Why mixing Fetlar and Copenhagen rules is good

[Draganov]

Here is my explanation why do I think mixing Fetlar and Copenhagen rules can create a better-balanced and more interesting variant than the existing ones. Such a variant is the same as Copenhagen but with repetitions allowed as in Fetlar.
First of all, let's see the main points against the Fetlar rules. Many players think that Fetlar is a drawish variant. This is far from the truth. Statistically, there are 141 draw games from 2001 games in total. It means that only 7% of the games was ended as draw. It is not so much compared to chess for example. This is also a proof that it is not so easy to secure a draw in Fetlar especially against a strong and experienced player.
In my opinion the draws in Fetlar were because of the limitations for the whites. In Fetlar the whties can't win by an exit fort and can't use shieldwall to kill a group of black pieces. In Copenhagen shieldwall is often used either to kill a group of black pieces on the side and set up an exit fort or to kill two black vikings next to the corner and help the king to escape. This is not possible in Fetlar, which means that in Fetlar is easier for the blacks to close the corners effectively. This is the main reason why the whites need to play for a draw in some situations. They just don't have other choices.
However, if we allow shieldwall and winning exit fort in Fetlar, then we will see more agressive play from the whites.

From another point of view, Fetlar is just as balanced as Copenhagen. But how this is possible since in Fetlar, we don't have shieldwalls and winning exit forts? This is due to the repetitions, which are allowed in Fetlar. Because the whites can play for repetitions, the blacks need to be very careful to block the king effectivelly. The blacks in many situations must choose to block the king instead of the corners and this opens chances for the whites to occupy the corners and play for the win.
So, in Fetlar, the blacks are really the attackers, trying to fight the king directly, while in Copenhagen, they are acting more like defenders, playing to close the corners as soon as possible.
Here are my points why mixing Fetlar and Copenhagen rules is the best choice:
1) By allowing the repetitions for the whites, the blacks will need to be much more careful and will need to fight against one more white's weapon. This will weaken the black's chances to close the corners early in the game. Many of the Copenhagen games are practically finished early because the blacks managed to close the corners in the first 20-30 moves. However, the game continues for 100 moves more without real chances for the whites. With the allowed repetitions, the corners will probably stay opened for longer and this will keep the game intrigue for a longer time.

2) The draw forts from Fetlar keep the hope of the whites alive until the end. Even if the blacks managed to close the sides and prevent the fort on the side, the whites still can continue playing and trying to set up a draw fort in the center. This is not an easy task since the whites need to prevent the situation in which their vikings are surrouned by the blacks but it gives them something to fight for.

3) Another benefit from the Fetlar rules is that there are some really creative draw forts that are worthy to be allowed in the game. Remember the so-called Garbo fort or the 'Two towers fort', which are pretty much creative and original. In Copenhagen we just removed such creative forts from the game.

4) Moreover, by allowing the repetitions and the draw forts, the game will be interesting even after move 100 and even in situation where the blacks managed to close the corners, blocked the sides and even created a cordon with the black vikings. The whites just need to place two vikings on one of the sides and they will be able to play for a draw by a draw fort or hoping to open a hole in the black's cordon and play for repetiotion with the king.

5) With the increasing the strength of the players and their improvement, the game becomes more and more obviously in favour of the blacks. Soon it will be difficult to win a game with the whites against an experienced player. With the allowed repetitions and draw forts, the game will become more well-balanced.

6) It will give more chances for the weaker players to create troubles of the high-rated players, making the game more unpredictable. A match between 2000-rating player and 1300-rating player will not be decided before it started.

7) By adding the Fetlar specific rules in the Copenhagen variant, we are going to have a continuity in the development of the game. Many of the old Fetlar games (from the time of the reign of Tim MIllar 'Crust' will be understand by the new players. They will understand why the players with the Fetlar background did their moves and played for draws or how their game strategy was built.

I also uploaded some pictures of the creative draw forts that could be possible in a mixed Copenhagen and Fetlar variant but are now ommited from
the Copenhagen variant.

[Floki]

I think that what you are proposing is very appealing. I never liked Fetlar from day one as I can’t see how Viking would have accepted any games ending by a draw ! I also think that the so called attackers are in fact defenders. You have very well argumented this aspect; I am not that ancient in the game but I have been realising that the balance is much more in favour of blacks at Copenhagen especially when playing against top players and the same apply when they play with each other.
I also think that, as you have well explained it, blocking corners is the main target for blacks which makes, for my point of view, Old and Legacy Hnefatafl and Fetlar far less enjoyable than Copenhagen variant.

Having said that, I think that it would be beneficial to test this year and why not, this variant (Coplar, Fetgen or whatever) being played for the next World tournament.

My proposal is:
First, convince Hagbard to implement this variant without for now, testing it in a tournament format.
Then, set up a few games, preferably not rated, between you and players from top to lower ranking as follows:
Draganov - Casshern
Draganov - X >1800
Draganov - 1800 < X < 1600
Draganov 1600 < X < 1400
Proposal obviously to fine tune.

[Ytreza]

5) With the increasing the strength of the players and their improvement, the game becomes more and more obviously in favour of the blacks. Soon it will be difficult to win a game with the whites against an experienced player. With the allowed repetitions and draw forts, the game will become more well-balanced.

have been realising that the balance is much more in favour of blacks at Copenhagen especially when playing against top players and the same apply when they play with each other.

Looking here: https://aagenielsen.dk/tafl_balances.php, it seems that Copenhagen is very balanced for strong players, and slightly in favour of White. Are these statistics outdated?

I don't have experienced in playing Fetlar, but if it is already balanced, adding the shieldwall capture and winning edge forts will necessary lead to a variant that advantages White.

That said, draw forts are appealing because they can be more creative than winning forts (there are really only two types of winning forts, the one with 4 pieces and width 4, and the one with 6 pieces and width 3).

The following position came up in a game I recently played with a friend:

draw fort 3-moves.png (73.69 KiB) Viewed 2427 times

(I added some random pieces in the board to get something believable).
After a tense fight in the corner, White obtained this beautiful unbreakable construct, with 2 empty squares. This allows a long repetition of more than 14 moves (I'm not able to compute the exact number). We both felt that this would have deserved to be a draw.

These situations being a loss for White also incentivize White to keep playing with the hope of reaching 100 moves without capture, which is not a nice goal. A practical problem when playing irl is also that it is difficult to detect when a position is repeated 3 times, except when the repetition is trivial.

One way out is to state that trivial repetitions (the same back-and-forth repeated 3 times) leads to a loss for white, while longer cycles lead to a draw. This prevents the most problematic case where the king moves back and forth on the 2nd row, and allows a subset of interesting draw forts. It also removes the necessity to spot long cycles on the board (missing them just means the 100 moves limit will be hit eventually).

That said, I'm happy to see that the repetition rule in Copenhagen has been clarified. The game is very nice with the present set of rules.