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Value of Pieces in Crazyhouse

@Mollus (#8)

Nope, the element of material is the most important. King safety is not an element, but obviously it is the most important PART because mate is what wins the game.

To win in crazyhouse, all you need is a lot of material.

So you can win even in a cramped position (material more important than position or space, unless related to king safety, counterattacks, or other threats).
@liminal (#9)

A pawn chain can be destroyed with a sacrifice. Exactly! That's the whole point! The pawn chain may be weak, but you win material. That's an extra piece to attack your opponent.

And no, if you attack you do not have to mate. You can simply gain space, time, and material needed to mate.
@liminal (#10)

Queens are useless if they can check or trap the king, but are too close so they are in the king's capture range. Knights on the other hand are almost always useful and powerful.

In-hand pieces are always more powerful then Moving pieces because you decided the mobility and location of the piece.
Hey why is the horse so good i Cray house? I mean its so power ful. Discovery after 10 GAME. Brute.
jannlee said a pawn is worth 1 point a bishop knight or rook 2points depends on the situation often a light piece is strong a knight can be very dangerous. and a queen is worth about 4points but 2pieces are often stronger than a queen/
@janosopeligroso

Because ordinarily you have to find some series of moves to get a Knight in a very good spot, but in Crazyhouse you can drop a captured Knight in exactly the right spot. Since it can leap, that spot might even be deep in your opponents board, causing nasty forks or mating combinations you could never have created with that Knight if it were on the board and had to be maneuvered to that location.

In short, the Knight is the only piece that can leap (ignore castling for the moment), is an optimal forking unit, particularly against the Queen, and ordinarily has a hard time getting positioned well in Chess, but in Crazyhouse you can drop it exactly where you need it in one move.
@InnateAluminum

My valuation of the Queen [in Crazyhouse] is because of its ability to fork, its freedom of movement, and its unique ability to coordinate with the Knight in Crazyhouse.

It's the combination of the Knight/Queen attack that makes the Queen so deadly.
@opperwezen (#15)

Technically a knight is much more than twice the power of a pawn. And so is a rook - pawns have powers in chains that check the king, but all you have to do is attack its base.

If a pawn were worth 1 point and a rook 2, a four-pawn chain is worth two rooks.
@InnateAluminum just how strong are you at zh ?
You really don't seem to be understanding the variant very well (esp. when saying things like "should focus on gaining material"). Also you mention "the endgame" as if that made any sense.

#15 is right. (I mean jannlee is right, duh.)

"Pieces valuation" matter a lot less in zh than in classical chess, because positions are so much more diverse & dynamic. Do exchange an uber-knight for a bad bishop anytime you need a bishop to mate.

To get an estimate for the piece values, you can also check the values we use in Stockfish:
github.com/ddugovic/Stockfish/blob/8445769c1d444c8adf7daefe53284d1bd57bdf1f/src/types.h#L365-L371
("Mg" and "Eg" mean middle-/endgame, where "endgame" in this case means many pieces in hand)

For pawns and knights the piece value can be considerably higher if they are in hand (github.com/ddugovic/Stockfish/blob/8445769c1d444c8adf7daefe53284d1bd57bdf1f/src/psqt.cpp#L940-L943), for a pawn that can be up to one third of its value.

But of course the evaluation of the pieces also heavily depends on the position, so such values are only rules of thumb.

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