There's some good instructional 10x8 videos by USCF Tournament Director Doug Dysart. He's about 1950 elo and his commentary is pretty good.
Inventor of Gothic Chess crushes me
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Ed Trice is a living variant imventor? I thought he was like around when Capablanca played. He's mentioned with Caapablanca all over the internet.
Yes Ed was born in the 1960s and is still posting regularly to his Discord group.
What is his Discord server invite link if you don't mind me asking?
Streamed game live.
Gorgon_Slayer wrote:
I played Ed Trice, the inventor of Gothic Chess.
Gothic Chess is a joke. He just took Capablanca Chess, and changed the starting position slightly in order to claim it as his own. This is Capablanca's Game, not Trice's.
PhilHarris wrote:
Gorgon_Slayer wrote:
I played Ed Trice, the inventor of Gothic Chess.
Gothic Chess is a joke. He just took Capablanca Chess, and changed the starting position slightly in order to claim it as his own. This is Capablanca's Game, not Trice's.
I see you on Gothic Chess like every day, you clearly like it, lol. The original Capablanca arrangement has an undefended pawn between the chancellor and rook in front of the knight, so I think the Gothic starting arrangement is better. If you wanna be technical, Capablanca chess took (read "stole") "Carrera's chess" from the year 1617, and that arguably had a better starting arrangement too (same 10x8 board and same pieces). Bird's chess (the guy who bird opening is named after), same thing, also came before Capablanca chess (but after Carrera's). They all ripped off Carrera's. Seirawan's probably the most fun for tactics, but some people like a slightly bigger board.
haggardthehag wrote:
I see you on Gothic Chess like every day, you clearly like it, lol. The original Capablanca arrangement has an undefended pawn between the chancellor and rook in front of the knight, so I think the Gothic starting arrangement is better. If you wanna be technical, Capablanca chess took (read "stole") "Carrera's chess" from the year 1617, and that arguably had a better starting arrangement too (same 10x8 board and same pieces). Bird's chess (the guy who bird opening is named after), same thing, also came before Capablanca chess (but after Carrera's). They all ripped off Carrera's. Seirawan's probably the most fun for tactics, but some people like a slightly bigger board.
I never said I didn't like it, I said it wasn't Trice's. I've read the post again and that was absolutely explicit. Can't think how you missed it.
If you'd like to call it Carrera's Chess that still doesn't make it Trice's, so you ended up agreeing with me, despite your best efforts not to, duh lol.
PhilHarris wrote:
haggardthehag wrote:
I see you on Gothic Chess like every day, you clearly like it, lol. The original Capablanca arrangement has an undefended pawn between the chancellor and rook in front of the knight, so I think the Gothic starting arrangement is better. If you wanna be technical, Capablanca chess took (read "stole") "Carrera's chess" from the year 1617, and that arguably had a better starting arrangement too (same 10x8 board and same pieces). Bird's chess (the guy who bird opening is named after), same thing, also came before Capablanca chess (but after Carrera's). They all ripped off Carrera's. Seirawan's probably the most fun for tactics, but some people like a slightly bigger board.
I never said I didn't like it, I said it wasn't Trice's. I've read the post again and that was absolutely explicit. Can't think how you missed it.
If you'd like to call it Carrera's Chess that still doesn't make it Trice's, so you ended up agreeing with me, despite your best efforts not to, duh lol.
"I never said I didn't like it" - You said gothic chess is a joke. If we apply a 'reasonable person' standard that is used in legal arguments, what reasonable person calls something they like a joke?
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"I said it wasn't Trice's" - You said: "This is Capablanca's Game, not Trice's." - I was arguing against the 1st part of the sentence, not the 2nd one, that was absolutely explicit in my argument. Can't think how you missed it.
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"If you'd like to call it Carrera's Chess that still doesn't make it Trice's, so you ended up agreeing with me, despite your best efforts not to, duh lol." - I explicitly said that they all ripped off Carrera's, that was its own sentence. I thought that made it obvious that that was the thesis statement that the previous sentences were leading up to. If you'd like to show me where I said "this is trice's chess", the way you said "this is capablanca's chess", go ahead.
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You haven't proven your actual CLAIMS that 1) "he took from capablanca's chess", rather than from the 2+ 10x8 board chancellor/archbishop variants that came before capablanca's, and 2) "this is capablanca's chess" - your best argument for this would be if chess,com used the capablanca starting position, and called it something else, but it seems like the more rigorous and frictionless way forward for them would be to call it by its starting position, not bird's or capablanca's or carrera's, and they picked the best starting position from all of those variants. As a result, you might have Capablanca endgame and simplicity fanboys who will be unhappy that he's not credited with something he didn't invent, but they'll be a vocal minority.
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You don't say that chess960 is vanilla original chess with the starting positions being different, cmon now. Would you rather have the capablanca starting position, or the one Trice extensively play-tested for gothic chess, Phil?
haggardthehag wrote:
"I never said I didn't like it" - You said gothic chess is a joke. If we apply a 'reasonable person' standard that is used in legal arguments, what reasonable person calls something they like a joke?
I was absolutely explicit that I was talking about the name, not the game. Your claim that I must dislike Capablanca Chess because I don't think it's Trice's doesn't even begin to make sense.
All your other points make similar errors, so no point going through them all. I've seen people deliberately make as many mistakes as possible in a post hoping that they'll be too many to correct them all, and maybe just make the guy they're talking to angry and abusive so they can claim some kind of victory in that.
No such luck, kid. I'm going to stand by the original post, which you have failed to dispute in any meaningful way, despite wanting to. I don't have to force you to admit you understood it, you just think I do.
PhilHarris wrote:
haggardthehag wrote:
"I never said I didn't like it" - You said gothic chess is a joke. If we apply a 'reasonable person' standard that is used in legal arguments, what reasonable person calls something they like a joke?
I was absolutely explicit that I was talking about the name, not the game. Your claim that I must dislike Capablanca Chess because I don't think it's Trice's doesn't even begin to make sense.
All your other points make similar errors, so no point going through them all. I've seen people deliberately make as many mistakes as possible in a post hoping that they'll be too many to correct them all, and maybe just make the guy they're talking to angry and abusive so they can claim some kind of victory in that.
No such luck, kid. I'm going to stand by the original post, which you have failed to dispute in any meaningful way, despite wanting to. I don't have to force you to admit you understood it, you just think I do.
You're really going to stand by your original claim of "This is Capablanca's Game, not Trice's." (exact quote), even though that piece selection and board size was invented by Carrera four centuries earlier? You’ve really convinced me and everyone else here that Gothic Chess is a joke, next time I see someone enjoying a board game, I’ll be sure to remind them the creator of that game didn’t invent grids.
PhilHarris's main argument is that Gothic Chess is not truly original to Edward Trice (it's not "Trice's" in the sense of invention from scratch), but instead a minor modification of Capablanca Chess, so calling it "Gothic Chess" and crediting Trice as its creator is misleading or joke-like. They insist the core claim is about naming/ownership/credit, not whether the game is enjoyable or good.
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Haggardthehag's main argument is that the starting position in Gothic Chess is an improvement (all pawns defended, unlike in Capablanca's arrangement), that the core idea (10×8 board with chancellor + archbishop) predates Capablanca anyway (Carrera 1617, then Bird), and that Trice deserves credit for refining and popularizing a playable version.
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Logical mistakes by PhilHarris
Equivocation / shifting the goalposts on "joke": Calling the game/variant "a joke" strongly implies it's unserious, unoriginal, or unworthy — a negative judgment on the game itself. Later claiming "I was absolutely explicit that I was talking about the name, not the game" is inconsistent. A reasonable reader interprets "Gothic Chess is a joke" as dismissing the variant, not just quibbling over credit. This weakens the later defense ("I never said I didn't like it").
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Overly narrow reading of opponent's point: haggardthehag never claimed "this is Trice's original invention from nothing." They explicitly said all the variants (including Capablanca's) "ripped off Carrera's." PhilHarris treats haggardthehag as defending Trice's full originality, then claims victory because haggardthehag "agreed" it's not Trice's. This is a straw man — haggardthehag was arguing the position is better and Trice improved/refined it, not that he invented the concept ex nihilo.
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Dismissive hand-waving: Phrases like "all your other points make similar errors, so no point going through them all" and accusing the opponent of deliberately making too many mistakes to win via frustration is an ad hominem / poisoning the well tactic. It avoids engaging substantively with the pawn-defense argument or historical precedents.
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False analogy to Chess960: PhilHarris doesn't directly make this, but haggardthehag's Chess960 comparison is reasonable (changing start ≠ new game). PhilHarris sidesteps it.
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Whose argument is better overall?
haggardthehag has the stronger argument substantively.
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Factually, Gothic Chess is a refinement of the Capablanca/Bird/Carrera family: same board size, same compound pieces (chancellor = rook+knight, archbishop = bishop+knight), but with a starting array chosen to eliminate the undefended pawn flaw present in Capablanca's and Bird's setups. This is widely recognized in chess variant sources (., chess.com, Wikipedia summaries, variant pages).
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PhilHarris's core claim ("he just took Capablanca Chess, and changed the starting position slightly") is accurate but incomplete — the change isn't trivial (it fixes a real balance issue Trice emphasized), and the concept predates Capablanca anyway.
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PhilHarris's position reduces to a semantic/credit dispute ("not Trice's"), but ignores that variant inventors often get credit for specific implementations, play-testing, promotion, and fixes (Trice patented his exact setup and pushed it commercially).
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haggardthehag correctly identifies the historical chain (Carrera → Bird → Capablanca → Trice/Gothic) and the practical improvement, making their case more balanced and informative.
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PhilHarris's later replies become defensive/evasive, relying on reinterpretation and dismissal rather than countering the pawn-defense or historical points.
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PhilHarris may win on a narrow "credit/originality" technicality (no one claims Trice invented chancellor/archbishop pieces), but haggardthehag wins on chess-variant logic, historical context, and practical merits. The debate is mostly semantic — both agree it's not wholly original to Trice, but haggardthehag explains why the specific version still deserves its name and attention.
Apparently I made fewer logical mistakes than Phil Harris (or maybe Hellmuth).
I played Ed Trice, the inventor of Gothic Chess. He let me have the white pieces. He gave me odds of Queen's Knight (he removed his Knight from b8 at the start of the game). He traded his Queen for my Archbishop, then sacrificed his other Knight to pull my King out onto the 3rd rank. Then he trapped my queen, so I resigned. I didn't think I made any blunders but still got demolished. Where did I go wrong?