Comments by crazytom
I had a look at the source for the verification page in question, and I think the problem is due to a missing angle bracket in the < SELECT > tag corresponding to the background field. Also the < /SELECT > tag appears to be missing altogether, but this doesn't seem to cause problems for either of the browsers I've tried. When I edited a local copy of the source, inserting the missing angle bracket was enough to make Opera place the appropriate value in the background field.
I've just moved in two games: one of Xià ngqà and one of Shogi. In each case my goal was to make a move and to change from the default background image to a new background image, hoping that this new background setting would be stored in the log so that the new image would be displayed the next time I view the game. I did some experimenting before submitting the moves, trying to get as much information as I could. I tried performing the actions of selecting a background image and entering a move in four different orders (described below, where, not knowing what might be useful, I've tried to err on the side of too much detail rather than too little). Each trial began in a new browser tab. The various trials did not exhibit all the same intermediate behavior, but as far as I can tell the end results are the same. Of course I could only submit each move once; after trying all four orders with each of the two games, I then repeated one of the trials before submitting each move.
- Trial 1: I enter my move in the 'Moves' text box, select the desired image from the 'Background' dropdown menu, and click the 'Verify' button, without having clicked the 'Modify' button. The verification page loads. My move is shown in the movelist, and the resulting position is displayed. The new background is displayed, but the 'Background' field is blank. At this point I submit the Xià ngqà move.
- Trial 2: I select the desired image from the 'Background' menu and click 'Modify', without having entered a move. The page reloads; the board is still shown with the original background image, but the new image is now selected in the 'Background' menu. I then enter a move in the 'Moves' text box and click 'Verify'. The verification page loads. My move is shown in the movelist, and the resulting position is displayed. The new background is displayed, but the 'Background' field is blank.
- Trials 3 and 4 begin in the same way: I enter a move in the 'Moves' text box, select the desired image from the 'Background' menu, and click 'Modify'. The page reloads. The new background image is displayed and remains selected in the 'Background' menu. My move is now shown in the dropdown movelist, and the resulting position is displayed. The 'Moves' text box is now empty. I then continue in two different ways.
- Trial 3: Without entering anything, I click 'Verify'. A page loads, with the heading 'Verify Your Move', but otherwise identical to the usual page where one enters a move. The new background image is still displayed and remains selected in the 'Background' menu. But the move which I just entered seems to have disappeared: it is no longer shown in the movelist, and the position displayed is the one prior to this move. I enter the move again in the 'Moves' text box, and click 'Verify' again. The usual verification page loads. My move is shown in the movelist, and the resulting position is displayed. The new background image is displayed, but the 'Background' field is blank.
- Trial 4: I immediately reenter my move and click 'Verify'. The verification page loads. My move is shown in the movelist, and the resulting position is displayed. The new background image is displayed, but the 'Background' field is blank. At this point I submit the Shogi move.
One problem: when I change the background image in a game of Xià ngqà or Shogi, the 'Verify Your Move' page shows the new image, but the 'Background' field is empty, and when I submit the move it reverts to the default image.
What specifically is it that you think is defined wrongly?
The rule itself is very simple:
The king moves to the c-file and the a-side rook moves to the d-file, or the king moves to the g-file and the h-side rook moves to the f-file.
That's it. One sentence (not including the restrictions on when it is permissible to castle, which are identical in all the rules discussed on this page).
The Chess480 rule, even though it was introduced as 'an appeal for simplicity', is no simpler, and arguably more complicated than the FRC rule.
Of course these are not the only possible rules. If I had been asked, before learning about FRC, how the castling rule should be generalized for random starting posiitions, I probably would have said that the king moves half the distance (rounded up) toward the rook, and the rook moves to the other side of the king. This rule is left-right symmetric and matches the Chess480 rule in 11/16 of the possible positions. But without the need for awkward special cases, it is in my opinion simpler.
I am predisposed to like symmetry, and it wouldn't have occurred to me to choose an asymmetric rule like the one in FRC. Yet there is something appealing about the asymmetry, particularly in this context where it produces twice as many actually distinct positions. For this reason I'm still inclined to prefer the FRC rule.
Okay, I think I understand now. I had been thinking of the Abstract piece set as the default, not realizing that it was in fact a setting which had overridden a previous default. So it makes sense that I can't override it in the URL, especially now that I've gone and learned a bit about the GET and POST methods of form submission. Here's a related thought (related from a user's perspective, anyway). When I enter my userid and view a game in which it is my opponent's turn, the board is displayed, along with a message saying 'It is not your turn yet', etc. But the board is shown from my opponent's perspective. (Actually, a quick check of my current games seems to indicate that it is shown from the perspective of the player to move [i.e. my opponent] in Chess and Xiangqi, but from the perspective of the first [Black] player in Shogi.) Perhaps it would be more user-friendly if specifying a userid ensured that the board would be shown from that player's perspective.
My reason for using the URL to tweak settings is that I make copious use of bookmarks, so that I can get to any game with just a few keystrokes. And if I want to use the positions from my games as desktop backgrounds, this is most easily done if I can construct a URL that produces an image using my preferred piece set and the appropriate orientation. I've done this happily for many of the games I've played via Game Courier, but I can't do it for a game of chess. I can look at the board from Black's side, or I can use the Alfaerie pieces, but for some reason I can't do both.
Yes, a fascinating game, and a victory for the Chess960 champion over the FIDE champion!
- When the tournament rules mention 'White' and 'Black', presumably 'White' means the first player (White in Chess, Red in Xiangqi, Black in Shogi) and 'Black' means the second player (Black in Chess and Xiangqi, White in Shogi)?
- The first round will be a true round robin (meaning everyone plays everyone) only if exactly seven players participate.
- If my understanding of the Buchholz-Solkoff and Sonneborn-Berger tiebreaks (as explained here) is correct, then this page's description of Buchholz-Solkoff is incorrect, and that of Sonneborn-Berger is incomplete and potentially misleading.
Oh, and sign me up, please.
Besides, I could always use it as a chess set.
Antoine's proposal should work very well if the number of players is prime. If the number is divisible by 2 or 3, there's a small weirdness. Look at the Shogi pairings in the 9-player example: players 1, 4, and 7 play one another; 2, 5, and 8 play one another, and 3, 6, and 9 play one another. No one in any of these groups plays Shogi against anyone in another group. A similar partitioning into 2 groups would happen with Xiangqi with an even number of players. I don't know how much, if at all, this should bother us. Here's an interesting possibility, inspired by Fergus's idea of having a champion for each game. Perhaps the final round could consist of the top Chess player, the top Xiangqi player, the top Shogi player, and the top overall player (and, if some of these should be the same person, the 2nd overall player, etc.). I would prefer to allow draws by agreement even in Shogi, although they should be discouraged except in clearly drawish positions. It doesn't seem fair to me to penalize both players for playing equally well just because the game ran long. If length is a concern, there must be some set of carefully chosen time controls that will address the issue.
The problem seems to be that the link from the PBM Game Logs page points to http://play.chessvariants.org/pbmlogs/displaycomment.php?commentid=11172, while the link from the corresponding Comment Listing page points to http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=11172.
I won't say much about game selection and tournament structure; I'll play in just about any event as long as the games are appealing and I have the time. All the ideas posted here so far are good, but I hope the multivariant tournaments with democratically selected games won't go away; part of the fun of these has been the exposure to games that I might not have played otherwise. My only real 'complaint' about the polling process is that good old Chess doesn't seem to stand much of a chance of getting through, and I'd like to play it alongside other games. (Hmmm... maybe a 'Big Three' chess/xiangqi/shogi tournament?) I have some thoughts about scheduling, which apply mainly to largish round robins. In GCT1 the games were divided into three rounds; this worked, but led to periods of relative inactivity if a round had one or two very long games. For GCT2 it was decided that games would be assigned as players became available. This was a good idea in principle, but in order to run smoothly it seems to require an inordinately large (and prolonged) time commitment from the director, who must continually check for finished games and determine which players are available, how many new games can be assigned, which of the remaining games should be assigned first, etc. It seems to me that the game-assignment process could be automated. I'm thinking of a script which could run periodically (once a day, maybe) and assign games until it couldn't assign any more without exceeding a specified maximum number of ongoing games for any player. The algorithm to work out which games to assign wouldn't have to be very complex. The part that I don't know anything about would be the interface with Game Courier. Perhaps Fergus can tell us whether this would be feasible.
Michael, In Case 2, 4 BCQ pieces must be placed on 4 squares (c1, d1, e1, d2), giving only 1 combination of filled squares. The same applies to Case 3. Removing this factor of 4 reduces Case 2 to 72 combinations and Case 3 to 144, making the total number 864, which matches the figure I found by counting in a somewhat different way. Nova Chess features a great many unusual and interesting pieces, but the pieces in any given set should be fairly easy to learn, and the game looks quite playable. Nevertheless, it will be a while before I've played all possible scenarios. ;)
I also count only 864 starting arrays.
I like the new Clodhopper and Fuddy-Duddy pieces in the Smess-style set. I preferred the name Dumbo, though, as it seemed so perfect for a piece based on the elephant. Fuddy-Duddy makes some sense too, but I've known ministers who are anything but dull, conservative, and unimaginative.
I also like the more minimalistic look of Michael's board. I don't think I would have any trouble playing on this board. I can see where Fergus is coming from, though; I wouldn't call them optical illusions, but in some parts of the board the patterns formed by the triangles are noticeable. Some of these patterns have their own kind of beauty, and to my eyes they don't obscure the squares, but I can easily understand how some people could find it hard to play on this board, just as others find it hard to play on the Smess-style board. My own opinion is that Fergus's board is more fun to look at, but Michael's would probably be easier to play on.
As I write this I've just noticed Fergus's recoloring of Michael's board, which I like very much. The checkering helps a great deal (more than I expected), the texture gives the board life, and the colors are very well chosen. And it preserves the elegant simplicity of Michael's design.
If there's any interest in yet another StIT board, I think it would be nice to have one in the style of All the King's Men, which I think in at least two ways would be an appropriate complement to the Smess-style board. In All the King's Men, the squares resembled a wooden floor, and the arrows had a simple, uniform style, easy to see but not distracting. Iff Fergus and others are interested in having such a board, and if no one else wants to create it, I would be willing to try my hand, although I probably won't have the time until after New Year's Day.
BoardGameGeek's Smess page has some nice images of various editions of Smess, Take the Brain, and All the King's Men.
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That is, for one of my games the source has
when it should haveThanks for adding these new features and taking the time to work out the kinks. As far as my efforts are concerned, I figure the opportunity to change to something other than shogi-simple.png is easily worth looking at a little HTML.