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Comments by panther
Sac Chess. Game with 60 pieces. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Thanks for your kind words. I'll add just a bit more to what I wrote: I forgot to note that I've read somewhere on the net that it is the Chancellor that is approximately worth a Queen, while the Archbishop is worth about what I gave its value for. Perhaps someone else may chime in if you still do not concur. The Amazon, I also read, has been estimated as low as 11 or 12 points, but perhaps this does not take into account it being on a larger board. In any case, I found it hard to believe that a queen and knight acting seperately are as effective as an Amazon in general. Compare that by analogy to asserting that a queen would be worth only a rook plus bishop on a standard chess board. Still, as I wrote I am new to fairy chess.
To H.G.: I'm not sure how you measured an Archbishop's relative point value for every case that you mentioned. Did you always base your measurements on, say, the outcomes of a large number of games that were play-tested which involved a variant using that piece? If so, the results might at least somewhat depend on the average strength of the players involved, even if all/many were computer playing engines, though I would assume you took that into account if that was always your method. Hopefully the method can be described briefly, if you are happy to do that. To John: It looks like you have a valid point about saying an Amazon = Q + N is fundamentally different than objecting that a Q is greater than a R + B, in comparing by analogy. I hadn't thought about a B's limitations when a piece by itself. [edit: though a vital follow up question could be: are 2 Queens only = 2 Rooks + 2 (different coloured) B's, or are 2 Q's in fact = 2 Rs + 2 (different coloured) Bs + 2 Pawns? Looking at your last post before this one of mine, I assume you now would put the 2Qs value as closer to the latter.] [edit: Another follow up question could be: are 2 Amazons = 2 Qs + 2 Knights? The reason I thought of asking is that either Amazon might (using just its bishop and/or rook type powers) be able to double attack the 2 enemy knights, or else attack one enemy knight and another enemy piece. In fact, a single Amazon could do the latter in case of having a Queen and Knight for it, so again the real question becomes: is an Amazon really just = Q + N (or even less)? To strengthen my doubts a little more, I would note a single Amazon can also use its knight type power to double attack an enemy queen and another enemy piece, say even another queen, though such a queen might often have a good chance to move and guard the other piece that is being double attacked by the Amazon. As an aside, fwiw long ago I read in some chess book that it is the great mobility and double attacking capability of a queen that makes it such a powerful chess piece, and a knight of course is awesome at forking. ] In any case, I hope it's not too objectionable to anyone if I leave my own estimates for Sac Chess pieces (which I admitted were tentative) the way they are for at least a little while longer. I can edit my submission to change my estimates after I think about it more if necessary, and perhaps have even play-tested variants using Amazons or Archbishops myself at some point. [edit: I had forgotten that I've already played a quite small number of games of Seirawan Chess (8x8 chessboard variant, with first rank drops of Hawks [aka Archbishops] and Elephants [aka Chancellors] in the opening phase) and it seemed to me based just on these games (two of them with a fellow chess master) that the Chancellor seemed at least as dangerous a piece as the Archbishop, especially after the opening phase, if nothing else. Also, I wonder if there really has been enough human experience playing with such fairy chess pieces yet for even a very strong human chess player to really know how to defend (when necessary) against their unusual movement capabilities.]
To editors and others, FYI: At the moment I can't manage to sign in on the main page, though I succeed in signing in when I try to do so via the Ratings and Comments Page, at least.
Maybe not a good time or place for this comment, but in case it hasn't been already discussed, a future project (if any editor is willing) might be to somehow show the names of members and editors who are currently signed in, along with the number of other visitors, at any moment, like on message boards I'm familiar with. A tiny immediate plus could be that I wouldn't be wondering if I were all alone looking at The Chess Variant Pages. Perhaps even a website visit hit counter is an idea too. Also, showing the time to the minute that a comment was posted might prove desirable.
Sac Chess. Game with 60 pieces. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]H.G. posted some time ago: "Some of your piece values are off, especially Archbishop, which is about C - 0.25 P = Q - 0.75 P (so 9.25 on your scale). The Amazon seems to be worth only Q+N, so 13 on your scale. ..." I'm still wondering about the value of an Amazon asserted to be only Q + N, in your opinion (besides that of other people). Maybe it is since I am a fairy chess newbie, but I'm not clear on subsequent remarks you have made regarding synergy, in regard to them being fully in line with saying that an Amazon just = Q + N. Furthermore, assuming that value is the measurement your method yielded, that result is still a red flag for me presently, as far how infallible the method or its playtesting conditions might be. As I alluded to earlier, in particular the supreme double attacking powers of an Amazon make me value it more than just a Q + N. Currently I am more willing to accept that I gave a tentative value for an Archbishop that was too low, by contrast (though it may be that the value of an Archbishop in the context of Sac Chess, rather than when it is used just in an 8x8 variant approximating standard chess, still ought to be measured from scratch by testplaying using Sac Chess games, if anyone is willing). There is another red flag for me concerning the method, regarding comparing a bishop to a knight by such measurement, resulting in asserting they are of equal value. All about that further below. H.G. posted more recently: "The values were indeed measured by play-testing through self-play of computer programs. To measure the value of, say, an Archbishop, I set it up opening positions where one side has the Archbishop instead of a combination of other material expected to be similar in value (like Q, R+B, R+N+P, 2B+N, R+R). For any particular material imbalance the back-rank pieces are shuffled to promote game diversity. I then play several hundred games for each imbalance, to record the score. This is rarely exactly 50%, and then I handicap the winning side by deleting one of its Pawns, and run the test again. This calibrated which fraction of a Pawn the excess score corresponds to. E.g. Q vs A might end in a 62% victory for the Q, and if Q vs A+P then ends in a 54% victory for the A+P, I know the P apparently was worth 16%, so that the 62% Q vs A advantage corresponds to 0.75 Pawn. I tried this with two different computer programs, the virtually knowledgeless Fairy-Max, and the 400 Elo stronger Joker80. The results are in general the same (after conversion to Pawn units), and also independent of the time control. (I tried from 40moves/min to 40 moves/10min.) Typically they also are quite consistent: if two material combinations X and Y exactly balance each other (i.e. score 50%), then a combination Z usually scores the same against X and Y. The results furthermore reproduce the common lore about the value of orthodox Chess pieces. E.g. if I delete one side's Knights, and the other side's Bishops, the side that still has the Bishop pair wins (say) by 68%, and after receiving additional Pawn odds, loses by 68%. Showing that the B-pair is worth half a Pawn. Deleting only one N and one B gives a balanced 50% score, showing that lone Bishop and Knight are on the average equivalent. This is exactly what Larry Kaufman has found by statistical analysis of millions of GM games. ..." First off, I think I see how the Archbishop's value was measured, in terms of being 0.75 Pawns less than a Queen, based on the percentages given. Whether just hundreds of games is a statistically satisfactory playtest sample size, I am not sure (note that in chess White is thought to have a standard statistical edge, by about 54% or 55% over Black, so I assume half the time the Archbishop was with White thoughout the playtests). It also could be important how highly rated the computer programs were. By way of illustration, in chess it takes a good degree of skill for human players to know how to defend against a queen using, say, R + B + P, in situations where they are worth at least the queen objectively, based on the current position on the board. Larry Kaufmam is an International Master as far as chess goes, which puts him below Grandmaster or certainly world champion level, and such players have in the past and present certainly believed that though a bishop is close in value to a knight in terms of relative value, in general unless there is a special reason to prefer having a knight, situations favouring a bishop tend to happen more often - whether in actual game play, or in the many calculated variations that could have arisen from them (these alas do not appear in the playtesting process). So, if a grandmaster willingly gives up a bishop for a knight, he has reasons to do so based on other factors in the position. In any event, I have not heard of any reasonably strong human chess players changing their strategies in regard to trading bishops for knights in over the board play, based on Kaufman's result from his method. In regard to the millions of games Kaufman looked at, I am not sure all the chess Grandmasters in history have played close to a million games yet, especially against just each other. I have chess game databases with over a million games in them, but they include vast numbers of games played by players who were below Grandmaster level at the time.
Hi H.G. Another question I have is: assuming that the computer programs you used for the playtesting must have assigned a preliminary value to an Archbishop, if only for when deciding during calculations whether to exchange it for something else (e.g. a queen), what was that preliminary value? If it was set to the same value exactly as a queen, that would affect decisions such an engine made at times during a game via its calculations, for any moments when say an exchange of an Archbishop for a Queen might have been possible. I'm wondering if that might affect the play and results of a program during playtesting as much as if it, say, valued a minor piece the same as a rook during its calculations for any available exchanging posssibilities. In regard to playtesting Sac Chess myself, I'm still just reluctantly dipping my toes into the edge of the water as far as my experience with engines and modern computer software goes. Decades ago I was somewhat into computer programming, and found a lot of time was involved, and eventually a kind of aversion developed. I can't afford to be a complete luddite though when it comes to refusing to use computers at all these days, amd if I immerse myself fully into the world of chess variants I may try my hand at playtesting with engines as you suggest. However, I think I'd prefer to start with human vs. human playtesting of Sac Chess, in the New Year if not sooner.
H.G. wrote: "...One would expect the playtest to be only meaningful when the values used are consistent, i.e. the programmed value used for deciding on trades are the same as the value that comes out based on the score percentage. But to my surprise, putting a moderately wrong value there hardly had any effect on the outcome at all. If I put Q=9.5 and C=9, and play an army with Q against an army with C, the Queen wins by ~58%. If I put Q=9.5, and C=10, the Queen still wins by 58%! The explanation is that both engines share the misconception. So one of the two sides will always try to avoid the trade, meaning that Q for C trades will be relatively rare. So the test mainly measures how much damage Q and C do to the other pieces. Although a wrong C value might lead to wrong 2-for-1 or 3-for-1 trades, the number of occasions where such a trade can be forced is relatively rare, especially if they are not exactly equal, so that one of the players will try to avoid them. So the most error-prone value assignment is actually the one where the value is exactly the same as that of another piece, or the sum of two other pieces (and wrongly so). So I usually avoid that. ..." Fwiw, instances of assigning a preliminary value for a piece to the same value of that of another piece (and also being a wrong preliminary value) were in fact uppermost in my mind. For example, if one incorrectly sets the value of a rook (or, I would opine for argument's sake, even a bishop) exactly equal to the value of a knight, I'd imagine in a number of playtest games the side with an extra rook would erroneously trade it for the extra knight of the opposing side, say when thinking the position was approximately equal in all respects. If the number of such games is significantly large in the playtesting, this could seriously drive up the percentage of drawn games (let alone losses) in such games where a rook for knight advantage is erroneously thrown away through such a trade, substantially skewing the results of the playtesting. Regarding when a preliminary value is assigned to an Archbishop that is at least slightly different than that of a Queen when pitting the two pieces against each other in playtesting (other material being equal at the start), for example, and the value assigned the Archbishop is at least slightly wrong, I am now wondering something similar to what was uppermost on my mind before. That is, if the effect of all resulting incorrectly avoided trades during playtesting (e.g. of Queen for Archbishop plus a certain number of pawn[s]) might be to at least drive up the number of resulting unnecessary draws (let alone losses), in a way that may not at a minimum favour the Queen even approximately appropriately as far as its final overall percentage score in playtesting when pitted vs. an Archbishop. In short, I wonder if the results of such playtest games might even still be substantially skewed (setting aside the quality of the play by the engines). At the risk of stating the obvious, viewers can note that even if the Queen wins about the correct ratio of times vs. its losses, an incorrect (say too high) percentage of drawn games skews the overall results percentages if measuring the Archbishop. For example, if in 20 games the Queen wins 8 times, loses 4 times, with 8 draws, for an overall percentage of 60%, it has the same ratio of wins to losses if it wins 10 times and loses 5 times (i.e. with 5 draws), but in the latter case the Queen scores a better overall percentage (of 62.5%). The actual difference due to any playtesting that might be faulty might conceivably be quite greater percentagewise than for these example figures.
I've changed the setup position diagram for my Sac Chess submission, using the Diagram Designer as you requested, Fergus. Please confirm I've used all of the right types of figures to represent all of the pieces and pawns in the diagram, as I was slightly uncertain what some of the figures represented (some of the 26 possibilities to chose from were mysteries to me, but I thought I found all of the ones applicable to Sac Chess). Eventually I'll redo diagrams in similar fashion where needed for all of my Chess Variants Pages submissions if I am able to figure out how to.
H.G. wrote:
"BTW, did you just place the text string the generator gave you in a non-HTML submission, or did you have to tick 'Using HTML tags' to make it accept the diagram?"
Being tech-challenged these days, my attempt to describe what I did would be:
I went to edit my Sac Chess submission, then in doing so noticed that just above the 'Setup' box (i.e. to show the starting position for a chess variant) there now exists a sentence that mentions the Diagram Designer. I then clicked (on its blue highlighted words) "Diagram Designer" and a new window opened up, i.e. that of the Diagram Designer. Perhaps it wasn't quite obvious to a newbie how to use it even in a minimal way, but its board shape setting happened to be for a "Square" shape (since the Diagram Designer by default was for standard chess). I tried setting "Columns" = 10 and the square board increased from 8x8 to 10x10, still showing the 32 chess pieces.
I happened to decide to click on some hignlighted words for a setting ("Next Rank", I think), and revealed to me by a new window was a long documentation. This was actually useful enough to me in a way (with my minimal desire, i.e. to at least initially find any possible quick & dirty way to make a better diagram for my Sac Chess submission), because it finally dawned on me that the 26 characters of the alphabet each represent an available chess or fairy piece type in the given set (abstract pieces), and a character is to be used as part of the FEN string. After closing this window, I saw that the FEN string default was indeed for chess, and I could quickly tell how to use the FEN string for Sac Chess pieces (and its empty squares) instead. The slight difficulty after that was deciding which letters of the alphabet corresponded to desired Sac Chess pieces, though I eventually decided to use the standard chess piece abstract figures as a sort of theme I carried over when I decided on the letters of the alphabet to represent other (fairy chess) pieces in Sac Chess in the FEN string.
At any time I could click on an "Update" button and the Diagram Designer would show the latest version of the board, with the pieces on it. When I had finished, I knew there was a box in the Diagram Designer that contains a brief code (it described it as HTML code), and the final code corresponded to the work I had done with the Diagram Designer. The instructions above this box said to simply copy the contents of the box to my Chess Variants webpage, so I copied the contents as the first step of a quick cut & paste. I closed the Diagram Designer window, i.e. returning to my submission webpage that I was editing. I then did the pasting of the Diagram Designer code into the "Setup" box of my submission webpage, which simply showed the text of the code as a result (I had before now deleted my old version of a Setup diagram that wasn't up to snuff). After I submitted this edited version of my Sac Chess submission, now whenever I look at the new version of it, the Diagram Designer diagram I specified actually shows up on my screen.
Edit: I've identified the squares pieces are on (by text) in my Sac Chess setup diagram now. 4*Chess (four dimensional chess). Four dimensional chess using sixteen 4x4 boards & 96 pieces. (4x(4x(4x4)), Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]A question for Fergus (or possibly Ben). Offhand can you tell me if there is any hopefully straightforward way the Chess Variants Page's Diagram Designer can generate a diagram for a (4x4x4x4) 4-dimensional 4*Chess position? I haven't been able to tell for certain from what little I've read of the Game Courier documentation, though I get the impression creating such a diagram this way may not be simple to know how to do. I'm thinking of this as a possible project that I'm not in a hurry to start or finish, but I would like to know how to make such a diagram if I wish to. No hurry for me, that is, since there are about 20 positions I've used crude diagrams for in my 4*Chess webpage submission. Fwiw Ben's variant 'Tess Chess' webpage shows a 4x4x4x4 4-dimensional variant diagram of his, although the checker pattern for the boards alternates its colours in a different way than it does for my 4*Chess variant: http://www.chessvariants.com/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MStesschess
Sac Chess. Game with 60 pieces. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Thought I'd give the wikipedia link below, discussing the value of the Archbishop (Princess) fairy chess piece: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_(chess)#Value I'd note wikipedia mentions that computer self-play studies were used to establish a sort of value for this piece that Muller gave (though he nor anyone else seems to be credited for the computer studies, as far as I've read). Note also that links concerning the Chancellor (Empress) and Amazon are given by wikipedia. Regardless of arguments about what the Archbishop's value might be in a particular chess variant, I'd note that wikipedia mentions that the computer studies led to the conclusion that the Archbishop increased its relative value (in comparison to that of a queen) on an 8x10 board, as opposed to the smaller 8x8 board. Without bringing in any notion of synergy necessarily, I can give one possible reason (or contributing reason) why that conclusion might be correct, in case no one has mentioned it. Namely, whereas on an 8x10 board the rook component of a queen benefits the queen as a piece by 2 extra squares covered (on an empty board) at all times, not depending at all on the location of the square, note that the knight component of the Archbishop has many more available squares to it (than on an 8x8 board) where it benefits the Archbishop as a piece, by up to 4 extra squares covered more than from a less favourable square nearby that a knight might have to settle for on the smaller 8x8 board. I can note that on a 10x10 board (such as for Sac Chess), the rook component for a queen would by similar reasoning pick up 4 extra squares covered on an empty board (than if on an 8x8 board) whereas the knight component for an Archbishop often allows it to pick up up to (still) just 4 extra squares coverage for the Archbishop (than if on an 8x8 board), suggesting to me that a 10x10 board might not benefit an Archbishop like an 8x10 board apparently did, in terms of its value to that of a Queen. Perhaps inconclusive and murky pondering on my part, I'll admit, but it gave me pause.
4*Chess (four dimensional chess). Four dimensional chess using sixteen 4x4 boards & 96 pieces. (4x(4x(4x4)), Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Hi Fergus I've now added a Diagram Designer generated diagram to the Setup portion of my 4*Chess webpage submission, by modifying your example 4-dimensional chess diagram through heavy trial and error to be pretty much the way I wanted (I had to use an even number of Columns to get the square colours alternating the way I wanted to for all the 4x4 mini-boards, though this resulted in thicker margins between the 16 mini-boards, which I wasn't too concerned about). I'm hoping there is a way to use the Designer's HTML code I've cut & pasted into my submission, by (during possible editing of my submission in future) cutting and pasting the HTML code of this existing diagram I generated into the HTML code box of the Diagram Designer (i.e. if and when I start up the Diagram Designer webpage from scratch). That is, I'm hoping I can do so by then getting the Diagram Designer to somehow update its generated tentative diagram (for 8x8 chess, by default) using the cut & pasted HTML code. Then I can make a new diagram I like for my 4*Chess variant (for example) without a ton of modifications by having to modify the FEN string (along with making necessary field changes) starting from scratch at the default (8x8 chess diagram). Do you know if this would be possible? In any event, for at least the time being I can leave in the 20 or so crude diagrams in my submission, whether or not I add more Diagram Designer generated diagrams at some point.
I'm okay with leaving the diagram as it is, if it's not too objectionable. I tried changing the Border Size using the Diagram Designer as suggested, but only the outer left and outer top border were affected, i.e. otherwise not at all changing the thicker spacing between the small 2D boards (which I called mini-boards). At least I was able to make much use of the HTML code string I had pasted earlier into my webpage submission page, by cutting & pasting the part relevant to the FEN string, when using the Diagram Designer from scratch (I deleted certain parts & replaced then with '/' where I had to, though). I did something similar in the way of cutting & pasting the file and rank labels. Otherwise I had to set the fields (e.g. for the number of Columns) from scratch again where appropriate. The whole process was not nearly as time consuming as when I generated my diagram the first time from the Diagram Designer. In spite of the above, I am wondering if there is an existing or unwritten convention as far as how the checkering of the 2D boards alternates. Almost all the webpages with 4x4x4x4 4D chess variants on this website were submitted to have the checkering alternating kind of like in your example, Fergus, much like there is a convention for this in 3D chess variants apparently. Still, I did notice one 4x4x4x4 variant on this website that had the 2D boards checkered the way I have them at the moment (some other such 4x4x4x4 variants had diagrams that used no colours for checkering at all!). As I say, do you or anyone else have strong feelings on the checkering of the 2D boards? Personally, I found calculating when playing decades ago using the checkering I have for 2D boards to be natural enough in that it did not offend my sensibilities somehow, at least.
Hi Fergus I couldn't somehow see at all which option possibly corresponded to a Unicorn (or 'horned knight') in the Alfaerie set as given, if I'm using the Diagram Designer right, though I'm not sure what you meant by 'horned knight'. However, in choosing 'Cazaux Graphics' as a setting for the 'Set' field in the Designer, I found what I thought were nicer images for both the Unicorn and the Balloon, for within what I gave as a second Diagram Designer diagram for the start position of 4*Chess (in the Setup box) of my once again edited submission for it. I left in my first Designer generated diagram, using the Abstract pieces and different 2D Board checkering patterning (for purposes of comparison), for the time being. Regretably, my earlier 20 or so crude diagrams all have the checkering pattern I initially preferred for 4*Chess, though I imagine it won't be too much trouble to compare them with any future Diagram Designer diagrams that I add to my submission, if I leave in all or some of the crude diagrams indefinitely.
Refering to my last post, what I chose to represent a Unicorn seems fairly okay to me, as the animal (whatever it is ) at least shows one pretty straight looking horn as far as I can tell, though at the least the head is rather thick for it to be horse-like - but possibly this is a blessing when trying to tell the piece easily apart from a knight in a given diagram. In any case, I saw that the Diagram Designer setting (for 'Set') that is 'Small pieces for large boards' actually has a Unicorn (knight with one horn) perfectly represented (but nothing available resembling a balloon). Out of curiosity mainly, can you tell me if there is a simple way to include (on one or more cells represented within a single diagram generated by the Diagram Designer) just one fairy chess piece type's image from one setting for 'Set', besides using all the other fairy chess piece type images from one other setting for 'Set' (e.g. to switch just the piece image I used to represent Unicorns with the Unicorn image from 'Small pieces for large boards', if I decided to)?
I have now replaced most of the old crude diagrams in my 4*Chess submission with Diagram Designer generated ones. That is, except for leaving in the one for the Setup position (now with appropriate alternating square colour patterning), and leaving in the ones illustrating legal moves by individual pieces on a vacant 4D board (these are also corrected for patterning), as a possible aid to the viewer. I may have missed how, but after some reading of the documentation I could not see a way for the Diagram Designer to show non-piece symbols on the actual board cells in a generated diagram, such as showing a letter 'X' (e.g. I used such in my crude diagram of a 4*Chess King's legal moves), though using the Designer for this purpose was not much of a priority for me. In addition, I have slightly altered the 4D board notation system I used for the diagrams, in attempting to improve them in this regard.
Sac Chess. Play classical chess along with classical compound pieces: amazons, chancellors, archbishops...[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Hi Carlos What happened in your first game of Sac Chess with Fergus, at least in terms of the result? How many moves did the game last? I haven't yet learned how to access a database of games of a particular variant that have been played on Game Courier, if there is such a database (there are logs of many games that started long ago, at least). I saw that that game had gone past move 30 (with yourself as White), with a wide open position (in terms of pawn structure), where you were ahead by one pawn. After that, I checked later on and you two had started another game of Sac Chess, and I couldn't find the first game's log.
Thanks guys. I got to see the game by following Carlos' instructions. I had tried some searching of the logs before, but not the way Joe describes.
4*Chess (four dimensional chess). Four dimensional chess using sixteen 4x4 boards & 96 pieces. (4x(4x(4x4)), Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Earlier I wrote: "...what I chose to represent a Unicorn seems fairly okay to me, as the animal (whatever it is ) at least shows one pretty straight looking horn as far as I can tell, though at the least the head is rather thick for it to be horse-like - but possibly this is a blessing when trying to tell the piece easily apart from a knight in a given diagram." Fwiw, in looking up the mythical animal 'Unicorn', I discovered that sometimes one can be goat-like (instead of horse-like): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicorn An example of a goat with a beard, such as what might be shown by the animal symbol I used to represent a Unicorn in my diagrams, would be an Irish white goat. That's if ignoring the possibly single horn in my chosen animal symbol (to perhaps tell better if a single horn is the case, I think I can actually make out part of the animal's far eye by looking closely, in the case of a White piece version at least). Within the following link besides the Irish white goat I also noticed examples of another breed, namely a mother with her kids, which had both thick heads and thick necks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goat#Anatomy_and_health One more thing I came across elsewhere on the web was a mention that the length and thickness of a Unicorn's horn can vary. Disconcertingly for me, all this seems to go against a convention in fairy chess circles to show Unicorns as horse-like. That is, as Knights with long thin single horns that are as long as, e.g., from an eye to the mouth. However, I was happy to have any sort of moral support for my depiction of a Unicorn (aside from a Balloon) in my diagrams, with the available Diagram Designer piece sets that I had to choose from. :) [edit: in checking the 'Properties' of the animal image shown as a Unicorn in my diagrams, it's used to represent a Gnu normally it would seem. Joke's on me. :) ]
Sac Chess. Play classical chess along with classical compound pieces: amazons, chancellors, archbishops...[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I greatly enjoyed the second ever game of Sac Chess, between Fergus & Carlos, both because it was full-blooded, in terms of having many pieces and pawns traded before the end (unlike happened in the first ever game of Sac Chess), and because all these trades (of about 20 units per each side) happened at a fast pace (namely about 1 pair of units for every 6 ply), i.e. faster than is the average pace for chess (which is 1 pair of units traded for every 10 ply, I read somewhere). I was a little concerned that an average game of Sac Chess might take around 220 ply (if 1 pair of units are traded for every 10 ply on average in a game, as for standard chess). That is since an average game of chess takes about 80 ply, therefore leaving about 8 units per side on the board. That is presumably if an average game of chess is not further played out, until checkmate, or else until a draw by the rules of chess. One thing I noticed was that in this second ever game of Sac Chess, Black seemed to pass up more than one available checkmate in 1 move (that was around move 69, I recall), but this did not take away from my enjoyment, because now I have more reason to hope that Sac Chess may be a fully viable chess variant, for people to play and enjoy.
I sent the following email to an editor (Ben) a couple of hours ago, but I then realized others might be interested in the contents asap, including any future author, or perhaps especially Fergus: "I just submitted a new 4D chess variant I invented to The Chess Variants Pages website, but I could not exactly see it after clicking on ‘Submit’ (when a new page popped up, the title of my submitted game appeared in large print, but underneath was a page full of Amazon corporation ads for books). Then, when I tried to find a hopefully more complete version of my submission by looking under ‘Your Unreviewed Submissions’, it was indicated to me on that webpage that I was not signed in, nor was I able to sign in on that particular webpage. If nothing else, please check for me that you can see my submission entirely from your end of things. It took almost an hour and a half to prepare my submission, including using the Diagram Designer, so on that note I’ll certainly put off submitting a second new 4D variant I invented this year until after I get your reply. Meanwhile, I wish you a Happy New Year." The name of the submission in question is "Super4*Chess (four dimensional chess)". If I'm the only one having trouble making a submission, I could eventually give a link to my Chess Federation of Canada blog entry concerning the variant, if anyone is willing to try to author a submission for it on The Chess Variant Pages instead of me (& then please note that I'm the inventor).
Thanks for the info, Fergus. I'll try to get around to re-submitting the variant for this website at some point after the problem is known to be solved. Meanwhile, for anyone who is curious and/or impatient, I can give the CFC website link I wrote of regarding my blog entry there for this variant (the blog entry looks different slightly than what I had tried to submit to The Chess Variant Pages, as for one thing I only gave a primitive diagram for the setup position of the game): http://www.chesscanada.info/forum/entry.php?100-Super4*Chess-(four-dimensional-chess) Furthermore, here's a link to my CFC blog entry for the second 4D variant of mine that I wrote of that was finished being invented in the year 2016 as well (the variant is yet to be submitted as an entry to The Chess Variant Pages in some form, likely with a nicer diagram included too). FYI it is a 5x5x5x5 4D variant: http://www.chesscanada.info/forum/entry.php?101-5*4DChess-(four-dimensional-chess)
Sac Chess. Play classical chess along with classical compound pieces: amazons, chancellors, archbishops...[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]H.G. wrote: "If you want to test your theory about the computer resitance of this variant: You can download a version of Sjaak II + WinBoard configured to play Sac Chess from http://hgm.nubati.net/SacChess.zip. Just download and unzip it, and double-click the WinBoard icon (the black Knight) in the folder, and it should start up a Sac Chess game as black (so you can start playing white). If you want the computer to play white, click the Mode -> Machine White menu. You might want to give yourself more time through the Options -> Time Control menu. You can also watch Sjaak II play Sac Chess games against itself by clicking the Mode -> Two Machines menu. Have fun!" Thanks for your effort, H.G. I've been busy lately, with two 4D variant ideas of mine, and planning my activities (& recording appointments) ahead for 2016. This coming weekend, for example, I plan to play in a weekend tournament in Ottawa that starts Friday evening. A regular participant in Ottawa events is an immigrant GM from Montreal (Bator Sambuev), who is a mutual friend of the organizer/director of these events. I try to prepare something for him usually, since we'll usually play in such a small event, even though he almost invariably wins by a 5-0 score. After the weekend I was thinking of reading up more about Game Courier, to see how convenient it might be for me to understand & participate in that. Doing the downloading (and, e.g., trying machine vs. machine play) that you suggested will hence be on my backburner for a little while at least. To show how tech-challenged I am these days, I can't seem to recall ever doing the sort of 'unzip' you refered to, though I'm pretty sure it will be very simple to figure out how. Fwiw, my brother & his wife visit almost every weekend, and if able she helps me with software/hardware issues now & then if I am stumped. Take care, Kevin
I just re-submitted my "Super4*Chess (four dimensional chess)" variant to The Chess Variant Pages. At first a somewhat garbled version of the text appeared, but then when I clicked on "View Submission" the entry appeared to be as I had hoped, i.e. text showing properly (with 1 Diagram Designer generated diagram included), game title included. I still am indicated to be not signed in when I try to view any unreviewed submissions of mine (on the webpage "Your Unreviewed Submissions), and I am unable sign in on that webpage, perhaps because my browser is not adequate. In the past sometimes I could sign in on certain webpages if using my (currently broken) desktop computer instead of my laptop (which I am using presently). For me, on some webpages of The Chess Variant Pages, the menu of options at the top shows as a vertical (rather than horizontal) list, sometimes when using either computer, in a way which also keeps me from using any of the options (such as to be able to sign in). However, it is possible that the problem of being indicated as not being signed in on this particular webpage is one of the glitches that may need be dealt with by Fergus. Meanwhile, I have no way of editing my now apparently tentatively accepted submission, at least until after it has been reviewed (& if accepted) by editor(s). In the meantime, could an editor please verify that indeed my submission has been tentatively accepted (i.e. by this website).
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