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Topic: Camel in back row? (Read 1836 times) |
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Belteshazzar
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Camel in back row?
« on: Mar 22nd, 2011, 4:03pm » |
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Have opening setups which place the camel in the back row pretty much been discarded? I notice that bot_Clueless2007CC does that, and I remember reading that it was once considered a good way to protect your camel at the outset. Has it been found that that puts one at too much of a disadvantage offensively?
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Tuks
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Re: Camel in back row?
« Reply #1 on: Mar 22nd, 2011, 7:55pm » |
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well, part of the reason it was thought that the camel in the first row was a good idea was because everyone used to fear camel hostages but people have come to realise that swarms are just as powerful, so if you keep your camel back, the opponent will eventually swarm forward with his camel/horse, etc. and your camel will be in no place to help you out.
its usually quite easy to keep your camel in play but out of danger, at least from strong, game threatening hostages
just look at some of c&g's games, he often attacks early using his camel as part of the attack and wins 99% of the matches against players outside the top 3
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99of9
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Re: Camel in back row?
« Reply #2 on: Mar 22nd, 2011, 11:24pm » |
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You need your camel for defence as well as offence. In particular it is good if your camel can get to whichever trap is being attacked. If it starts in the back row, it is very difficult to get it across to the other side of the board.
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chessandgo
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Re: Camel in back row?
« Reply #3 on: Mar 23rd, 2011, 4:24am » |
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It would be like keeping your queen on d1 in chess for fear of it being captured (even much worse than that actually, since a back row camel is much less active than a d1 queen in chess). Piece activity is extremely important, and your pieces are usually safe up to the third row (provided your elephant is centralized to help withdraw pieces pulled in the center by the enemy elephant). As 99of9 says, being able to reach your own traps quickly (as well as the opponent's traps actually) is very important.
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| « Last Edit: Mar 23rd, 2011, 4:28am by chessandgo » |
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omar
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Re: Camel in back row?
« Reply #4 on: Mar 24th, 2011, 12:02am » |
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If the camel is placed behind the elephant or some other piece that is near the center and likely to move forward, then it will be just one step to advance the camel to the front row and get it into play. In the first few moves of the game there is usually plenty of opportunities where you have one extra step. Such a setup is probably not that much of a disadvantage. I guess it depends on where in the back row you place it. If it is on one side behind a cat or rabbit then it going to be hard for the camel to get into play.
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chessandgo
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Re: Camel in back row?
« Reply #5 on: Mar 24th, 2011, 2:49am » |
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on Mar 24th, 2011, 12:02am, omar wrote:| In the first few moves of the game there is usually plenty of opportunities where you have one extra step. |
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I kinda disagree with this  Although it's true that you'll probably want to advance any back-row piece at some point in the game, so from that perspective, placing a camel on the 2nd row (instead of the 1st) forces you to place another piece on the 1st row (instead of 2nd). It's a matter of priority I guess, and the low priority pieces are dogs, cats and (extra) rabbits in the opening ("extra" as in, when you have rabbits on a2 and h2 for example, the other rabbits are not too likely to crucially need to advance in the opening)
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