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Comments by GeorgeDuke
Let's open the discussion to designers not actively programming now. There is a lot of two-tracking in CVPage. One example of double track is that most designers see their work as art and become prolificists (Betza, Gilman), the more ''paintings'' in their portfolio the better; whereas few others want to replace standard FIDE form logically (Duke, Trice, FischerRandom, Duniho's Eurasian, Joyce's Great Shatranj). The two camps talk at cross-purposes. Two other(different) opposite tracks may be seen this thread, namely, between player and programmer. Staightforward heuristic for player (usually designer too hereabouts), to make ongoing alterable piece-value estimates, certainly refining if possible to within 0.1 of a Pawn, their being so many hundreds of CVs to compute, of course will not do in itself for programmer. It is interesting, that's all, that the player's recipe is rejected immediately by the programmer. Player would gravitate to '1)' and '4)' rather than programmer-popular '2)' and '3)'. Another topic to relate here is proven fallacy after 400 years of emphasized Centaur(BN) and Champion (RN) anyway, discussed much in 2007, to be resurrected in follow-up. // In response to Gifford's: Computers will never write rhymed lines this century where every syllable matches in rhyme like: ''The avatar Horus' all-seeing Eye/ We have a star-chorus rallying cry.'' Granted most would not like style of writing, but still Computer cannot do it, rhyme every word with meaning. Similarly, we need games Computer cannot play well, or be expected to ever, using hidden information like Kriegspiel if that's what it takes, or Rules changing within score, or something else. Surely the main reason for vanishing interest in Mad Queen is Computer dominance in all aspects.
With Centaur and Champion(RN) the array must affect values on 8x10 especially. Detraction of 0.1 or more for both cornered, one would expect. In Falcon Chess, of the 453,600 initial arrays, cornered positions for Falcon lower value relatively. Cheops' 'FRNBQ...' or Pyramids' 'FBRNQ...' each take away 0.1 or 0.2 of more general 6.5. Templar's 'RBFNQ...' and Osiris' 'RNBQFF...' are harder to distinguish from standard 'RNBFQ...' and 'RNFBQ...' Has initial array positioning already entered discussion for value determinations?
Ideal Values and Practical Values (part 6). A study of the value of the Furlrurlbakking piece.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Betza wrote this 1996 with revision 2001. Betza wants mostly roughly ''Rook-valued pieces'' in these pieces compounded of constituents. The last commenter Levi Aho calculates quadrillions (10^15's) combinations for pieces from this one Betza piece-value article alone. Actually Aho takes some license, because they would not all render as 5.0 +/- 1.0, but piece values would scatter by that Comment considerably, still probably all neatly between Pawn and Queen within the definitions. Betza only addresses ones near Rook value ''HFD is the beloved Half-Duck,'' a great piece worth 5.0 points.
What is style? Are there styles of individual designers in their CVs, their chosen artwork? The last sentence below returns to ''style.'' Because Computers play 8x8 so well definitely led to my losing interest in reading any more standard Chess books by 1990's for improvement. What Computers do better than we can has affect on our motivations, everyone in varying degree and according to subject. Why play FIDE Chess anymore when purchased program wins every time? Many decide not to play for the very reason. To repeat from the other thread, surely most of the vanishing interest in Mad Queen is attributable to Computer dominance. (The Comment separates the subject, repeating somewhat, from their Piece Values thread.) Will Computer eventually write entire books to be published during this 21st Century? Could Computers yet find palindromes ''Never odd or even'' or ''Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?'' Of course, but not without the motivation to do so. So let us systematically remove the motivation for certain computer projects, if it impinges upon dignity. Are there CVs they will not master? Greg Strong mentions types of Chess that programs have difficulty with. Do Computers have style anyway? Evidently they do, from analyis in Chess blogs about Computer vs. Computer matches. The complaint by Grandmasters is often also that somehow their Chess play lacks style, or their style is unappealing, evinced in phrase ''Computer move,'' as if that means something somewhat derogatory.
Hey we started this Chessboard Math thread, so we can add irrelevantly and irreverently as follows. Devise a test for top-50 Grandmaster X (or K). Set up certain moves from actual play at various stages, say 20 boards altogether. Some are Computer-Computer, some Human-Human, and Computer-Human. Be sure the chosen 'X' or 'K' has used the phrase ''computer move'' before. The test is to determine whether given moves, numbering 20 in the test, all from different game-scores one of each, is *Computer Move*. Most likely they cannot tell, better than expectation 10 of 20, and such talk is bluster. Turing test anyone?
Gary Kasparov in promotion for his 1990's Computer matches repeatedly represents himself as ''mankind's last stand'' against Computer. Then he lost to Deep Blue in 1996 and claimed there was at least one move that was not recognizable ''computer move,'' whatever that means. I think ''Chess Variants'' biggest problems are twofold, one the same Computer dominance problem of OrthoChess. There must be solution for it, or all these games will continue obvious decline. Problem Two, the other one is the quality problem, how to determine good games. Who decides? I have said within game conversations to different individuals over years, there are ''prolificists'' (having more than 15 CVs) whose every CV I personally would be ashamed to put my byline on, had they been my own idea or ''invention.'' Yet these games keep pouring out and get published. And the more self-promotion, or outspokenness, the more attention for many, many atrocious CVs. There is serious divide between two opposing camps, not explainable away by debating points. Embarassingly, there is frequently not even common language for evaluation. One prolificist recently indicates complete ignorance of the difference between compound piece and multi-path piece -- concepts at opposite poles from each other. Same problem of prolificism blends into the sheer number of ''inventable'' creations possible, no one really addresses. The Betza Piece Values VI article, recently commented, suggests so many quadrillion -- get that 10^15 and more theoretically workable -- separate pieces, by commenter Levi Aho's calculation, not to mention games-rules' sets. Somehow those without stake in own inventions must start winnowing some categories, and maybe some actual Rules-sets would emerge. Lately Hutnik indicates some intention of the sort, but on side touts Calvinball with ever-changing infinity of Rules-sets.
Sissa. 
Move exists of moving a number of squares as rook and an equal number of squares as bishop.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I credit Carlos Cetina for having idea similar to Falcon at the same time I did. When mulling over Falcon in early 1990's, we thought in terms of ''similar to RNB but different from each.'' In 1996 Patent papers, the verb ''complements'' appears, and Aronson by 2003 in Complete Permuatation Chess refers to ''the complement'' of RNB. There can be only one such, just as within 5x5 from starting square, RNB mutually complete and complement one another. There can be no corresponding mathematical complement at 9x9 from a starting square, because the Knight's continuation on step two in same direction reaches border of 9x9. There is then no further solution at 9x9. So, the discovery has been that there are four fundamental Chess pieces, neither three nor five. Betza's atomic DFWA are actually flawed, though useful, building blocks, as they are merely foreshortened Rook and Bishop, and moreover ignore the natural Knight (with no clear path, ergo all paths: the jumper). Now Cetina practically has the idea here: Multi-path, mixture of Rook and Bishop, reach to oblique squares. Great work! Concision and coherence the hallmark of Latin American inventors generally: Lavieri, Kirsinger, Cetina. Whereas North American ''inventors,'' befitting their culture, tend to have extravagant, grotesque, half-playable CVs at best -- metaphorically like their own loud commercial art, trivial television, War-in-Iraq overkill, or overwrought state Capitalism itself -- harmful ecologically, deleterious intellectually, poetically trite. The last sentence would not be any final word, just spur-of-moment comparision, to pay sincere relative tribute here. Sissa, reduced to mininal conception instead, not board-wide, could actually have morphed into three-path Falcon.
Why do clocks run clockwise anyway? Chess Variants suggest modifications of other Sports: Thoroughbred racing Variants. ''Big Brown's'' embarrassing last-place finish at Belmont Stakes, NY USA, June 2008: no hysterical ''Triple Crown'' winner. (1) Variant One. High-Stakes Race contenders run the tracks clockwise (European-style). Half the races actually should go clockwise for health reasons. Running CCW around ovals all the time distorts anatomies, because unsymmetrically left flanks always toe in for changes of direction, whilst right overdevelops striding. Such different stresses mean eventual genetic maladaptation by selection. (2) Change winning conditions. Why the Horse crossing finish line first always declared winner? a) Cross finish line at greatest angle from 90 degrees, up to 45 degrees. b) Stepping backwards. c) Over and back fifty metres and over again. d) Thrice such. (3) Horse racing occasionally features locals as jockey-riders and monkeys. The first to produce full on-board robotic computer-mount control winning North American race gets free entrance fees for entire barn. This will also encourage not just one but many androids fitted for saddling entire stables. No more jockeys, think of savings. (Will some world-class jockey, robotically beaten, claim human intervention from a distance, like Gary Kasparov?) (4) Four is variation of (1). Half the field runs CW, and half CCW. Head-on collision at Finish is Draw, Deadheat, called ''Draw by Header.'' [Next we look at ''Basketball,'' invented by Naismith 1891, to redesign toward full potential and outlast the Classical Arena.]
Catapults of Troy. Large variant with a river, catapults, archers, and trojan horses! (8x11, Cells: 88) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating][Rating Poor to average out the one little Rating it had of Excellent in the very first of fully 22 Comments; everyone else apparently thought not to Rate] Certainly nice artistry in pictorials. Really about 4.5 out of 10 points, Average. Catapults of Troy saves itself from being another sorry entry by both that artwork and the Problem(s) thoughtfully added. Otherwise, as a game, it is the sort of overwrought and over-complicated Rules-set hardly worth constant publication, once so many such are available to peruse. Extremely few would be interested in convolutions like Catapults of Troy, even among Chess-aware intelligent public; yet it is understandable among Chess Variant artists, who care not about wide play of their games and want chiefly to increase their portfolios. Actually, Gifford seems past that stage and we should not expect many new CVs from him. So we can now start to analyse Gifford's work as retrospective, as we have started, for example, with Gilman's, still active, and Betza's. I never felt safe opportunity to Rate Gifford's Average, and Good in certain cases for their over-all presentation, for fear of lampooning by ''prolificist'' addicts. The ''inner circle'' would not consider its mindset of ''quantity over quality'' as intimidating and intolerant of dissent. It falls beyond their comprehension. But really that period is gone, since most CVP readers become aware at last of the untenability of unlimited Rules sets without full evaluation and unintended consequences from ignorance of priority.
Lemurian Shatranj. 8x8 variant that features short-range pieces. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]We go along with the finding of coherence by others in this one. Joe Joyce recently uses the word ''hubris'' to describe what inventors who fall in love with their invention feel. Presumably, there being 3000-4000 CVs' separate write-ups in CVPage alone, most are certain to outgrow ''hubris'' and eventually try to place their game and philosophy in contexts. Thanks to Joyce for retroactively acknowledging Burroughs, whose work is now almost 100 years old and was inspiration to many -- even before Ultima came along in 1960's. Betza for example tells of reading Murray in some major East Coast Library (Philadephia) way back then; and Burroughs' Martian Chess was one of few additional standards for off-Chess ideas. A third before Dickens' 'Guide To Fairy Chess' (1969) was 'Scientific American' in its Martin Gardner columns, taking up CVs several times annually. Anyone working with Jetan look-alikes should reference Burroughs, as now done here. We should also get around to considering in what respect Bent Hero and Bent Shaman fit into the multi-path panoply. Nice over-all work.
Hanga Roa. A chess variant inspired by the people of Easter Island. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Once a year we remind about this game for what minimal Rules can produce, and Hanga Roa has relevance because of grouping with Latin producers Lavieri and Cetina today. Only three piece-types in Hanga Roa maximize strategy. Lavieri's Comment 20.January.2004 sums it up: ''I figure it is much more complex than it looks at first.'' You learn the Rules in a minute, but the strategy ramifies endlessly. We wonder whether this is just type of CV computers might struggle with for a while.
Novo Chess. War game chess variant from the Netherlands, 1937. (12x8, Cells: 96) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]In contrast to Hanga Roa, Novo Chess' complicated Rules take up to an hour to master and so would not be enjoyable to many for that reason. Here in 1930's are four of the six Falcon movements in Novo's Motor Unit: o-o-d, d-o-o, d-d-o and o-d-d, orthogonal and diagonal. Rated Excellent before, Novo shows interesting features, such as Squares for transit by certain pieces, that also block off mobility, copied in principle in Jacks & Witches and also Chess with Terrain, among others. Also, the one- and two-stepping diagonal mover is found in the Bicycle Unit in early use here. The General Staff's ''switching'' is reminiscent of Swapper of Rococo.
Opulent Lemurian Shatranj. Joe Joyce's Shaman and Hero pieces are now on a larger board. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Only one Comment so far; there appear conveniently piece values. This Comment is only from momentary perusal. War Elephant is the same as Free Padwar from Jetan, states Joyce. For those, one has to go to Larry Smith's legendary article covering all possible interpretations. We recognize now Bent Shaman and Bent Hero as two-path, their becoming more instinctive, like several interpretations of Jetan pieces. Now actually one piece may have differing number of paths to different squares. Sissa, being Commented simultaneously, is especially interesting in being precisely two-path and four-path at the same time. It depends on its particular arrival squares. Hero and Shaman (both 'Bent' by our appellative preference) are either one- or two-path contingent upon squares in question. Maybe so many mid-range movers struggle on so large board.
Reasons justifying ratings and design philosophy that our camp can agree with are expressed as well as anywhere by Tom Braunlich in David Pritchard's 'ECV': ''Most designs are not marketable because designers tend to underestimate the subtlety of what makes a good chess variant. Two of the secrets of variant design are elegance and balance. An elegant game combines minimum rules with maximum strategy. Chess itself is a simple game to learn but its resulting strategy is profound. Any good chess game should have similar elegance; its capacity should be a result of the ramifications of the rules rather than the rules themselves. Many inventors assume that making a game more complicated will make it better but usually the opposite is true. The eternal challenges of regular chess do not arise from its complexity but from the subtle balances of different elements in the game. A good player has to do more than calculate variations; he must know how to judge the relative value of many competing strategic factors. .... When a designer changes the parameters of board size, piece powers etc., the relative balance between the pieces quickly changes and must be reconstitued in some way to prevent the game from being too straightforward.'' (That is only 1/3 of what Pritchard quotes of Braunlich under ''Designing a Variant'' 'ECV' 1994.)
There are 10^32 or so configurations of Chess pieces on 8x8. Tom Standage writes ''Computers are unquestionably the modern descendants of automata: they are 'self-moving machines' in the sense that they blindly follow a preordained series of instructions, but rather than moving physical parts, computers move information. Just like automata before them, computers operate at intersection between science, commerce and entertainment.'' We are comparing automata from 17th, 18th and 19th centuries -- ''The Conflagration of Moscow,'' ''The Slack-Rope Dancers,'' Chess player ''The Turk'' -- with modern computers. In 1937 Alan Turing published ''On Computable Numbers.'' ''The chess machine is an ideal one to start with for several reasons. The problem is sharply defined, both in the allowed operations and ultimate goal. It is neither so simple as to be trivial or too difficult for satisfactory solution. And such a machine could be pitted against human opponent, giving clear measure of the machine's ability in this kind of reasoning,'' writes Claude Shannon in 1950 ''A Chess-playing Machine.'' All of Turing, John von Neumann, and Oskar Morgenstein were also thinking before, during, and after World War II about the possibility of programming computers to play chess. [Source: Tom Standage 'The Turk' 2002]
8x8 is interesting Chessboard size to last. Long-reigning Shogi has 81 spaces, Xiangqi 90. Now 64/81 and 64/90 are 79% and 71%. They get a lot of mileage in Western Chess from Chaturanga to Shatranj to Mad Queen out of board about 3/4 size of Eastern Chess. '8x10' would still be small compared to Shogi and Xiangqi. The ''holy grail'' of Brown in Centennial Chess is '10x10', decimal chess, but no one satisfactorily deals with the Pawns at that size. May 2008 here Carillo traces through history '8x10's from 1617 Carrera's, 1923 Capablanca's, 1978 Janus, 1996 Falcon, 2004 CRandomC, 2006 Mastodon, 2008 MCRandomC, among others.
Cannons and Crabs. A variant on a 7x6 board with Crabs (improved Pawns), and Cannons (leapers). (7x6, Cells: 42) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The names of all the games should become familiar even if not having time to play each one. David Short is pretty good prolificist from the CVP middle years. Very experimental, evinced for one point in extreme variability of board sizes from this never-commented Cannons and Crabs' 42 squares to DoubleEIGHTEEN-STONE's 144. Also please re-acquaint with Black Hole, Double Chess, Elbow Chess, Existentialist, Mini-Slanted Excalator, Schizophrenic, Slanted Escalator, Spinal Tap, Spinal Tap Chess Redux, Spinal Tap vs. Terror, Trubix, Trubix-43, and Ultra Slanted Escalator. Novel boards and totally-inspired piece-types frequent Short's reportory. Look at the wild connectivity in the Slanted ones. Look at Schizophrenic's Bobber, which changes its movement-rule each time it moves; and the Left Schizzy and Right Schizzy whose moves rest on whether being on the right- or left-sides. Two Pawn-types here, Pawns and Crabs, promote to classical-Carrera 'Centaur'(BN) or 'Champion'(RN) -- the key to Cannons and Crabs because so powerful promotees.
Slanted Escalator Chess. Chess on an asymmetric board with interesting connectivity. (8x8, Cells: 60) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]As Pawns, Crabs move diagonally forward one ''neutrally'' i.e. non-capturing too. Notice Betza, ''gnohmon,'' comments twice. Aronson says, ''the two sides have different board topologies,'' All I said about it is that 50-60 square-range is very rare, finding fewer than half dozen examples early 2008, when trying to compare Simplified Chess at 56 squares. [We would not say ''neutrally'' actually since the normal Pawn-capture also applies. How about: Crab is ''forward Ferz plus forward-neutral Wazir'' as way to characterize it, still yet without regard for the special connectivity -- or the initial orthogonal two-step choice; well heck with it, just read Short's more-than-adequate description.]
Slanted Escalator's Crab Pawn has a nice strengthener too, moving diagonally forward without capture, mode for 10x10 as well as the need Short fulfills on the Slanted Escalator board, to wind easily up the Escalator part of the board.
Ultra Slanted Escalator Chess. Game on an asymmetrical board of 84 squares with Crabs and Ultras. (10x9, Cells: 84) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]This is the pinnacle of the Slanted family, and Ultra Slanted Escalator won 4th Place out of 33 entries in 84-square Contest. Sheer artwork. Unfortunatly, like so many CVP-inspired games, there is little play of it and maybe never any sort of Preset for so tricky board. For the ways everything moves through the diagonals, go back to Slanted Escalator.
King's Guard Chess. Pawns move like kings and only Pawns may capture. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Left out of Chess Variant Page so far, the greatest odd-Chess exemplar of all time, Sam Loyd (1841-1911) would like this game. It reminds me of ''Excelsior,'' published 'London Era' 1861, the greatest individual Problem of all time by far. One is a Problem following OrthoChess Rules exclusively, whilst this is just another CVPage Rules-set. How can such two different elements be alike but by imagination? Here there is expression actually to want to play it, so nice work! The tie-in to two apparently disparate works, a game and a Problem, with different Rules, is *Assist*. Check out ''Excelsior'' at Wikipedia or someplace. Most CVs evoke some prior similarity, but we do not recall requiring two attacks to take (suggesting family of games, but forget about that). So simple idea is not previously considered and, therefore, please credit novelty to King's Guard -- being itself rare in CVPage by the late aughts. Are these then the last of the good fairy Chess ideas, so we can have ruined inventiveness in Rules altogether for our descendants, and no one bothers with CVs by the 1920's[2020's]? Let's get back to work. And elegant King's Guard coming out of North American inventor, is the source by geography and culture only one factor in appreciation?
Archimedes Chess. Capture by attacking an enemy unit with two of yours.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Here dissimilar from King's Guard, Cohen and Marley before him have piece immediately captured and removed upon double attack by any pieces normally. No displacement capture, the second attack effects removal. Alike are King's Guard and Archimedes in capturing King to win.
Golem Chess. Variant where the Queen is replaced by the Golem, a piece that must be captured twice to remove it from play. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The first capture of Golem removes the piece capturing. The second capture any time later of Golem removes the Golem itself, designated Half-Golem for the moves in the interval after the first ''capture.''
Ultima. Game where each type of piece has a different capturing ability. Also called Baroque. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Ultima's (1962) theme is that each piece captures in a different way than all the others, and there is no displacement capture except King's. Rococo (2003) recreates the theme. The last Comment suggests Chameleon may capture up to seven(7) pieces at once.
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