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Comments by HGMuller
Grotesque Chess. A variant of Capablanca's Chess with no unprotected Pawns. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Jun 19, 2008 05:15 PM UTC:
Wazir. 
Moves one square orthogonally.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Jun 26, 2008 06:18 AM UTC:I thought the Arabic Queen (i.e. in Shatranj) was called Ferz (=general), not Wazir (= Grandvizer). In WinBoard_F I took the turban as the symbol for representing a Wazir. This based on the observation that the standard symbols for the pieces of FIDE Chess are mostly head covers symbolizing the profession of the piece. (Animals and buildings are necessary exceptions to this.) And a turban seemed fitting for a Grandvizer. For the Ferz WinBoard_F uses a Chinese mandarin cap. This because the Mandarins / Ministers / Advisors of Xiangqi are basically Ferzes that are not allowed to leave the palace. WinBoard_F uses these Ferz and Wazir symbols also in Shogi, for Silver and Gold, respectively. The latter can be seen as Ferz and Wazir augmented with one or two forward moves. (In Shogi all pieces move just a bit different, also the Knight and Pawn, which are represented by their standard symbol.)
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Jun 26, 2008 06:40 AM UTC:| If 10x8 (10 wide, 8 deep) which is what I assume is the subject | is dead, it is because you can't find the board anywhere. This is not true at all. 10x8 boards and Chess sets are even sold commercially, and a lot of people play 10x8 variants. There are even internet servers dedicated to it. It is just that it is not allowed on this forum to mention where. This has to do more with being brain dead, than with the game being dead, though. Where I live, virtually every Chess board has a 10x10 board on the back (for playing draughts). For instance, I have a very nice one where the squares are wood inlays of light and dark wood. If I want to play a 10x8 game, I can simply cover the two back ranks by a piece of cardboard or clip a small wooden plank over it.
Falcon Chess. Game on an 8x10 board with a new piece: The Falcon. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]H. G. Muller wrote on Fri, Jun 27, 2008 10:19 AM UTC:Poor ★I think this page does a very poor job in describing Falcon Chess compared to the compact description other CVs get on these pages. And this for addition of only a single new piece, for which the move rules could have been described (within the context of what can be supposed common background knowledge for visitors of these pages) with the in a single sentence: 'The Falcon is a lame (1,3)+(2,3) compound leaper, which follows any of the three shortest paths to its desination consisting of orthogonal and diagonal steps, which can be blocked on any square it has to pass over to reach its destination.' That, plus possibly a diagram of the Falcon moves and a diagram of the array should have been sufficient. As it is now, I could not even find the rules for promotion amongst the landslide of superfluous description. Note that my rating only applies to the page, not to the game. I haven't formed an opinion on that yet, it could be the greatest game in the World for all I know. I have a question, though: What exactly does the patent cover? As a layman in the field of law, I associate patents with material object which I cannot manufacture and sell without a license. Rules for a Chess variant are not objects, though. So which of the following actions would be considered infringements on the Falcon patent, if performed without licensing: 1) I play a game of Falcon Chess at home 2) I publish on the internet the PGN of a Falcon Chess game I played at home 3) I write a computer program that plays Falcon Chess, and let it play in my home 4) I publish on the internet the games this program played 5) I conduct a Falcon Chess tournament with this engine in various incarnations as participant, and make it available for life viewing on the internet 6) I post my Falcon-Chess capable engine for free download on my website 7) I post the source code of that engine for free download on my website 8) I sell the engine as an executable file 9) I sell a staunton-style piece set with 10 Pawns, orthodox Chess men, and two additional, bird-like pieces 10) I sell a set of small wooden statues, looking like owls, falcons, elephants and lions, plus some staunton-style pawns, plus a 10x8 board. ????????? And more specifically: would it require a license to equip my engine Joker80 to play Falcon Chess (next to Janus, Capablanca and CRC) and post it on the internet for free download? If so, could such a license be granted, and what would be the conditions?
H. G. Muller wrote on Fri, Jun 27, 2008 01:27 PM UTC:On a more chessic note: Why are you saying the Falcon does not have mating potential? I ran a tablebase for the Bison (a non-lame (1,3)+(2,3) compound leaper), and the KBiK ending on 8x8 is generally won (100.00% with wtm, 80% with btm including King captures, longest mate 27 moves). I think it should make no difference that the Falcon, unlike the Bison, is lame: to block any Falcon move, at least 2 obstacles are needed, and this is very unlikely to ever occur with only two other pieces (the Kings) on the board. In the mating sequence I looked at, the Bison is mainly shutting in the bare King from open space, the attacking King closing off another direction. I also cannot imagine that expanding the board size from 8x8 to 10x8 would make any difference. Usually it is the narrowest dimension that counts. So I really think King+Falcon vs King is a totally won end-game on 10x8, although I could not exactly say in how many moves.
H. G. Muller wrote on Fri, Jun 27, 2008 09:08 PM UTC:Incredible! After four posts of extremely verbose and incoherent ranting you managed to address exactly zero of my questions / issues. So let me repeat the most important ones: 1) Am I allowed to include Falcon Chess as a variant that Joker80 can play, and offer it for free download? 2) To which pieces can a Pawn promote in this game? 3) Does, according to you, a single Falcon have mating potential against a bare King on a 10x8 board? And on 8x8? Note that the fact that this page is a copy of a patent application, which by necessity has to be elaborate, is in no way an excuse. No one forces you to publish the full patent application here. In fact patent applications are utterly unsuitable as contents on chessvariants.com. They are meant for lawyers.
H. G. Muller wrote on Fri, Jun 27, 2008 10:57 PM UTC:You talk a lot, but you say very little. I have no idea what Game Courier is, and I see no reason why anything that should be said between us cannot be said here. If you see this CV-page as advertizement for your patented game, you would do well to declare your licensing policy here. That would be much more useful than describing the excruciating detail, and boasting how many variants the patent covers. The latter just scares people away from the variant. But you made it clear you don't want me to make an engine to play your game. Well, so be it. There are plenty of other variants that are not patented. Even the patented UNSPEAKABLE variant does allow me to implement the game in an engine. But if you want to use your patent to prevent anyone can play the game, it is up to you... I am not sure what better place there could be to discuss the KFaK end-game than here, or why the mating potential of a piece that (due to the patent) can only occur in this variant would be 'of lesser interest'. What do you think the CV pages are for, really? To talk about Chess, or to talk about patents????
H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Jun 28, 2008 07:31 AM UTC:| Who would waste time on Centaur(BN) and Champion(RN) anymore? No one | is interested. Knight was not meant to be compounded but must always | stand alone. I am in total disagreement. The Archbishop (BN) is one of the most elegant and agile pieces ever designed. It is simply marvelous to see it in action, dazziling the opponent. To do justice to its play, this piece should be renamed 'Dancer'.
Schoolbook. 8x10 chess with the rook + knight and bishop + knight pieces added. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Jun 28, 2008 11:02 AM UTC:Since there is also a table of piece values on this page, I should point out that playtesting with almost any program shows that the Archbishop values given here are way too low: A+P typically beat Q, and A+A+P beats C+C, in any game phase. See the discussion on the page of th Aberg variant. Derek Nalls in the mean time revised his piece values accordingly.
H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Jun 28, 2008 07:06 PM UTC:The logic of FRC castling is that the outcome of the castling in a shuffled variant will be the 'normal' location of K and R, i.e. the one they get by performing normal castling from an unshuffled variant. This could similarly be applied to shuffle variants of games with free castling. Just pick any of the final positions that the castling type with centralized King and corner Rooks could give.
H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Jun 30, 2008 05:17 PM UTC:The table was actually given in my first post in that thread. It might be burried very deep under what unfortunately followed. I am sorry about that, it arose from Derek taking it as a personal offense when I pointed out that the values he derived from elaborate theoretical arguments were no good in practice. So let me repeat the table: P = 85 N = 300 B = 350 (B-pair bonus = 40) R = 475 A = 875 C = 900 Q = 950 I usually normalize on the Q value, as Pawns come in many forms (doubled, isolated, backward, passed, doubled, edge), with extremely different values. So giving a value for the Pawn wouldn't mean a thing if you don't tell at the same time which kind of Pawn. All values above are opening values, where the Pawn is f2/f7 in the opening array. The values were empirically derived from playing 20,000 games starting from opening setups where selected pieces were deleted from the array to create a material imbalance. Rooks are known to be orth a lot more in end-games than in the early opening, so the Rook value might be higher than given here during most of the game.
Falcon Chess. Game on an 8x10 board with a new piece: The Falcon. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Jun 30, 2008 06:12 PM UTC:| Just as Greg Strong was about to finish Falcon Chess for ChessV, | it is fine to put Falcon in engine free of charge throughout years | 2008, 2009 and 2010 to play, so long as strictly not commercial | (unlike standards-degrading Zillions). Please inform what is going on, | and put the patent #5690334 two or more times about the Rules or | Board, since ultimately we would like to market Falcon material too. OK, I will see what I can do. I will let you know as soon as I made something, and send it to you privately, so that you can judge if it meats your standards.
H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Jul 2, 2008 07:51 AM UTC:Sam Trenholme:
| I think the best way to come up with reasonable piece values is
| to have a computer program play itself hundreds or thousands of
| games of a given chess variant, and use genetic selection (evolution)
| to choose the version of the program with piece values that win the
| most games.
This has been tried many times before (in normal Chess, mainly), with an
appalling lack of success. The reason is that even a very wrong evaluation
of one of the pieces (say a program that values a Queen at 7.5 in stead of
a correct 9.5) still only leads to bad trades in a minority of the cases, like 10-20%. This because it does require complex exchanges (like Q vs R+B)
rather than simple 1:1 exchanges, which simply do not present themselves
very often in games. In the other 80-90% of games the Queens will be
traded against each other, which will always be a neutral trade to each
program, no matter how much they differ in Queen value.
When only 10% of the games is affected by the piece-value difference,
while 90% with equal trades will have a 50-50 outcome, that latter set of
games will still produce statistical noise, which is added to the noise in
the overall result score, while it dilutes the systematic bias because of
the different evaluation. If, after a wrong trade (say Q vs R+B) induced
by the faulty Q value the side with Q left would have 70% winning chance,
(20% above par), the total score would be only 52% (2% above par). To
detect this score excess with the same relative statistical accuracy as
the 20% excess would require 100x as many games. (So 10,000 in stead of
100.)
The situation could be lightly improved if one would SELECT games before
analysis, throwing out all games whith equal trades (Q vs Q). Then you
eliminate the random noise produced by them from the result, and would
only look at the sample with unequal trades (with 20% score access). You
would still need about 100 of those, but now you only have to play 1,000
games to acquire them. Problem is that judging which games were affected
by the piece-value under study is a bit subjective, as Q vs Q trades do
not always occur through QxQ, ...xQ combinations, but sometimes are part
of a larger exchange with intermediate positions with material imbalance
(not affecting the engine decision, as they were within the horizon of the
engine search).
This is why I adopted the methodology of forcing the material imbalance
under study into the game from the very beginning. ('Asymmetric
playtesting' in Dereks terminology.) All games I play are then relevant.
Even if the engine I play with has a completely wrong idea of the piece
values, the material advantage it has at the outset (say A vs B+N) will be
needlessly traded away in only 10% of the cases. And if both engines share
the misconception, that will be still lower, as the opponent would
actually try to avoid such trades. So you will have only a light
suppression of the excess score, and very little noise added to it.
| I could do it myself, but I need a chess variant engine that I can
| set, from the command line, white's and black's values of the pieces
| independently, and then have the variant play itself a game of the
| chess variant.
I would only applaud this. In fact the engines you request do exist, and
can be downloaded as free software from my website:
* Joker80 allows setting of the piece values by a command-line argument,
(a feature requested by Derek, as discussed below in this thread) but is
limited to 10x8 variants with the Capablanca pieces.
* Fairy-Max allows implementation of (nearly) arbitrary fairy pieces, and
setting of their values, through a configuration file (fmax.ini) that can
be changed with a simple text editor like Notepad. (This because the
options here are too elaborate to fit on the command line.) The format of
the piece description is admittedly a bit cumbersome (that is, the
description of the way it moves, especially if it is a complex move like
that of a Crooked Bishop), but the fmax.ini that is provided for download includes many examples for the more common fairy pieces. And changing the piece value is absolutely trivial. Furthermore, I am always available to provide assistance.H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Jul 2, 2008 08:29 AM UTC:Reinhard: | P.S.: Thus it would be best to present a short and convincing argument. If you don't consider the fact that 'the side having piece A beats that having piece(s) B 90% of the time' a convincing argument to value A higher than B, I don't really see what could convince you. But the point really is that Derek ASKS you to provide such a version of SMIRF to help him conduct an experiment he thinks is interesting. So it should not really matter if the piece values here request are CORRECT or not, because this is exactly what he is trying to test. The question is if you want to HELP him searching for the truth, by providing him what he needs to conduct this search...
H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Jul 2, 2008 08:48 AM UTC:Greg Strong: | The current state of ChessV? Hi Greg! Good to see you back here! What would be very interesting to me is to have a version of ChessV that just plays as a console application rather than having its own graphical interface. Preferably using WinBoard protocol, of course, but I would be happy with anything, no matter how primitive. I wouldn't even mind if the graphical interface stays, as long as ChessV would also print the move it makes on its standard output, and reads and accepts a move from its standard input. If it could do those things, I would be able to write an adapter to run it under WinBoard against other engines. Would this be feasible? | For onething, it doesn't anticipate forced repetition draws in | the appropriate way; even if it is winning by quite a margin, | it won't break the repetition to save it's advantage. I can vouch from my experience with micro-Max that this is extremely important. It is almost impossible to quantitatively judge performace of the engine if it can be tricked into rep draws, to the point where very clear improvements do not affect the score at all. In uMax I could fix 95% of the problem by recognizing returns to positions that already occurred before in the game history, and evaluate those at 0.00. That it cannot really plan (or avoid) forced repetitions that occur entirely in the tree is only a minor problem, as it does not occur too often that repetitions can be forced.
H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Jul 2, 2008 11:08 AM UTC:Some more empirical data for those who are working on ab-initio theories
for calculating piece values:
I did determine piece values of several fully symmetric elementary and
compound leapers, with various number of target squares, in the context of
a normal FIDE Chess set in which the extra pieces were embedded in pairs,
on a 10x8 board. The number of target suares varied from 4 (Ferz, Wazir)
to 24 (Lion), the length of the leap limited to 2 in one dimension. From
this I noticed that the empirical values for pieces with the same number
of target squares tends to cluster quite closely around certain values:
140, 285, 630 and 1140 centiPawn for pieces witth 4, 8, 16 and 24 targets,
respectively). These values can be fitted by the expression
value = (30 + 5/8*N)*N,
where N is the number of target squares (when unrestricted by board
edges).
Then I went on by testing how the value of a piece that is nearly
saturated with moves (so that taking away 1 or 2 hardly affects its
overall manouevrability), namely the Lion, which in this context is a
piece that reaches all targets in the 5x5 area in which it is centered, is
affected by taking some moves away. In taking away moves, I preserved the
left-right symmetry of the piece, so that moves not on a file were
disabled in pairs. This left 14 distinct leap types, which I disabled one
at a time. I then played a pair of the thus handicapped pieces agains a
pair of unimpede Lions (plus the FIDE array present for both sides).
The resulting excess scores in favor of the unimpeded Lions when disabling
the various leaps were:
forward: 12.5% 15.1% 8.8% 15.1% 12.5%
11.0% 14.8% 5.9% 14.8% 11.0%
6.8% 5.0% - 5.0% 6.8%
7.9% 7.8% 5.4% 7.8% 5.4%
backward: 7.6% 9.1% 5.4% 9.1% 7.6%
So disabling both forward (2,2) leaps (fA in Betza notation) reduced the
winning chances by 12.5%, etc. Pawn odds produces approximately 12% excess
score, so the two fA leaps marginally contribute a value of 100 cP to the
Lion. Note the values were obtained from 1000-game matches, and thus have
a statistical error of ~1.5% (12.5 cP). Also note that the numbers on the
vertical symmetry axis have to be multiplied by at least a factor 2 for
fair comparison with the other numbers, as in these tests only a singlke
leap was disabled, as opposed to two in the other.
As a general conclusion, we can see that forward moves are worth more (by
about a factor 5/3) than sideway or backward moves. 'Narrow' leaps seem
on average to be worth a little bit more than 'wide' leaps.
I am not sure if the scores above can be taken at face value as indicators
of the relative value of the particular leap in other pieces as well; it
could be that there are some cooperative contributions here that are
included in the measured marginal values, as all other leaps are always
present. E.g. the forward narrow Knight leaps are worth most, but perhaps
this is because they provide the piece with distant solo mating potential
of a King on the backrank. Perhaps the observed piece values should be
corrected for such global properties (of the entire target pattern) first,
before ascribing the value to individual leaps. Note, however, that all the
marginal scores add up to 123%, which is about 10.25 Pawns, not so far away
from empirical total value of the Lion. This suggest that cooperative
effects can't be on the average very large.
Next I intend to figure out how much of the value of each leap is provided
by its capture aspect, and how much by the non-capture aspect, by disabling
these separately. For the distant leaps, I want furthermore to know how
much the value changes if these are turned into lame leaps, blockable on a
single intermediate square. Note that the Xiangqi Horse (Mao) drops a
factor 2 in value compared to an orthodox Knight by being lame. I also
want to investigate if the lameness is worse if the piece has no capture
to the square on which th move could be blocked (a cooperative effect). Falcon Chess. Game on an 8x10 board with a new piece: The Falcon. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Jul 2, 2008 03:39 PM UTC:Why do you call this piece a Falcon, btw? A falcon is a flying creature, which makes it a very illogical name for a piece that can be blocked from reaching its destination by ground-based troops! Octopus would have been a more apt name, as the piece seems to have distinct tentacles that can slither through openings in the crowd, to attack what is at the other side. With a bit of imagination (considering neighboring (3,1) and (3,2) as one waving tentacle tip) there are even eight!
H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Jul 2, 2008 05:54 PM UTC:Reinhard: Why is it relevant what you like, for giving Derek what he wants? He would not ask for it unles HE liked it. You seem to deny other people what they want/need/like because it is different from what you like. Just add 2 Pawns to the value of any Archbishop. No matter how the rest of your evaluation is, that can't be that difficult? If you think the evaluation becomes totally non-sensical because of this is Derek's problem.
H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Jul 2, 2008 06:25 PM UTC:Sam Trenholme: | What is you experience with how being colorbound affects the value | of a short range leaper? I never tried measuring heavily 'challenged' pieces like the Alfil or Dabbaba. So I can only speak for color-bound pieces that can still access 50% of the board, like Bishop, Ferz, Camel, FD. My experience is that, when I measure those in pairs of opposite color, their value hardly suffers. A pair of FDs was worth almost as much as a pair of Knights (580 vs 600). But in analogy to Bishops the value of such a pair should be split in a base value and a pair bonus. A good way to measure the pair bonus seems playing the two color-bound pieces on the same color against a pair on different color. At least for the Bishops this worked quite well, using Joker. Problem is that Fairy-Max is really a bit too simple to measure a subtle effect like this, as its evaluation does not include any pair bonuses. In micro-Max, for orthodox Chess, I simply make the Bishop worth more than a Knight, to bias it against B vs N trades. Although this makes it shy away from B vs N trades even with only a single Bishop for no justifyable reason, this is not very harmful. Unfortunately, this trick does not make it avoid trading Bishops of unlike color against Bishops of like color. And when tboth engines see these as perfectly equal trade, they become very likely, wasting the advantage of the pair. I guess I could fix this by programming the Bishops of either side as different pieces, and give the Bishops of the side that has the pair a larger base value. (And similar for other color-bound pieces.) I have not tried this yet. Note that one should also expect cross-type pair bonuses, e.g. an FD plus a Bishop are worth more if they are on unlike color. I am also not sure how to calculate pair bonuses if there are more than 2 color-bound pieces on the board foreach side. E.g. with 4 Bishops, two on white, two on black, do I have two pairs, or four pairs? I currently believe Betza's conjecture as a working hypothesis, that as long as you have one piece of every color-class, the total value of the set does not suffer from the color boundness. But I haven't tested 8 Alfils per side, and I have no idea how much the value of the set decreases if you have only 4 left. There could be a term that is quadratic in the number of Alfils in the evaluation. All this can in principle be tested, but a piece with 4 targets, like Ferz, is not much worth to begin with (~150 cP on 8x8). The Alfil is most likely not better, even in a dense pack. And pair-bonus effects are usually again a small fraction of the base value, and might be as low as 20 cP. It requires an enormous number of games to get such small difference above the noise threshold.
Bison. Makes (1-3)-jump or (2-3)-jump.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Jul 2, 2008 11:11 PM UTC:The Bison definitely has mating potential on an 8x8 board. Denoting Bison by Y: I have built a tablebase for the KYK end-game, and it is 100% won for white to move. (With black to move there are of course positions where the bare King captures an undefended Bison on the first move, and these are then draw.) Longest mate against best defense takes 27 moves. I cannot build tablebases on other boards yet, but I adapted Joker80 so it would move Knights like Bisons. If I let it think a few min/move it does find mate in 20 or so in all psositions where the bare King is not too well centralized (and the white King is). As it is rather easy to drive the bare K out of he center with K+Y, this makes it likely that KYK is also won on 10x8. If I give the winning side a time-odds handicap of a factor 100, (40/60 vs 40/0:36) so it searches only 9-12 ply, where the defending King searches 22-28 ply, the bare King starting from w:Ke1,Yg1 b:Ke8 gets menouevred into mated-in-31 position quite rapidly (without the K+Y side knowing yet), after which it sees the mating net being tightened until the winning side finally gets a mate-in-12 within its horizon. I couldn't say anything about 12x12. Note that the Bison is equivalent to the patented Falcon in these games, as there is not enough material on the board to block the Falcon moves.
Falcon Chess. Game on an 8x10 board with a new piece: The Falcon. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Jul 3, 2008 10:25 AM UTC:George Duke: | Right, that paragraph could be improved, let's see. That was written | in late 1996, when copyright mailed in USA, and not revised for the | CVP 2000 article. If one King and Falcon stand on own back rank, | and other King at its bank rank, with no other pieces on board, no | checkmate is possible with good play. I did some more tests using a converted Joker80 engine, and it seems that on a 10x8 board this statement is plain wrong. Joker has no difficulty at all in checkmating a bare King with King + Falcon, even if they all start from their own backrank (or even if the bare King can start in the center). Even if I let the defending side search 100x longer, making it search ~10 ply deeper, so that it sees the mate coming long before the winning side does, and would avoid it if possible. David Paulowich: | Falcon Chess has the opposite problem: I have not seen anyone state | that King and Falcon can force a lone King into a corner. OK, so I am the first then. ;-) Even an engine with a comparatively shallow search has no problems driving a bare King into a corner with King + Falcon, as long as it knows that it is bad for a bare King to be closer to a corner. Even if the defending side enormously outsearches it. This applies to 8x8 boards (where there is ironclad proof through an end-game tablebase) as well as 10x8 (where it is based on time-odds play testing). This page really need thorough revision. Apart from poor presentation, some of the statements in it are just plain false, or very unlikely to be true at least...
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Jul 3, 2008 10:44 AM UTC:Oh, and since there is no e-mail address in my profile on this discussion board, for people that want to contact me privately: I can be reached with user name h.g.muller, with provider hccnet. nl
Carpenter. compound of Knight and Dabbaba.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Jul 3, 2008 05:09 PM UTC:I can confirm that this piece has mating potential on an 8x8 board. My tablebase builder says for the King + Carpenter vs King endgame that it is almost always won if the side with the Carpenter has the move. There are only 196 exceptions to this (out of ~ 250,000 positions) where the Carpenter is under diagonal attack in a corner, and its King is too far away to protect it after it moves. Longest mate against optimal defense is 31 moves. There are 100 such positions, e.g. w:Ka1, Carpenter g7, b:Kf6. I am not sure what the interest of 12x12 boards is. Perhaps I should modify my EGTB generator to handle 16x16 board or even 32x32 boards. The current version can do upto 5 men on 8x8, but with the same memory usage it could still handle 3 men on 32x32. And I can always limit it to a subset of the board.
Kangaroo (Newton). compound of Knight and Alfil.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Jul 3, 2008 09:42 PM UTC:The Kangaroo is yet another Knight + Short-Range leaper compound with mating potential: King + Kangaroo vs King is generally won on all boards upto 10x10 (on 12x12 it is usually draw). On 8x8, only 192 positions (out of ~250,000) are not won with white to move: when the Kangaroo is on a corner square and attacked by the bare King diagonally, and its own King is too far away for the Kangaroo to leap into its save haven. The longest mate against perfect defense on 8x8 is 35 moves. There are 260 such positions, e.g. w:Kb1, Kangaroo a2, b:Kb3 (white to move).
H. G. Muller wrote on Fri, Jul 4, 2008 08:50 AM UTC:Now that there is talk about how to attract more attention for Chess Variants, perhaps the following is an idea as well. It could be implemented next to, and independently from organizing matches with GMs. We could put some pages on this website where there is live broadcasting of automated games of a few selected CVs between computer programs, say at 10 or 5 min/game, so that people can watch and get an idea of how the game is played. To get an impression of what I am thinking of, see http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/goths.html . In my experience, people that say they are not interested in Chess variants change their opinion quite easily if they actually see the variants in action. Watching Chess-like blitz games has a hypnotic and adictive effect effect on people anyway, they can't help but being curious at what will happen next. The demo above is just replaying a game I uploaded to the website at my provider's server, and there is no game going on at the moment, so the moves are not updated. If I would post the same page on my PC at home, where I have a game running, anyone clicking a link to the viewer page would get to see the game in progress being replayed at 1 move/sec, until it reaches the current position. From then on it would wait for the playing engines to append their moves to the file 'moves.txt'. The viewer periodically polls this page, and if there are new moves, it updates the display. The play can be fully automated, a new game starting as soon as the previous finishes, between the same engines, or in a round-robin tournament of many engines. In the latter case people would be able to request the current standings and cross table of the tourney. I have already run such tournaments for several 10x8 Capablanca sub-variants and for Knightmate, and currently am preparing one for 'Nightrider Chess' (a variant that is not even in this pages, but which some existing Chess engines do support, identical to FIDE Chess except that the Knights are replaced by Nightriders). So my idea would be to put a link in a prominent place on the chessvariants.com home page to a 'gallery of demo games'. This would lead to a page with some explanation of what people are going to see, and a bunch of links to computers of people willing to run the games, each a different CV. When people would click such a link, they would get a game viewer page like the demo above, displayed in their browser. This javascript-driven page, and the file with moves to broadcast the game, would be fetched directly from the gaming PC. (An alternative would be to install the viewer pages on the chessvariants.com server, and have the computers that play the games upload a new moves.txt file each time a move is played. This would require some alteration of the software, though.) Good candidate CVs for live demo games would be: * 10x8 Capablanca variants * 10x8 Falcon Chess * Knightmate * Shatranj * Courier * Nightrider Chess What do you think of this idea?
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