5:36 <stares at mate in 1> "I should be winning"

I enjoy that he's trying different variants of chess. It's really refreshing to watch something different yet still similar

The arrow hasn't mastered these variants yet

I gave it a google, apparently the "Bare Piece Rule" referred to a player whose king was "bare" aka all pieces had been removed, it is an automatic loss in these older versions of Chess with the exception of one pretty specific case wherein the player with a "Bare King" can immediately "bare" your own king, so a draw could be achieved if you have no pieces but can immediately take your opponent's last piece.

3:59 the chariot is actually worth more than 5 points in this game mode, close to 7, knights are worth 4, and elephants are worth about a pawn, even less

Waiting for IWC to play 5D Chess with multiverse time travel ❤

1:40 yeah also impoirtant to note that none of the elephants can ever touch any other elephant haha

Your explanation of where the elephants could jump to really hit me. They’re so weak! None of them can even interact with each other!

A while back, someone made a bunch of Stockfish variants (fairy-stockfish). These can be used to get approximate values for variant pieces

For example, you're right about the elephant. The Stockfish variant for Chaturanga says that the elephant is only worth 1.6 (in the starting position). And the councilor is only worth about 2.2

Note that some minor pieces being worth less means that the other pieces are worth more. For example, knights are worth about 4.6, while chariots are worth 7

As in regular chess, the exact value of a piece depends on the position. But in general, knight for chariot is equivalent to losing around two pawns

At 7:40 the fork you mentioned earlier shows up again, now no longer defended by the knight

Its crazy how quickly you became my daily YouTube channel when i dont even play chess but your content and personality is great

5:35 Isn't there M1 with the ''rooks''' ??

11:14-11:22 made me chuckle, I love how your first instinct was to utilize this power to give a fancy greeting 😂

Some other things about elephants: they can never directly interact with other elephants, and they can never control the center 4 squares. I would say the elephant can’t be worth more than 2. Probably closer to 1. A counselor is just a really slow bishop so I’d say it’s worth close to 1 as well.

I read on wikipedia that the modern versions of the queen & bishop (they were in medieval Europe still called bishops & queens, even though they moved as what we now call alfils and ferzes) came about through this game; Someone in the 1500s noted how weak these pieces were, and had the idea to massively buff them.  For a while, this version was called the “Mad Queen variant”, but spread rapidly for how well it improved the tactical complexity of the game and eventually supplanted its predecessor

I have watched a few of your videos and had thought you were a fairly famous chess youtuber , when I went to subscribed turns out you are an insanely underrated youtuber. you deserve way more. much love from a random viewer

The traditional point system given in Shatranj (same version, Arabic name) is:
Pawn 1
Councillor 2
Elephant 2
Knight 3
Rook 5
Having played this variant quite a bit, I think that evaluation largely holds up.

I think the life goal of every elephant is to fork a pair of knights. And I don't think elephants often achieve their goals LOL

16:54 i think its because you have auto promote to a queen activated

I would argue the elephant is worth 1 because it’s way weaker than a bishop where the bishop has 32 tiles it can live on the elephant only has 8 and can never trade with another elephant. On top of that the squares the elephant can control are really useless squares, they can’t support a knight fork of king and chariot fried liver style or ever hit the back row