A Guide on How to Use "promotedFrom", a (unintended) Crazyhouse Feature

Hi there!

In the past few months a lot of features (mainly bugs) have been utilized in variant creation, with all of them relating to crazyhouse, and some of these use a hidden feature called "promotedFrom". Because some aspects of promotedFrom are really hidden, it can cause confusion among beginners which means that some people don't know the objective, and some variant creators aswell don't know how to use the feature. Because of this, I have decided to make a guide on how to use this feature (bug) to it's full potential, as well as some of the gimmicks which have been used for this feature.

This bug goes hand in hand with another bug called Restricted Crazyhouse if you do not want any crazyhouse to be included in your variant, if you do want crazyhouse then it's fine, but the only requirement for all these gimmicks is that crazyhouse must be on.

(PS: This will get updated anytime a new gimmick has been made with the promotedFrom tag!)

Double Royals

Now, yes, this feature can be used to make double (or even more!) royals without some complicated machinery! But the type double royals I'm mentioning here is that you must capture one royal instead of both (seen in the updated version of Fatty Queens, https://www.chess.com/variants/game/85953311). It is possible to require both royals to be captured, but in here I'm going to only list how to use and make the kind that only one has to be captured.

If you do not want crazyhouse features in your variant, then you must use Restricted Crazyhouse on all the pieces other than the royal. If you do want crazyhouse, then you may proceed.

Setting some disclaimers aside, there are two ways to implement it into your variant. One where there are no royals on the board, and another where there is a royal currently on the board.

If there are no royals in the board:

1. Make sure Crazyhouse and Capture the King are turned on. These are essential in making double royals work and without any of them it wouldn't work. King of the Hill will be turned later on, as it is also essential.
2. Choose the pieces you want to be made royal. In here, I want both rooks to be royal, so now in the FEN4, find "}-" (or before the brace and dash) and insert (without quotation marks) ",'promotedFrom':{}" before it.
3. Now in the braces after the colon and 'promotedFrom' I enter a list in the braces, with the format as (without quotations and words inside) " 'position of royal according to 14x14 board' : 'piece promoted from (in this case, K)' " or with just the format, " ' ':' ' ". So now, find the position of both royals for both colors. In my position, the red royal rooks are at g5 and h5, while the yellow rook royals are at g10 and h10 according to a 14x14 board, which means in the braces I have to enter " 'g5':'K','h5':'K','g10':' K','h10':'K' ".
4. You may now click "Load" at the bottom to reorganize the FEN.
5. Now turn on King of the Hill. Select all the squares on the board, so in this case, my position would look like this:

This step is optional. Since I do not want pieces to be able to crazyhouse, I'll add restricted crazyhouse.To do this, I will have to add dead pieces to each player's banks. You will soon be able to learn how to add restricted crazyhouse without including an intruder, which are essential for 4PC variants.

So now, my position is finished. You might be wondering how this way works, so I'll explain it.

Here, yellow has captured one of red's rooks. Now the rooks are "promoted from" a king, which means that a king will appear on the bank. So this means on yellow's next turn...

He can place the king anywhere due to regicide, and proceed to win the game by hill.

Now you might be asking, what if I already have a royal on the board, for say something like a clock, and I want to have a royal or maybe even more royals. What do I do?

This is the second way, which includes how to add a "royal" if there is a royal in the board.

1. If you do not have regicide on, please turn on regicide. Crazyhouse is still important, so make sure it is added.
2. Here is my position. In here, there are royals on the board already, but I want the ferz to be a "royal". In the position, I must put spaces behind both of the currently existing royals so that both players can capture the king.
   
   
   
3. Same thing as before, find the position of both royals according to a 14x14 board, in this case mine are at e7 and j7, find the brace and dash, then insert " ,'promotedFrom':{} " before it, insert the position of the fake royal and what piece to promote from, this case being any piece with rook/wazir movement inside of the braces after the colon (but not rook!), in the format as follows, 'e7':'Q','j7':'Q'. Then load, and your position is finished.
4. Since pieces cannot be able to be crazyhouse to not interrupt other mechanics, which means you must use restricted crazyhouse on every piece. Then, you are finished.

If you're wondering how this works, the ferz is, again,  "promoted from" a queen, which means that when capturing the ferz, a queen will be in your bank. 

Now, you put the promoted queen behind your opponent's royal bishop...and of course, take the royal bishop and win the game.

This is the end of how to implement both ways of double royals, one when there are no royals on the board, and one where there is a royal on the board. If you have any questions, feel free to let me know! Now, we move on to the next section...

Custom Point Values

Custom point values is definitely one of the most requested features in variants. After all, the point values of many pieces should most definitely be higher or lower in many cases, such as the sergeants being worth 2 points, bishops worth 3, etc. In fact, many variants that would be drawish or may have claim win be overpowered can actually be balanced!

Since most do not know the notations and point values of each piece, I have provided a chart right of this text. Take this time to also note that you must change point values responsibly, and please make sure that you note that you have used custom point values on specific pieces when submitting your variants to variants.world.

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Alright, now that you have taken a look at the chart, or will take a look later, I would like to note that there two ways to attach custom point values, one for if you need crazyhouse for a gimmick, and the second if you do not need crazyhouse at all. Normal Crazyhouse will not work if you use custom point values, so you need to have Restricted Crazyhouse or a setup block. Promoted pieces will always be worth 1 point.

1. Please make sure that crazyhouse and game of points is of course, on. These are extremely essential. 
2. Locate the pieces you want to adjust point values of, and which point value you want them to be. In here, I need to change the sergeants and wazirs to make them worth 2 points each.
3. Now, insert (without quotation marks) ",'promotedFrom':{}" before the brace and dash in the FEN4, enter the piece locations of each piece you need, for me the pieces are at e5, f5, h5, g10, i10, and j10, and the point value i want for all these pieces is to be worth 2 points (which I would choose from the chart above), so I would enter (again, without quotation marks) " 'e5':'U', 'f5':'U', 'h5':'U', 'g10':'U', 'i10':'U', 'j10':'U' " inside the promotedFrom braces.
4. Now, I need to apply either Restricted Crazyhouse or a setup block.
   For Restricted Crazyhouse, do not use the promotedFrom Restricted Crazyhouse, use the one by @CzarnyResorak567. Just add different colored pieces in each player's banks for every piece. Remember that for the pieces you assigned a custom point value for only need the piece that is is promoted to, so for me, it would be a Xiangqi Horse.For a setup block, this is a bit more complicated. First, you need to turn on setup with one point of material. Remove all the pieces in the bank and make sure setup complete is on. Then, go into analysis, PGN4, and edit "Setup=" to say "Setup=0,1". Click load and then you can play games of your variant.This should be able to not let any pieces be dropped.

Now, the explanation. Since sergeants and wazirs here are "promoted from" a Xiangqi Horse, they will each be worth 2 points. So in this position, if I capture the sergeants, I should be able to...

Gain two points!

Of course, this is the end of how to assign Custom Point Values. Like I said before, please make sure to note that you have used custom point values and which pieces you have applied them to when you posts variants in variants.world. Again, if you have any questions or would like to add anything, feel free to let me know. As for now, this is the last (finished) chapter of the promotedFrom guide.

Immune Pieces

Undocumented - guide coming soon!

(hidden) Restricted Crazyhouse

Undocumented - guide coming soon!

So now that I've explained how to create and use a bunch of new features, feel free to use them in your own variants! More features will always be discovered using promotedFrom, which means more freedom to make your variant dreams come true.

As always, goodbye and have a great time creating!

Imo, I think you should do a brief guide on Restricted Crazyhouse, since it isn't that hard to do (or am I thinking of the wrong one?).

How did promoted from become discovered?

"(Disclaimer: There isn't a forum on how to use restricted crazyhouse, but one will be made by the creator, @CzarnyResorak567)"

yeah I do see that, but

oh he wanted to make it? okay

you might wanna check https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/custom-variants-club-directory again

I think community guides like these should be in their own section -- Community Guides. Otherwise there'll just be way too much to digest in the Creating A Variant section.

In other words, the forums for how to MAKE a variant should be in Creating A Variant while bonuses like these should be under Community Guides.

But this is directly related to making a variant

yeah but it's not as crucial as some of the other forums under Making A Variant

This is more of a "here's a little trick you can use if you want to do this"

I'd argue that this along with FEN4 tips and tricks belong in creating a variant cause these talk about things you can do when creating a variant

Probably a lot of ways to implement this...

so what is the point and criteria of getting your tutorial into the directory?

Make a forum that can only be edited by admins that has links to all the FEN4 tricks!

in the directory club thing already i think

@TimeVeteran You should embed a link to the restricted crazyhouse forum in the introduction

Updated - finished Custom Point Values and included two new discoveries by @wolyn. Also slightly changed some screenshots and the format a bit.

Make sure to click "Follow" when an update has been done, because new discoveries keep being found 🙂

Question: after calculating, I found that some pieces should be 8 pts or 3.25pts. what should I do?

Unfortunately, no pieces can be able to have those point values because of actual editor limits. Your best bet is to round it to 7 or 9, for the second to 3 or 4 to signify one is stronger.

Hey don't forget the semi-checky thing!

what semi checky thing