Comments by GeorgeDuke

Joe Joyce's 'invention' here is old hat, ''so yesterday'' for Alice
Chess, certainly creative enough for its time. There are number of spinoffs already, easy to find by conscientious researcher, on mediocre-playing Alice. Touting my own first here, as customary among modern prolificists, year 2004 '3D Positional Chess' fits the bill in having multiple boards interacting. 'Alice-like' 3D Positonal Chess discloses 8x8x2 2 boards, 7x7x3 3 boards (147 squares), 6x6x4 4 boards (144 squares) for pieces to transfer among upon promotion -- the novelty. Offhand Joyce's so many as 192 squares would be especially unplayable with short-range pieces, arbitrarily limited to 2 or 3 squares. The unpalatable oversizing is reminiscent of that author's recent poor Chieftain Chess, exactly 192 too. Invariably, well-intentioned good-natured, unoriginal 'designer' Joe Joyce will ignore prior art called to attention, so we leave it at 3D Positional Chesses.

Alice is nothing but 3D with compulsory change of level, so many 3Ds
indexed in CVPage, out of 200, are really already Alice copycats after
1950s. Most Mutators are a worsening because of increasing complexity.
Offhand also, Antoine Fourriere's Chessma 84 (2002), many Gilman's like
Tardis Taijitu (2006), Betza's article starting with 'Alice...', and
especially 'inspired by Alice Chess' Jim Aiken's Tandem-84 (2002). 
Infinite possibilites and infinite problems in 3D where nothing has been
proven to be correct.  Philosopher's Chess and Pocket Polypiece are
isomorphic with Alice-types, according to definition, by thinking of
change of modality as switch to a different, second board, half or so the
pieces staying the same and half changing.

Pietro Carrera died in 1646, and in the 1680's the Cafe de la Regence was
founded in Paris. Intellectuals Voltaire, Rousseau, Ben Franklin, Napoleon Bonaparte visited the coffeehouse over the years, where ''the game of
Chess is played best'' according to Diderot. There in 1783 Wolfgang von
Kempelen brought for public demonstration the chess player automaton: The Turk. The Turk could perform Knight's Tours faster even than the great Francois-Andre Danican Philidor, author of 'Analyse du jeu des Echecs'. Franklin there as signatory to the Treaty of Paris ending American Revolution, lost a game played to the freestanding Turk. Though winning, Philidor was terrified in principle of a chess-playing machine. Savants' articles in the journal for the French Academy of Sciences speculated that the cylinder inside must encode ''sets of preprogrammed chess moves.''   
     ''As it made each move, the Turk's gloved left hand moved over the board so that it was positioned above a particular chessman. Its fingers would then close to grasp the piece and move it to another square (or off the board entirely). After making each move, the automaton rested its arm on the cushion, at which point the sound of whirring clockwork would cease. The Turk moved its head under certain circumstances during the game. After a move endangering its opponent's Queen, the Turk would nod its head twice; and when placing the King in check, it would nod three times. Every ten or twelve moves Kempelen returned to the left-hand side of the cabinet to wind up the clockwork mechanism.'' --Tom Standage, 'The Turk' 2002    Year 1783 also saw in southern France the first-ever successful demonstration of flight in a hot-air balloon.

9.March.1943 - 17.January.2008, ChessBase News' lead-in today says
''Rest in Peace, Bobby.'' Fischer in OrthoChess ended really 35 years
ago for practical purposes.  'Fischerandom' is Bobby's further radical, controversial contribution from 1996 and makes good points on onslaught from computers for competitive Chess, seen even in CVPage articles. Accompanying 'ChessboardMath' comment of the automaton 'Turk' shows, people actually thought about Chess playing out periodically over two hundred years ago, on Philidor's systematization and the very idea of machines playing. Chess fans thank Iceland for respecting the World Championship twice. And Fischer for the tension, of course and the game-scores, though they are proportionately far less studied than Philidor's, by the current impatience over memorized openings, and diminishment in Chess' being the premier test of mental skill. Somehow excluding health or politics, iconic 'Bobby' would be protesting still.

Still 1783, in London, expert Philip Thicknesse's article in the 'Monthly
Review' declares, ''That an Automaton may be made to move its hand, its
head, and its eyes, in certain and regular motions, is past all doubt; but that an AUTOMATON can be made to move the Chessmen properly, as a
pugnacious player, in consequence of the preceding move of a stranger, who undertakes to play against it, is UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE. Wolfgang von Kempelen's machine, when he is stripped of his Turkish robes, turned out of his splendid apartment, deprived of the serious deportment of all the parties, and parade of admittance, is a simple trick.'' [No one much agreed.] ''By diversionary tactics, the display of the Turk's clockwork innards was ingenious device to delude observers that every spectator should think he was secretly controlling the automaton by some incomprehensible and invisible powers, according to the preceding move of the stranger who plays; and he places himself close to the right elbow of the Turk, previous to its move; then puts his left hand into his coat pocket, and by an awkward kind of motion, induces most people to believe that he has a magnet concealed in his pocket, by which he can direct the movement of the Turk's arm. Add to this, that he has a cabinet on a side-table, which he now and then unlocks and locks, a candle burning, and a key to wind up the Automaton; all of which are merely to puzzle the spectators. The real mover is concealed in the Counter, which is quite large enough (exclusive of the clockwork) to contain a child of ten years of age, who could play well by using a mirror or see all the moves through the Turk's habit.''  --All above quotes of Thicknesse from Tom Standage 'The Turk' 2002, who adds ''His pamphlet did not dent the Turk's popularity during the months spent in London.'' Kempelen would often leave the Automaton to play several moves while chatting in the audience.