Second History of the House

[crazymaharajah]

The last secret of Crazyhouse is the name of its creator.

We must say the inventors of chess variants - a special group of people in the world of chess.

In our time, you can theoretically come up with any variants. There are templates and models, there are computers. There is an experience of predecessors. But will there be beauty in it.

What makes the variants meaningful. It can be beauty or math. In the case of Crazyhouse, I call it the "Crazyhouse effect". What makes you come back. And at the same time what can persecute you. What is familiar to every crazy player.

Not all inventors of chess variants remain in history. King Gustav probably wanted to stay in history.

I started playing variants first in Zillion's shell. A little later I was delighted with the work of V.R.Parton and Ralph Betza.


I also tried to learn little-known facts from history in these endless archives –

http://history.chess.free.fr/library.htm

http://www.chessarch.com/archive/articles.shtml

And not all sites from this list are now available -

http://www.schackportalen.nu/English/eblandat.htm


The history of the variants is scattered in different languages. But one of the best sources is of course the Pritchard Encyclopaedia. This is the historical games Crazyhouse –



Alex Randolph - David Pritchard (date unknown)

Although the name of the inventor Crazyhouse is mentioned in the Encyclopedia.

I have not heard from any of the famous or leading players the name of the inventor.

I asked my question, including people dedicated to the game 15-20 and even more years.

I mentioned this in my first chapter - the best players did not know anything about the origin of the game. I had extensive correspondence and I can not name all the names. Players, journalists, programmers. Many are known.

It was including people involved in the history of chess on the Internet. And people studying chess variants. And also active members of the community Crazyhouse.

In the correspondence, my friends went to the famous chess journalist GM Raymond Keene.

He indicated the name of Alex Randolph.

As evidence, I received a link to the interview -

http://www.aresgames.eu/16037

with the Italian game designer Leo Colovini. He also worked in collaboration with Randolph.


Randolph is an incredibly interesting person in the history of chess inventors. From the mid-60's he lived in Japan where he was given dan in shogi. Later he moved to Venice.

During the Second World War, he passed some training in a group of cryptographers –

http://brettboard.dk/lib/talks/alex7.htm


I managed to find in the archives a biography of Randolph.

http://thebiggamehunter.com/inventors/game-designers/alex-randolph/

http://ludotonica.com/archivos/502

https://web.archive.org/web/20120501211347/https://zuspieler.de/das-leben-des-alex-randolph/


And also a reference to his only official biography published in German.

I thought that we found the answer to the last question. Randolph originally called the game Mad Mate and therefore early information on it can be found using the early names of the game. Few of his contemporaries in Europe or the US could also compete with him in shogi.

But what I noticed was that Randolph also created games under a pseudonym. And I thought at first that he might not want to stay in history. But soon I was convinced that it is not so – http://brettboard.dk/lib/talks/alex9.htm

Randolph thought about copyright protection. And although he belongs to the authorship of dozens of games, I soon realized that it was not he who was the inventor Crazyhouse. To begin with, let's return to the Pritchard Encyclopedia - we are interested in Chapter 5

We see that several variants of the same game were originally described. Changes in the rules apply to pawns - in some versions. These changes are not essential. Because initially the game could only happen OTB. These could be sets for board games. Or two sets of regular chess.

What Randolph invented is called Mad Mate and his game dates back to 1972. While the identical game was called Ralph Betza Chessgi back in 1964.

Later in 1997, Randolph patented a board game Mad Mate. Randolph also founded his own game development company in the 90s.

Pay attention also to another fact – «They classified this last one as a "non-Chess game", and other games they played in this category included Checkers and Go.». This club in the US probably played in Crazyhouse from the mid-60's.


P.Novak(GB)-A.Castelli(ITA) 1st Heterochess Olympiad

M. Chandler - A. Whitely (1980)

I came to the conclusion that the game itself was invented before the 60's. Its origin can be in the 19th century. See subchapter 5.4 in the Encyclopedia on article Replacement Chess.It's about a similar variant - (and the version of its name Madhouse Chess!) the dates of its history go back to the 1930s.

A game can have multiple authors at once and the claims of authorship themselves could give some clues. Knowing the history of chess, you understand that the very idea of chess crazy is fundamental enough. Shogi are known at least from the VIII century.





The history of chess is the history of hybrids. Each element requires skill - a cube, a clock or pieces. By studying the variants you can see what you can see for the first time.