[ List Earliest Comments Only For Pages | Games | Rated Pages | Rated Games | Subjects of Discussion ]
Comments by RobertoLavieri
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] Canonical Chess Variants. A family of chess variants that blends Xiang Qi and Western Chess. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Good family of games. Interesting and nice game play.
Rules of Chess FAQ. Frequently asked chess questions.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]With 2317 (I suppose FIDE ELO), Ryan should be one of the strongest 10 years old players in the world, if not the highest ELO rating for people of his age. If this is your ELO rating, you must continue with chess. It is very possible you are going to become a Grand-Master very soon. Good luck. As for me, my FIDE ELO is around 1950, average-to-low class-A FIDE-Chess player (there are some 'oficially stronger' FIDE-Chess players that are frequent users of this Pages, and many others that are certainly very strong not-rated players). I don´t know how we can rate Chess Variants players. Some ratings and the way for calculate it have been stablished for Shogi or Xiang-Qi, and I think also for Glinsky, but it should be difficult to rate the players of many variants, fundamentally because we need a lot of 'federated' players for taking a good comparative rating, frequent Tournements, etc.
FIDE database is not complete, but one can find information about top federated players of many countries. Local databases should be useful for finding some more information about players, nevertheless, many active players information is not available. The top FIDE-Chess player in the world is still G.M. Garry Kasparov, ELO 2817, followed by G.M. Viswanathan Anand, from India, with ELO 2774, and G.M. Wladimir Kramnik, from Russia, ELO 2764. The top woman is G.M. Judith Polgar, from Hungary, with ELO 2728, the 9th. top ELO in the world. The top sub-14 years old player is G.M. Sergey Karjakin (14 y.o.), from Ukraine, ELO 2580. There are around 40 Grand-Masters is USA, Alexander Onischuk in the top with 2652, and the top USA junior ELO belongs to G.M. Hikaru Nakamura, 16 y.o player with japanese ancestors, his 2580 rating is much more than any Japanese player (In FIDE-Chess, of course. If we talk about Shogi, other is the case). The top 8 countries (average of top 100 players) are, in this order: Russia, Ukraine, England, Hungary, France, USA, Germany and Israel. Computer programs ELO?: there are some programs with a hight G.M. level, but it is not usual a measure in this case, programs play Chess with advantage, many of them have access to extensive databases of games, openings and ends, so they are not 'honest' playing Chess!
Best player against programs?. It seems the best score is for Viswanathan Anand. ELO is a comparative measure, but it is not always indicative of a result. Players with ELO around 1800-2100 can have more or less similar forces and any one can beat another in a single game, but the difference can be observed playing a lot of games. At the highest level, the differences are notorious between, say, a player with ELO 2600 and a player with ELO 2700. Nevertheless, at the top level, you can observe that Anand tendence is to be beated by Kasparov, Kramnik seems to be very uncomfortable for Kasparov and the tendence is in favor of Kramnik, and Anand tendence is to beat Kramnik!. Many times, all of them beat the dame Polgar without great difficulty, although Judith is very difficult to be beated by another player. Styles matter, I think.
Ryan, if your rating was asigned by a computer test, that is good, and you must be encouraged to participate in Tournements. If this is not the case, I agree with Michael Howe and you must moderate the inflation of your ego by not valid methods, or you may have some troubles in the future, and I´m trying to say this to you as a father, or as a friend. But the real importance of Chess to your life is not a rating. If you play Chess or any of its Variants, the knowledge involved is much more important: You can learn that every step you do in the life must be measured and calculated, trying to minimize errors. Chess seem to have some influence in the way you attack problems, too. You can lose a game, you can lose many games, but nothing of it is really important. The important is the path you are walking. Chess can be enjoyed equally winning or losing a game. It is a game, it is not life. Chess is one of the great entertainements you can find in life, like football, like baseball, but the learning of Chess can be more important to you than the learnings you can aquire from other sports. At least, I think that.
Tauschach. Each player has one piece off the board, that can be switched every turn with one of his pieces but not the king. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Can I switch a Pawn with a piece in the last rank and promote it automatically?
Contest to design a chess variant on 44 squares. Our annual N-squares chess variant design competition.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I´m expecting more games in competence (are Horus and Prisoneer Scape in?). the deadline is April 21. Designers, send your contributions!
Are Horus and Prisoner´s Escape competing?. If so, these games are not still in the list...
Comments on Grand Chess. Notes on Grand Chess and a variant. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Grand Chess is a game that is widely played with the stablished rules. I think that castling in any way may be rejected by the majority of players, the central position of King gives a special flavor to the game, and many times you can construct defensive structures using the power of pieces. The game seems to be always in an inflexion point, where you must decide between attack, defense or both, making the game very deep. Surprisingly, attacks are not easy to perform, regardless the position of the King. This game is excellent, and variations are more a curiosity or an attempt to explore new ideas than real improvements.
Hikaru Nakamura was Master at 10 years, two months (American record, I don´t know if he has World record), and beated a hightly ranked Grand-Master at the age of 11. He was Grand-Master at age of 15 years, 1 month. He recently finished in 4th. place of 12 invited players in Corus2004 group B (Average ELO of the Tournement: 2560!), beating the winner of the Tournement, G.M. Lazaro Bruzon (ELO 2623) of Cuba, in a exciting game. Group A (For World-Top players) was won by Anand, and Krammnik have had a very bad performance in this Tournement, finishing in intermediate positions. Nakamura is a brilliant player, and he continues his meteoric ascense to the Top positions of the World ranking. But another prodigious boy is Sergey Karjakin, from Ukrania, the youngest G.M. in the history of Chess. This boy obtained his second norm of Grand-Master at the age of 12 years, 7 months (World record). Actually, Karjakin is a 14 years old 2580 ELO player, the same last official rating of Nakamura (actually 16 y.o), but Nakamura´s rating must be raised some points in the last months. In the future (far?, soon?), these two boys can (Why not?) fight for the World Champion tittle of FIDE-Chess, they are the most promising young figures, and both are ascending in a vertiginous manner...
Shanghai Palace Chess 
. Download these files to play this blend of Chinese, Japanese and Western Chess with Zillions of Games.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I have downloaded the ZRF and I observed a game Zillions Vs. Zillions. My impression was that Zillions doesn´t understand well what´s going on, the program plays this game quite bad, almost as a crazy player in some moments, although the game play itself is, surprisingly, very interesting. I´ll need some practice to be familiarized with this game and take a better idea, but at first view, I think that Gary´s game is not a monster, it seems to be a very playable game!.
Contest to design a chess variant on 44 squares. Our annual N-squares chess variant design competition.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Epsilon Eridani, a game played on a 44 squares board that I sent a few days ago, is a NON-competing entry to the Contest. The main reason is because I have Hexetera competing and Antoine and me are the authors of Symmetron!44. Epsilon Eridani is based basically on Achernar, with some differences (Achernar is the name of the blue star Alpha of Eridani, Epsilon Eridani is a yellow star in the same constellation. Epsilon Eridani is an interesting star, it is almost sure that at least one planet orbits the star), although the game play is very different. The board size adds clarity to the game, so calculations are easy, this is not the case in Achernar. Nevertheless, the E.E. game play is nice and very interesting, at least I think so, and I hope that the community can enjoy this out-of-competence game.
Thanks, Mike!. Epsilon Eridani is a non-competing entry.
Apart from my non-competing entry, Epsilon Eridani, I think there are some other entries that have not been posted yet, isn´t it ?
Game Courier Logs. View the logs of games played on Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]There are game Logs that are apparently abandoned, some of them dating form October and November of 2003. How is going the system to handle with these games?. How much may the system wait for automatically delete these games?. If there are not previsions, some day the number of abandoned games may be superior to the ongoing games, and this is not good for the system, though.
Brotherhood Chess. Pieces
cannot take pieces of the same type. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]This game was invented by Gianluca Vecchi in 1993, it is Chess with the rule: 'A piece can´t take another piece of the same type', more or less the same rule I adapted for Etcetera/Hexetera, although my two games have other pieces, other added rules and a clear oriental flavor. This rule enforces more positional games, and games in which sacrifices may be usual in the middle or end of games. I have noticed that this rule is particularily more interesting in games with a board of less dimensions. In 8x8 and Chess pieces, the result is that the average number of moves seems to increase significatively respect to Chess, but this is not demeriting per se, the game is really enjoyable.
Kinglet. Win by taking all the pawns of the opponent. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]We need a Preset in Courier for this extraordinary and simple variant of FIDE-Chess!
Why wait for the end of the First Game Courier Tournement to offer new Tournements?. I have seen that the traffic of Shogi-like games is high in TCVP, so I suggest ask the community if there is interest in a Shogi-and-Variants Tournement, and I suggest free fee and the prizes be honorific mentions or another kind of non-monetary prizes, By diverse reasons, and I have not nothing in favor or against it, sometimes some people may dislike a little the idea of mixing games with money. The games to play have been mentioned before, but other games may be added to the preliminary list, and then the choice may be performed by votation. Why not other experimental Tournements?, by example, a Tournement with games in little boards?. It would be nice, interesting, and I expect not very expensive in the time to finish!. If anyone has comments on this topic, I want hear about it.
I wrote the last message. What about a PRESET for this game?. I want play it using the Courier
Contest to design a chess variant on 44 squares. Our annual N-squares chess variant design competition.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Was Epsilon Eridani received?. This game has not been posted yet, it is a non-competing entry, but it is good if it is included, I like it. I think that other games have not been posted, too. (Peter Leyva´s games?, and pehaps other games sent by other people, I don´t know)
It exists a Preset for Symmetron!44, as you can see in the game Page, the Preset was made by Antoine Fouuriere, and we have used it in an interesting game test. Nevertheless, it does not appear in the list of Games in Courier. Why?. Please, add this Preset to the list of available games in the Courier system
Hanga Roa. A chess variant inspired by the people of Easter Island. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The rating 'excellent' is for the beautiful set of pieces!. (the game itself is very nice too, although more complex than it appears at first. It is not easy stablish strategies, and if both bands play well, the path for a victory may be relatively long, I think, but I´m not completely sure because I don´t know how to play it really well. Some experience is needed, without doubts...)
Chogo44. Game with pawns and kings with co-enclosure capture. (7x8, Cells: 44) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Interesting and nice game. My only observation is about the mass movement, I would prefer only lines of pieces, instead of rectangular masses. And, of course, there is also the practical reason: implementation in a computer program, or coding it in Zillions, is much more easy with lines instead of rectangular masses of pieces.
The Toddler Preset for Game Courier (deleted). Play this large variant with powerful pieces and an intricate net of protections.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I don´t understand certain rules about Guardian Angels an Geniuses, it is said: 'When the two Guardian Angels are adjacent, ALL pieces are protected from capture', and a similar rule is stablished for the Geniuses, what it means?. ANY piece can´t be captured, including the adjacent Guardian Angels or Geniuses?, Neither Royals?. It is not specified if the uncapturable pieces are of one band or of both bands, but in every case this rule seems to be strange, how can progress the game with it?. Everytime the game would be a draw. Please, clarify it.
25 comments displayed
Permalink to the exact comments currently displayed.