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From 2002-2004, Derek Nalls participated in several discussions at the ChessVariants.org website wherein he strongly
disagreed with the fact that Gothic Chess was patented. He was not the only person who held this view, but most of the
discussion was civil in nature, with the exception of his remarks. He continually said that all that "Ed Trice" did was
"...change the location of the pieces that Capablanca had..." and then "...called it Gothic Chess."
I failed to see how this was any different than what Capablanca had done. You see, Capablanca came up with his back rank
setup, which was Rook, Knight, Archbishop, Bishop, Queen, King, Bishop, Chancellor, Knight, Rook in 1924, 50 years
after the Englishmen Henry Bird had his arrangement as Rook, Knight, Bishop, Archbishop, Queen, King, Chancellor, Bishop, Knight, Rook.
Capablanca "corrected" Bird's setup by switching the locations of the Bishop and Archbishop on the Queenside, and the locations of the
Chancellor and the Bishop on the Kingside. Capablanca did this to correct a "mate in 2" that would exist in Bird's Chess after
playing 1. Ch3 Nc6?? 2. Cxh7# which is one of many fool's mates that is possible unless black defends h7 immediately.
The chess variant community makes no mention of Capablanca "only" changing Bird's pieces around. They gave him credit for a
"unique game" when in reality, all he did was make an adjustment to Bird's configuration. Yet when I pointed out another
mate (more akin to the Scholar's Mate than the Fool's Mate) in Capablanca Chess, such as 1. d3 Nh6 2. Ci3!? Cg6 3. Qd2 f5
4. Cxi7!? Cxi7 5. Qxh6! gxh6?? 6. Axh6# the chess variant community on ChessVariants.org was still dismissive of my analysis, instead they
rallied behind and defended Capablanca. I found this behavior very peculiar. Sure, Capablanca was a chess genius, but the gaffe regarding
his variant does not detract from his accomplishments.
After an independent peer review of leading academic researchers in the domain of Artifical Intelligence, my analysis of
several 80-square chess variants was published in ICGA Journal Vol. 27, No. 2 - June 2004, pp. 81-96.
You can download this paper here and read over this extensive analysis with plenty of diagrams and notes.
After this journal was in circulation, the chess variant community was "contacted" by some readers of the article through their
discussion board. Leading the unduly harsh responders was Derek Nalls. Derek again attacked anyone asking simple questions and
tried to "trump" my paper by inundating them with his own, unpublished, untested results. This was the so-called "Symmetrical Collection"
he continues to try and advertise and gain support for through Wikipedia. Again, the chess variant community elected to try and
downplay my research, even though an independent evaluation of it by people with doctorates in math and computer science deemed it
worthy of publishing. The new posters to the chessvariants.org board would not be so easily convinced of their view, and they supported
my perspective that was present in the paper.
As theses new posters continued to demonstrate the flaws with Derek's claims, and after several months of back-and-forth arguing with them,
he struck back at me. On September 19, 2004, he uploaded a ".zrf file" that would allow users of the Zillions-of-Games
engine to play Gothic Chess. This is in clear violation of my patent rights.
If you click on the picture on the left, you can see a
larger version of the image and read it more clearly. It is plain to see that his "symmetry perfect" website is mentioned as the source,
with no mention of me or my patent. I was able to have my attorney coordinate with the legal deptartment of the hosting site, and after
some discourse, his link was taken down.
As a result of this, Derek decided to engage in more personal attacks.
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This next section contains screen shots taken directly from his website. It is plain to see the hostility in his
post after:
1. He lost virtually every debate on chessvariants.org in his attempts to claim his variants were superior to Gothic Chess.
2. Zillions-of-Games was defeated very badly in the 2004 Gothic Chess Computer World Championship. You can read more about it
by clicking this link
3. The ChessV program also lost many games in the same event. Since Derek claims his "chess piece values" are so superior to
my own published analysis, he had a tough time explaining how Gothic Vortex beat all other programs 14-0 to win this event unscathed.
So, you see, Derek has an axe to grind with me, but it is all his own doing. He attacked me for no reason, I never provoked him.
He continues to assault the notion of the patent, the game of Gothic Chess, and my own contributions to the chess variant community.
And now, he is trying to use Wikipedia as a media vehicle to further his own cause through "hype". I say, if his chess variant(s) are so
good, he should be able to build a strong following, like I have done, without the need to do things the way he is attempting to do them. He is trying to
attach "his game" to Gothic Chess via links to his own site, and on these pages he tears down Gothic Chess and myself while promoting his own game.
Essentially, he knows Gothic Chess is much more widely played and recognized, and he is publicly denouncing this yet he seeks to funnel the
much larger traffic volume we generate over to "his pages." Isn't this a contradiction? If Gothic Chess is so unpopular, why does he need
to place his links on our pages? If his game is so popular, why wouldn't we try to have our links on his site, rather than the opposite?
Don't be fooled by Derek, nobody plays his game, not even himself. There is not one photograph of anyone ever playing it. Not even a picture of him doing so.
Isn't his abnormal behavior worthy of admonishment and disciplinary measures? How far are you willing to let him go as he
engages in repeated attacks?
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