I've played quite a few irl test games where you're allowed to use the king as a royal and it's always been relatively balanced. Because when I see my opponent (or my opponent sees me) castle early it's a very reliable indicator that they've chosen they're king as a royal, and from there I keep my royal a secret. They're stuck trying to find my royal but I know exactly where theirs is. I do think that a rule prohibiting both people from choosing a royal king is worth considering, but I'm not sure if it's necessary. I do know that if the king is royal that castling is a bit strong and maybe a rule is necessary to implement that says you can only castle if your king isn't royal, or just no castling at all. In my experience though, castling has never been to much of an issue. Then again it could be because I'm not that good at chess and neither are my irl chess friends so that could be swaying my games.
Test Game 010 - Possible Flaw in Ahab Chess
Did you record notation for any of those games?
I don't think kings are weak enough that it would be an advantage to choose your king as a royal.
I haven't played this variant very much, but I would assume that the best strategy no matter your royal is to activate all your non-royal pieces, which for most games would include the king. I think that as chess players we're just not used to using our king as an attacking piece, and so we automatically assume that it's not useful, whereas in reality, if you develop it towards the center, it can be just as useful as a knight or bishop.
And, imo, anything that makes rooks less powerful as Ahab is a good thing.
Did you record notation for any of those games?
No sorry, some of these games were years ago. I thought of this a while ago and played it with some irl chess friends and only remembered it when you first posted the variant and I thought "well this is a pretty simple variant, so I'm not surprised others have thought of it before." I have played it recently as well, and I'll start recording the games from now on. From the top of my head, we could notate the royals as 0.royal,royal before the first move, the 0 because it's the '0th move'. For example, 0.b,gN means that white has chosen their b pawn and black has chosen their g knight.
...I haven't played this variant very much, but I would assume that the best strategy no matter your royal is to activate all your non-royal pieces, which for most games would include the king. I think that as chess players we're just not used to using our king as an attacking piece, and so we automatically assume that it's not useful, whereas in reality, if you develop it towards the center, it can be just as useful as a knight or bishop...
Having played a decent amount of games of ahab chess, non-royal chess (no royal pieces), and gay chess (queen replaced with king & only lose if both kings are checkmated or captured), I can confirm that a non-royal king has a surprising amount of utility as a minor piece, as no other piece besides the queen controls all adjacent squares, so it can attack all pieces except a queen without being threatened. It is limited by its lack of range, as all other pieces can move more than 1 space, but it can do most other things well, such as protecting pieces or taking up space. It's certainly not quite as good as a knight or bishop, but it's close enough that it's still worth 3 points.
Hi, take a look at rook mate variant for comparison. It is regular chess with a royal rook but the addition of N-check.
Yeah mostly. I think that should just be the default for variants tbh
Bare piece rule would solve this problem, right?
Because if there's not bare piece rule, the official royal is never got mated
Two arguments against allowing king:
https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/ahab-chess-gameplay-rules#comment-89296433
https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/ahab-chess-gameplay-rules#comment-89334929