Comments by catugo

I think both the tournaments, and the video game ideas are good, should we start a post on each of those?

H.G.,

About the pawn, this pawn is slightly weaker than in capablanca as it takes slightly longer to promote, not a big deal, if it's a passed pawn will eventually queen. But there is also a strengthening effect as it can promote at rank 8 to rook (well to a plethora of pieces but the best choice is usually rook). I have no clue how to evaluate this effect but it shouldn't be much as early under promotions will not happen often, I raise that matter because it's specific to those two games.

On the matter of archbishop+pawn there is no reason to doubt you, but I honestly don't know how to normalize everything. There is also no reason to think queens have different strengths between to two games for example. and what about the situation (admittedly rare) R+3P VS archbishop, point being is hard to find a balance.

I'd be honored if you take your time and put forward some values of your own, or on the other hand put some values at first glance.

I think in these cases machine learning could tune very well values, I've read an article somewhere on atomic chess and other games but I can't find it now.

And it doesn't have to be a 1dimesional value an archbishop could worth 10.5 in an A+P vs Q ending and 9.5 in a R+3P vs A ending. I don't know.

You were correct on yesterday assessment that the game is tedious. It takes a lot of time to reach endgame, actually in all cases I ended games through small blunders of pieces in early or late middle game. It became obvious IMO who'll win. :) At least it's not Taikyoku shogi I doubt anyone started that one, finishing it is out of question I guess.

Fergus,

How many points would players get, or at least a victory in Gross chess should worth more that a victory in Omega chess as a tiebreak, in order to also increase stakes as the tournament passes.

H.G.

"So there now is a corrected file at http://www.membergraphics/MSinteractive-diagrams/betza.gif ."

It doesn't work from here. When I paste this link in my broser it says: Server not found.

HG,

Now it works well!

I've reached a conundrum. I am far from being a chess grand master, I blunder way to often usually full pieces, the last time I missed a pin, silly me. I can't test the game further into endgame because of that. At my level the game becomes played quite soon, as chances for blunders are increased. On the other hand it was supposed to be an enhancement to the play at high levels. Do you see the conundrum?

Thanks, H.G. As always helpful!

I was playing against myself, after you blunder a piece you can't go back, and I don't remember the whole game after 25 moves (actually less). Also I did not kept records. I think though it is a good idea now that I advanced a little bit to keep records as some games could prove interesting.

Thanks, for all the help!

I think there is a way with sjaak to implement my way of promotion. Just create 2 different promotion zones, allow promotion to pawn when the case and that's it. Not tried it yet.

One think I haven't confessed yet is that I partially like the idea of chess960. Having different starting position is interesting. But not ANY different position. I think in many games you can fine tune 2 to n different setups. And then choose among them. I'm not the first who thought at this I'm sure.

How this does affect this post. I'd like apothecary 1 and apothecary 2 to have 2 possible initial positions. The first one is the one already presented named from now until the hereafter the bishops in or knights out position. The second one name from now until the hereafter the bishops out or knights in has the bishops and knights (each variant with it's own knights) switched.

With sjaak I can just plug two variants with the 2 starting setups, but with the diagram from the presumed variant page it's more complicated, I assume a button switching between the two positions will be involved.

It's that hard to do H.G.? Can you help me with that , too?

H.G.,

I have not managed to define the Aanca and the Griffin in Sjaak. Have you any idea?

On the last matter I think the Aanca may be Leap(1,0)+Slide(d,a), but I have to check, the griffin is somewhat similar. The trouble with the griffin is that you have to ban 4 steps (the ones like an wazir).

well, for an Aanca I can use the property of sliders that their move is a union of many lame leaper moves. But you should see that formula, and moreover, I don't think that is recomended programming wise. I still haven't give up.

That doesn't work either!

what if I convinct myself to FairyMAx for both games, just for symetry, I think I can handle weird scripts!

It gave an error, forfeit due to invalid move, I guess white wanted to promote at 8 rank!

For some reason the AI pushes pawns very late.

Also, there is no pawn initial double move. It gives an error. Move rejected by first chess program or something like it!

What about Grand chess from where apothecary chess 1&2 take inspiration, wouldn't it have the same pawn problem?

H.G.

I tried to set up the second game the same way and I sadly failed.

Here is what I got:

Initial position:

r2zeel2r/1qnbkabnc1/pppppppppp/10/10/10/10/PPPPPPPPPP/1QNBKABNC1/R2ZEEL2R w - - 0 1

.ini file

/settingsFile=settings.ini
/saveSettingsFile=settings.ini
;
/cp
/fcp="fmax.exe"
/fd="./Fairy-Max"
/scp="fmax.exe"
/sd="./Fairy-Max"
;
/variant=apothecary2
/size=middling
/autoLogo true
;
/showTargetSquares=true
/pieceMenu=false
/sweepPromotions=true

fairy .ini file

// Large-board variant
Game: apothecary2 # PNBRQW.A..C......GKpnbrqw.a..c......gk # elven
10x10=3
7 3 4 5 10 11 9 4 3 7
7 3 4 6 10 12 8 4 3 7
p:100 -16,24 -16,6 -15,5 -17,5
p:100 16,24 16,6 15,5 17,5
n:340 14,7 31,7 33,7 18,7 -14,7 -31,7 -33,7 -18,7 45,6 51,6 -45,6 -51,6
b:420 15,3 17,3 -15,3 -17,3
e:370 15,7 17,7 -15,7 -17,7 34,7 30,7 -34,7 -30,7 48,6 -48,6 3,6 -3,6
l:320 47,7 49,7 -47,7 -49,7 19,7 13,7 -13,7 -19,7 16,6 1,6 -1,6 -16,6
z:300 46,7 50,7 -46,7 -50,7 35,7 29,7 -29,7 -35,7 15,6 -15,6 17,6 -17,6
R:725 1,3 16,3 -1,3 -16,3
A:1000 15,3 17,3 -15,3 -17,3 14,7 31,7 33,7 18,7 -14,7 -31,7 -33,7 -18,7
C:1100 1,3 16,3 -1,3 -16,3 14,7 31,7 33,7 18,7 -14,7 -31,7 -33,7 -18,7
Q:1200 1,3 16,3 15,3 17,3 -1,3 -16,3 -15,3 -17,3
k:-1  1,7 16,7 15,7 17,7 -1,7 -16,7 -15,7 -17,7
k:-1  1,7 16,7 15,7 17,7 -1,7 -16,7 -15,7 -17,7
#
# P& fmWfceFifmnD
# N& NmG
# L& CmW
# Z& ZmF
# E& FAmH
# C& RN
# A& BN
# K& K

Where am I wronG?

I did all that and it works, but I'm afraid that now I took away the zebra as a promotion choice as I moved the zebra to the 8th rank!

Well first, I decided to change the promotion rule to:

8th rank:less than a rook

9th rank:also to rook

10th rank: also to the 3 strong pieces

The reason for the initial rule was to not always promote to queen, but we got always promote to rook (I mean practically). The new rule is more flexible, but I'm afraid that it still leads to many rook promotions.

Second: the pawn double move still doesn't work, or it is something I did wrong?

Oh! Ok, Silly me!

Weirdly, no! Even pawns set back to the 2nd rank don't get the 2move!

The thing with the executables happens to me, too. I can't get the new version working. But I'm willing to give it up, as the new promotion rule chages the game significantly and it's unimplementable in Fairy-Max. And I still haven't found a way to write the aanca and griffin in Skaak II.

I managed on my own the easy task of rewriting the weirdPromotion script:

<script>function WeirdPromotion(x1, y1,x2, y2, promo)
{
  if((board[y1][x1] & 15) != 1) return promo; // moved piece is not a Pawn
  if(y2 == 9 || y2 == 0) return ((promo & 15) == 1 ? 9 : promo); // on last rank: cannot stay Pawn
  if((y2 == 7 || y2 == 2) && ((promo & 15) > 6))return board[y1][x1]; // rook or larger than Rook: remains Pawn
  if((y2 == 8 || y2 == 1) && ((promo & 15) > 7))return board[y1][x1]; // larger than Rook: remains Pawn
  return promo; // choice was acceptable
}
</script>

<script>function WeirdPromotion(x1, y1,x2, y2, promo)
{
  if((board[y1][x1] & 15) != 1) return promo; // moved piece is not a Pawn
  if(y2 == 9 || y2 == 0) return ((promo & 15) == 1 ? 11 : promo); // on last rank: cannot stay Pawn
  if((y2 == 7 || y2 == 2) && ((promo & 15) > 7))return board[y1][x1]; // rook or larger than Rook: remains Pawn
  if((y2 == 8 || y2 == 1) && ((promo & 15) > 8))return board[y1][x1]; // larger than Rook: remains Pawn
  return promo; // choice was acceptable
}
</script>

I've made the script chages as you've said. I'm still trying to run 5.0b. I redownloaded from the same link, pasted over what there was with copy and replace in both game directories and double pawn move doesn't work, I think because I'm not running 5.0b. Still working on that.

Actually 5.0b is installed, but not working in winboard!

Now I get it, It is fairy-max 5.0b, but when I paste the new inital position pawns loose their virginity!

It says 5.0b. I think I haven't dowloaded the proper version, I'll retry!

I haven't downloaded the proper version and I don't know how to do that!

Is the link the same one?

This link:

http://hgm.nubati.net/Fairy-Max.zip

provides only FairyMax 5.0b, not Fairy-Max 5.0b2. I'm sure of that. I'm not sure where should I find Fairy-Max 5.0b2.

?t=l worked I got the new version but I have no some trouble with the antivirus after I solve those I see no reason why winboard wouldn't run the new version!

H.G.

It now works pawns and everything, but here is what I've done I hope not to cause you any trouble.

After download in the initial run of the fairy-max5.0b2 avast antivirus started a scan and I interupted it abruptly. I think it has thought that your program did and now it says avast has this program under scrutiny.

Don't worry about me I just abort the antivir and is fine. Fairymax works.

I honestly hope I haven't caused you any trouble.

Actually for now I'm enjoying the fruits of my and especially your work H.G. . Apothecary 1 is quite slick and interesting from the games I see it has an interesting assortment of minor leapers, and the aanca and griffin are quite new on the play field. Apothecary 2 is a bit more stale with not so interesting leapers and usual power pieces. Tomorrow I'll be starting serious work.

H.G. I understand that the power of Aanca and Griffin are virtually unknown, so there is research to be made, but I have to take care of both of my twins so we could see a game with 5 elephants versus 6 zebras or something of sorts. I initially gave more points 3.7 vs 3 to the elephant as the just move enhancement works very well with the rest of the powers. Now I think it's a bit much.

Ok, thanks!

About the promotion rule, I'm not that sure that you are correct, waiting 1 turn to get a rook is a big deal, what can the oposite bishop do in 1 turn to turn the tables. A rook can win you the game. Also now you have to pay 1 turn from rook to queen but I don't think this will come into play unless very weird situations like many pawns vs minor piece and the rest of pieces the same, although the rest of the pieces will be used to capture/block pawns!

I left Fairy-Max at 15min+15secs incr. twice, once with each initial position and not that 2 points are statistically relevant but the game seems to last 70-80 moves ( maybe a bit more for apothecary 2 that is the slower game), so not that bad.

If I decrease the time that much Fairy-Max runs out of time all the time(! and - signs). I also wanted to see how stronger games go, because all the games I've seen so far were pretty imbalanced to a lesser degree the 2 pairs of games at 15 min. The real tests will be at shorter time spans in order to make more points on the graphics.

Also I have a slow computer. Just a probook Laptop.

KPvsK still a win, I forgot about it, and is very important. It seems my rule devalues promotion rather than giving extra options as it was intended. It could work if you fine tune a variant just for it. It is not the case here. I think postponing for a rook could still work in many cases, I just don't see postponing for a queen happening to soon.

I must say I'm pleasantly surprised by the way Fairy-max handles openings. Being said that I used a generous time counter 15mins+15secs, I've seen pawn sacs and fianchetto bishops..

A weird thing is not until now there were no draws in 4 games of each incarnation. Fairy-max usually avoids repetition draws, which is also cool.

I have completed my general view on the 2 twin games:

There were six games of apothecary 1 and six games of apothecary 2.

Scores:

Apothecary 1: white 3-3 black no draws

Apothecary 2: white 2-4 black no draws

Length:

Apothecary 1: 50-80 moves

Apothecary 2: 70-90 moves

Piece values used by Fairy-max:

Apothecary 1

pawn:85
knight:272
bishop:286
wizard:258
champion:272
rook:510
aanca:612
griffin:748
queen:816

Apothecary 2

pawn:85
knight:231
bishop:286
elephant:251
camel:218
zebra:204
rook:510
archbishop:680
marshal:748
queen:816

The high rook was an accident It was supposed to be 493, but I won't redo this.

Now I'm starting the serious experiments. I'll use values normalized to a pawn of 60 as H.G. suggested, and the rook lowered acordingly.

Here are the result of some preliminary experiments I've done:

bishops in aancas white:1.5
bishops in griffins black:4.5
1 draws (draws enter in the points above)

knights in aancas white:4
knights in griffins black:2
0 draws (draws enter in the points above)

bishops in griffins white:5
bishops in aanca black:1
0 draws (draws enter in the points above)

knights in griffins white:2.5
knights in aancas black:3.5
1 draws (draws enter in the points above)

total:
games 24 from which draws:2
aancas poins:10
griffins points:14

[edit:]

Here I pited an army with 2 aancas against an army with 2 griffins.

the promotion rule was rook at 8 rank.

So the total number of wins for griffins is slightly higher but not convincingly. Now I believe that the difference between them is less that a pawn. I think I have to continue the experiments as things don't seem to go any particular way, yet. If the 41% wins for aancas hold then the distance between aanca and griffin is probably small then a pawn. I'm not sure though. Then I'll do something else maybe take a pawn from the griffins or give a pawn to the aancas.

On second thinking I should find out how much a pawn translates into a win, in both apothecary games!

The difference between aanca and griffin is  much smaller than I expected indeed!

I use as time control 2 mins for 30 moves as my computer is rather weak but it has 2 procs indeed.

How can I setup experiments over night or while I do other stuff? I have to copy paste the initial position everytime anyway and the game does not just restart, Also if I could restart it how do I get hold of the results?

H.G.

I think fairy max has some clock problems, it runs out of time on ocasions. Is that normal?

These are one of the initial positions allowed in apothecary 1 (top) and apothecary 2 (bottom). In both games switching knights and bishops in the initial position allows for a second initial setup.

Pieces for apothecary 1:

Pawn - is the classic chess pawn with the catch that it promotes from the 8th rank to a minor piece, from the 9th rank to also a rook, and to the 10th rank where promotion is obligatory it promotes to also a strong piece (Queen, Griffin or AAnca).

Queen-classic chess queen

Aanca- bend rider that starts as an wazir and then if not blocked may move as a bishop

Griffin-  bend rider that starts as an ferz and then if not blocked may move as a rook

Wizard- taken from omega chess C+F

kNight- classic chess knight with a zebra just move enhancement

Champion- taken from omega chess W+D+A

Rook - classic chess rook

Pieces for apothecary 2:

Pawn - is the classic chess pawn with the catch that it promotes from the 8th rank to a minor piece, from the 9th rank to also a rook, and to the 10th rank where promotion is obligatory it promotes to also a strong piece (Queen, Marshall or Archbishop).

Queen-classic chess queen

Marshall- rook and knight compound

Archbishop-  bishop and knight compound

Zebra - classic variants (3,2) zebra with ferz just move enhancement

cameL-classic variants (3,1) camel with wazir uncolorbounding just move enhancement

kNight- classic chess knight with a threeper just move enhancement

Elephant- modern elepahnt taken from modern shatranj with a threeleaper just move enhacement so FAmH in Betza funny notation

Rook - classic chess rook

For now I'm doing the following experiment in order to find out how strong a pawn is:

delete a3 pawn in bishops in setup for 25 games

delete a3 pawn in knights in setup for 25 games

delete a8 pawn in bishops in setup for 25 games

delete a8 pawn in knights in setup for 25 games

delete b3 pawn in bishops in setup for 25 games

delete b3 pawn in knights in setup for 25 games

delete b8 pawn in bishops in setup for 25 games

delete b8 pawn in knights in setup for 25 games

and so on for each pawn.

I'll keep in touch with the results.

The program of testing is Fairy-Max 5.0b2. The games are played at 2mins/30 moves. Fairy-Max 5.0b2 cannot implement the promotion rule so the promotion rule is promote to rook starting in the 8th rank.

The time troble thing was more a nuissance than a problem as winboard doesn't take it into consideration, but I considered that it is good that you know. I hope I managed to help you H.G. Thanksm and see you soon!

I have not considered the noise effect, you are correct I'll redo experiments from scratch, this time automated.

That game must have been a fluke then!

In order to clone FairyMax is it sufficient to just copy the .exe to say fm2.exe or is there something else?

It seems yes, there you go I answered my own question!

I assume that the pieceToChar used in apothecary2.ini should be the one used in fmax.ini under the apothecary2 game.

Ok, I've done almost everything, I don't understand how to run with apothecary.ini set.

Also as now a pawn worth 60 and a queen worth 571 I might benefit from lowering the resign threshold from 800 to say 400 (a rook and a bit).

I guess I should not have in the winboard.ini file both /variant=apothecary and /variant=eleven

Ok, now I get the error, bad fen position in file, and the position in start.fen is ok!

Which apothecary game were you running, and how did it seemed to you if you had the time to watch some?

Now I can start the tournament but without proper setups.

No problems with the fen or the piecetochar table, I stil get the same message.

Even if I manually plot the good position, the tournament handler, makes it wrong and then it starts- wrongly.

H.G.

I'm not sure how things are at your end but I've just seen a time loss, but now it's rare it was the first in rougly 30 games, It's playing at 2mins/30moves.

Any ideeas to help me set up automatic tournaments? Should I send you somehow what I have for you to check?

Ok, the time thing happend twice in 22 games, BAdddd! I think my computer is stupider because it's slower, so what exactly should I do?

Once again the time lost 3/24, That's really bad, Of course I can just ignore those results as I still do things manually!

I guess I'll switch to 5mins+5secs, it never lost on time with added time as time trouble has a slightly different meaning here.

No that doesn't work either, I never seen time trouble in 15mins+15secs in 20 games now (not even with the old program), but that's simply to slow!

I think, I managed to solve the time trouble, It camed from cloning Fmax by copying to a  second exe file.I can't explain it why but it consumed a lot of resources, by comparison to the fairy max.exe proper. I have to play more games but it seems fine, now.

Nope, that was not it, still getting in time trouble at game 4!

It Works! The problem was that everything was in 1 folder!

So, it works, now I'm going to setup pawn odds games in order to see how strong the pawns are and then games aancas vs griffins, aancas vs queens, griffins vs queens and equivalent for apothecary 2.

I think archbihop vs queen will lead to expected results.

I'm so excited , thanks for the opportunity!

H.G.

FYI: In your apothecary 2 variant pawn promotes to zebra.

H.G.

If I have the time defeat disabled, is there a way to find out if negative time was ever an issue in my experiments?

H.G.,

And one more question:

Is there a way to see partial results?

I meant otherwiselly than writing a small c++ program that prelucrates the final string from the *.trn file

Well, I did not see any time trouble lately so I think we are ok in 5.02b3. I'll think I'll stick to all pieces (-odds pawn) for now because of that!

I think a very strong engine will always win pawn odds games!

About the games being tedious, Ive just seen a 280 moves apothecary 2 game KRBPvsKA endgame. Quite cool!

Ok!

Ok! So back to square 1!

I have finished the pawn odds experiments for both apothecary 1 and apothecary 2 games.

The experiments were setup in the following way:

In the bishops inside initial setup a8 pawn gets deleted

In the bishops inside initial setup a3 pawn gets deleted

In the knights inside initial setup a8 pawn gets deleted

In the knights inside initial setup a3 pawn gets deleted

In the bishops inside initial setup b8 pawn gets deleted

In the bishops inside initial setup b3 pawn gets deleted

In the knights inside initial setup b8 pawn gets deleted

In the knights inside initial setup b3 pawn gets deleted

repeat for each column until j for a total of 40 games

repeat for 25 times.

Total number of games=1000

Apothecary 1 results:

normal setup side wins: 529

draws:124

deleted pawn side wins:347

normal setup side points:591

deleted pawn side points:409

Apothecary 2 results:

normal setup side wins: 531

draws:164

deleted pawn side wins:305

normal setup side points:613

deleted pawn side points:387

Now I'm starting Griffins vs Aancas and Marshals vs Archbishops respectively.

It is likely that the Marshals vs Archbishops experiments will confirm the already known Grand chess values.

The difference between Griffins and Aancas on the other hand is virtually unknown in previous games.