have had conversations with them, and the barriers to get them
spread is fairly large. *This is the basis upon which I have spoken in
this thread.

Aside from the fact that given the sheer pain of the three-move
restriction - and image problems of Checkers in comparison to Chess -
has limited *serious* interest in Checkers to a level far below that
which exists in Chess, there is another problem.

Their *regulations* are verging on the silly, which leads stores to
expect low demand for sets that meet them.

They require a board with exactly 2 inch squares. This is at the low
end for tournament chess boards; if they instead allowed the same
flexibility that the USCF and FIDE allow for tournament chess boards,
it would be easier to make combination chess and checkers sets.

Green and buff are a good color for the squares on the board; Chess
players would have no quarrel with that.

But white and red checkers, I feel, are not a good choice. Checkers is
played on the green squares. Red doesn't contrast well with green - if
you're color-blind. And because the red checkers are the *light*
checkers in a conventional set of red and black checkers, people will
be confused about which checkers in the regulation set correspond to
which checkers in a conventional set.

White and blue? Yellow and black? White and a light green shade that
still contrasts well with the green squares? Chess players seem to
think that white and black pieces don't lead to eyestrain, but then it
is true that it can be hard to tell if a black checker is turned King
side up.

But maybe white and red was the best choice, and people can get used
to it.

John Savard

On Jun 14, 6:00 pm, Quadibloc wrote:
On Jun 14, 2:25 pm, David Richerby
wrote:

Rich Hutnik wrote:
... because 10x10 boards are not readily available in North
America...
Last time I looked, Canada was in North America.

And 10 by 10 boards aren't available readily there (here) either,
since we play our Checkers the same 8 by 8 way they Draughts in the
mother country. But I don't know about Mexico.

As I pointed out earlier in this thread, you *can* get 10x10 boards
from several sources in Quebec. We won't however start the debate on
whether Quebec is properly part of Canada

On Jun 14, 6:36 pm, " wrote:

As I pointed out earlier in this thread, you *can* get 10x10 boards
from several sources in Quebec. We won't however start the debate on
whether Quebec is properly part of Canada

Oh, I missed that. I would have expected to find 12 by 12 boards in
Quebec, along with 8 by 8 boards. They've been pretty isolated from
France for a long time.

John Savard

On Jun 14, 6:10 am, (John Savard)
wrote:
On Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:38:51 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
wrote, in part:

My memory was right - green and buff for Checkers. Also, the pieces
need to be red and *white*, and the squares 2 inches in size, and the
pieces from 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inches in diameter.

For Chess, the squares can be from 2 inches to 2 1/2 inches; as to the
size of the pieces, the guidelines are complicated, (3 3/8" to 4 1/2"
height for the King, and a base from 40% to 50% of that height) but
one manufacturer recommends the base of the King should be about 75%
of the size of the square for a good match.

I have pursued my researches further, and found out what the Federation
Mondiale du Jeu de Dames has as its tournament standards for
International Checkers - their standards are, of course, metric - and
the FIDE standards for chess, which call for somewhat smaller chess
pieces than the USCF ones, although there is considerable overlap.

The results of my researches are on the bottom of the page at

http://www.quadibloc.com/other/cnv03.htm

Having found that the size of a tournament Chess board is about the
same as that of a traditional Go board, and that the sizes of
tournament Checkers boards are similar, but somewhat smaller, it has
now occurred to me to examine the units of length given by Edgar Rice
Burroughs in his Barsoom novels, so as to be able to specify, in the
Barsoomian system of units, what might be a reasonable size for the
squares of a board for tournament play of the Barsoomian form of
Chess, known as Jetan.

This is now added to the page the URL of which was given above.

John Savard

On Jun 15, 11:29*am, Quadibloc wrote:

Having found that the size of a tournament Chess board is about the
same as that of a traditional Go board, and that the sizes of
tournament Checkers boards are similar, but somewhat smaller, it has
now occurred to me to examine the units of length given by Edgar Rice
Burroughs in his Barsoom novels, so as to be able to specify, in the
Barsoomian system of units, what might be a reasonable size for the
squares of a board for tournament play of the Barsoomian form of
Chess, known as Jetan.

It would depend on whether you were going to play in the Manatorian
style, with live pieces that fight to the death to decide the outcome
of a capture move.
I have read all the Barsoom novels, even made a Jetan set when I was
about 16, but I don't recall that Burroughs ever specified any sizes
for Jetan pieces or boards. In the novels, reference is made to
everything from a small handheld travel set (in "Llana of Gathol," as
I recall) to the huge boards, probably at least 100 feet on a side,
used in the arena at Manator ("The Chessmen of Mars"). Burroughs
probably did not care much about such details, and in fact in "The
Chessmen of Mars" he was a bit careless, giving two slightly different
versions of the rules, leaving many rule ambiguities unresolved, and
giving a very unclear account of the one game that is described in any
detail.
A couple of relevant links:

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/jetan.txt
http://www.geocities.com/jetantower/

There seems to be a small but active Jetan subculture experimenting
with various versions of the game, as allowed by the ambiguity of
Burroughs' specifications. For example, when Burroughs said that a
piece was to move 3 squares either straight or diagonally, did that
mean exactly three squares, no more, no less? Or 1, 2, or 3 squares as
the player wishes? And may diagonal and orthogonal moves be mixed in
one move, or may one move in one direction only?

On Jun 15, 3:15 pm, wrote:

It would depend on whether you were going to play in the Manatorian
style, with live pieces that fight to the death to decide the outcome
of a capture move.

Yes, you *would* need larger squares then, but I left that out of
consideration.

reference is made to
everything from a small handheld travel set (in "Llana of Gathol," as
I recall)

You recall correctly - "it would be a sacrilege to play at Jetan with
the figure of a goddess" or words to that effect.

in fact in "The
Chessmen of Mars" he was a bit careless, giving two slightly different
versions of the rules, leaving many rule ambiguities unresolved,

There seems to be a small but active Jetan subculture experimenting
with various versions of the game, as allowed by the ambiguity of
Burroughs' specifications. For example, when Burroughs said that a
piece was to move 3 squares either straight or diagonally, did that
mean exactly three squares, no more, no less? Or 1, 2, or 3 squares as
the player wishes? And may diagonal and orthogonal moves be mixed in
one move, or may one move in one direction only?

Just the move of the panthan - "any direction except backwards" -
really? Like the Drunk Elephant in Shogi? Or is diagonally backwards
also not allowed? is confusing enough.

John Savard

On Jun 15, 6:11*pm, Quadibloc wrote:
On Jun 15, 3:15 pm, wrote:

* It would depend on whether you were going to play in the Manatorian
style, with live pieces that fight to the death to decide the outcome
of a capture move.

Yes, you *would* need larger squares then, but I left that out of
consideration.

reference is made to
everything from a small handheld travel set (in "Llana of Gathol," as
I recall)

You recall correctly - "it would be a sacrilege to play at Jetan with
the figure of a goddess" or words to that effect.

Ah, I remember that now. The Jetan pieces were carved in the
likenesses of various persons from the court of Helium, John Carter's
granddaughter Llana included. The young soldier with Carter had fallen
in love with her at first sight. Haven't read that book in at least 40
years. Glad to know of another Burroughs reader.

in fact in "The
Chessmen of Mars" he was a bit careless, giving two slightly different
versions of the rules, leaving many rule ambiguities unresolved,
* There seems to be a small but active Jetan subculture experimenting
with various versions of the game, as allowed by the ambiguity of
Burroughs' specifications. For example, when Burroughs said that a
piece was to move 3 squares either straight or diagonally, did that
mean exactly three squares, no more, no less? Or 1, 2, or 3 squares as
the player wishes? And may diagonal and orthogonal moves be mixed in
one move, or may one move in one direction only?

Just the move of the panthan - "any direction except backwards" -
really? Like the Drunk Elephant in Shogi? Or is diagonally backwards
also not allowed? is confusing enough.

Hence the modern distinctions between chained/unchained and wild/
civil Jetan rules.

Quadibloc writes:

[...] it has
now occurred to me to examine the units of length given by Edgar Rice
Burroughs in his Barsoom novels, so as to be able to specify, in the
Barsoomian system of units, what might be a reasonable size for the
squares of a board for tournament play of the Barsoomian form of
Chess, known as Jetan.

I looked up the url you provided. I have not checked your conversions
(I assume that you did your maths correctly), but you quote Burroughs
incorrectly. The unit of measure that should be used here is "sofad,"
not "safad" (which does not exist, as far as I know).

Fredrik

writes:

Burroughs
probably did not care much about such details, and in fact in "The
Chessmen of Mars" he was a bit careless, giving two slightly different
versions of the rules, leaving many rule ambiguities unresolved, and
giving a very unclear account of the one game that is described in any
detail.

If you are interested in an attempt to resolve the ambiguities, then
I humbly recommend my own articles on the subject in ERB-APA #92 and
#94. Back issues are still available. Have a look here if interested:

http://www.geocities.com/erbapa/

There seems to be a small but active Jetan subculture experimenting
with various versions of the game, as allowed by the ambiguity of
Burroughs' specifications.

Correct. On the Internet, this community is centered around the Yahoo!
group Jetan. Find it he

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/jetan/

If you are interested in Jetan, you should certainly consider joining.
We are a nice group, and not very high-volume. The only problem is that
the members have very diverse backgrounds and interests, so when can
just about never come to a consensus. But I guess that just makes the
conversations all the more interesting.

Fredrik