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Comments by Cameron Miles
Rose. Can make consecutive knightmoves in a circle.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Amalgamated Chess. Incorporates some aspects of historical variants, but uses only usual equipment. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]What happens if one side can capture the opponent's prince, but their own king is in check? Can that side win immediately, by ignoring the check and simply capturing the enemy prince? Or would such a move be considered illegal, because checks must ALWAYS be answered?
Okay, thanks for the reply. I suppose that interpretation makes the most sense, but now am wondering whether (by the same logic) the King can make a capture that reduces the opposing side to just its Prince... even if the Prince defends this last piece. A similar question could be raised concerning which side would win if a Prince (rather than a King) were to make such a capture (although this is less relevant, as such a situation is not likely to ever occur in practice). While I'm at it, I may as well point out that the rules regarding stalemate are somewhat contradictory. It is briefly mentioned that "the player causing the stalemate loses!" ; however, the rule to eliminate draws is said to apply "whenever a draw would occur in regular Chess", which implies that stalemate should result in a tallying of points to determine the winner. I'm guessing that "Any scenario [not already addressed by the previously stated rules] where a draw would occur in regular Chess" is what was meant, but I always prefer to not have to speculate on the rules' intended meaning when playing new chess variants. I do, in fact, have a game of A.C. in progress right now on Game Courier, but cannot yet give any meaningful rating or feedback. Many aspects of the actual gameplay are still unclear, and will remain that way without further playtesting. Most significantly, I am quite curious what the endgame is like, or whether an endgame phase even exists (A.C. is a very un-Chess-like game - that much is certain).
Wow, 3 weeks... I guess I should check the comments section a little (or a lot) more frequently! I would generally agree that it's best to avoid over-complicating a ruleset if at all possible, as long as nothing is left ambiguous or open to interpretation. Of course, when designing new chess variants, it's not always possible to foresee every potentially unclear situation that may arise in a game - which is where playtesting comes in. My first A.C. game on Game Courier ended last week. It really was quite a short game, disappointingly; a few early missteps by White compounded into a lost position within the first 15 moves, so not as much was learned about the middle and later phases as I would have liked. The G.C preset for this game has some shortcomings, as well: there are no promoted forms for any of the pieces, nor are the river or side boundaries (for the royal pieces) marked in any way. And obviously, no rules are enforced, either. Nevertheless, I'd be happy to play a game, if you're still interested.
That's a good point about the resemblance to OTB play. That a game involving so many non-standard elements is still playable with a standard chess set is pretty impressive. If it's up to me, I prefer the revised version, only because it seems a bit more logically consistent. Of course, the effect of those rule changes should be negligible in practice. A potentially more significant drawback to the current ruleset, which occurred to me recently, is the possibility of "drawn" positions being stretched out for hundreds of moves by the player with fewer points. Such a situation highlights the difficulty of converting draws into decisive results via point-based tiebreakers: most draws in FIDE chess are by mutual agreement, which has no equivalent in a drawless variant. So in positions where a draw would "normally" be agreed, there are only two [realistic] winning conditions, both of which need some form of clarification/redefinition for A.C. : (1) 50-move rule (since pawn movement and promotion work differently, how would moves be counted?) and (2) insufficient material (if one or both princes have promoted to King, then what, exactly, would constitute insufficient material for mate?). The above winning conditions may or may not be enough to avoid having games that go on for 300-400 moves after they have been decided. Of course, in a friendly game the player on the losing end could just resign, resolving this altogether. However, it would not be so simple in a more competitive scenario where the 1st priority of both players is to win the game. ... OK, that's definitely enough over-analysis for one post. Actual playtesting may well prove all these small details to be completely irrelevant - send the invite whenever you're ready!
Your adaptation of the 50-move rule for A.C. looks good. It's simple, logical, and is pretty much optimal in terms of its main purpose of limiting the duration of the game. Regarding the marathon game, the main concern involved dual-King positions, so ending the game immediately in such situations should obliterate that problem entirely. It will also lead to a sharper, more volatile game, due to many strange cases where the action seems to just "end" suddenly in the middle of a major skirmish; not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. If the King is in the corner, then only 13 points of material are needed for checkmate (assuming you are referring to the points used in A.C., and that the friendly King, to avoid ambiguity in the point counting, doesn't participate). For instance, with Black King on f4, and White having "soldiers" on d3, e2, and f2 and an "Advisor" on d4, moving the Advisor to e3 results in checkmate. Of course, this doesn't really add anything relevant to the discussion, as the fact remains that checkmate is a highly unrealistic possibility in a two-Kings endgame. It's not easy to even weigh the pros and cons of weakening the Prince's and King's powers, let alone to compare the various possibilities on how to do this. One thing I've noticed, though, is that taking away the Prince's diagonal move will leave the f-pawns unprotected in the starting position. Because the b and g-pawns are also undefended, this is going to make the opening phase extremely unbalanced. White will almost always open with 1. E f1-d3, and play will inevitably center around targeting the f-pawn (Black will try to counterattack in the exact same manner, at the first opportunity), and an early Nh6 will likely be forced from Black just about every time. And I'm pretty sure White can force the exchange of a Black Chariot for a White Elephant, in fairly short order. The other two proposed Princes are rather similar. Either way, removing the "dual-Kings rule" should still result in some long, usually very drawish endings, because such situations will most likely occur in relatively simplified positions (in addition to the nature of promotion and demotion; late in the game the opponent's side of the river will often be considerably safer). Of course, weakening the royal pieces WOULD significantly lower the percentage of games decided by the point system (because it will be a lot harder for the Prince to make it across the river in one piece). That's pretty much all the input I have to offer. It really just amounts to a few things that you may want to consider when trying to decide on one rule over another. At the end of the day, it comes down to subjective choices such as how many moves should the average game last, how often should the point system decide the game, or how well-balanced should the game be in each phase, and as a whole - these are all up to you. By the way, I've accepted your invitation (and chose White since I played as Black in my first game), but have yet to move - the reason being that all this talk of rule changes left me unsure what version of A.C. I was actually playing. I'll make the 1st move once the rules have been finalized. The amount of time I can afford to spend on my G.C. games is very limited as well, so don't worry about moving slowly. Just don't expect my moves to necessarily come in any faster :p
OK, so after thinking about it a bit, it does seem that a revised opening setup, with the undefended b, f, and g-pawns advanced forward one square, should solve the opening problems associated with the current version of the game. What convinces me of this is simply that Black can immediately cover all fifth-rank squares with the move 1...c7-c6, and it will be awhile before either side can come storming across the river to mount an attack. So the resulting opening phase should be very well balanced. For aesthetic and practical purposes, it might be best to also advance the c-pawns forward one square. This would restore mirror-symmetry to the pawn formations, as well as sparing players the monotony of mindless c2-c3 and c7-c6 moves at the beginning of every game.
Game Courier Logs. View the logs of games played on Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]A game I recently completed has been recorded as a win for the wrong player. I am pointing this out not because I care about win-loss records (I don't) but because it likely represents a serious programming error in the method used to determine the results of finished games. Here is the game log where the error occurred : http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game=Maorider+Chess&log=makov333-cvgameroom-2013-342-872
Thank you for the reply. I realize now that I should have been more precise about the location of the glitch I was referring to (the "Black has won" status is indeed accurate). What I meant was that the game was counted as a win for the wrong player under "Ratings for Maorider Chess". This means the error may well be related to Player Ratings rather than Game Courier itself; I apologize for not specifically mentioning this.
The following games have all been recorded as wins for the wrong player under "Player Ratings": http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game=Janggi&log=tamandua-cvgameroom-2014-84-966 http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game=Cetran+Chess+2&log=sissa-shatteredglass-2014-8-981 http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game=Cetran+Chess+2&log=sissa-joejoyce-2014-174-071 http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game=Glinski%27s+Hexagonal+Chess&log=fergus-cvgameroom-2014-128-857 This appears to confirm my earlier suspicion that the bug causing this was related to the "won" and "lost" commands (which I'm guessing are also implemented internally by presets with rule-enforcement, whenever a checkmate position is reached, as in two of the above logs), and that more such games could be found by scanning the list of finished games for logs where the color of the winning side is displayed instead of the winning player's name. But then, this game would be an exception (perhaps certain presets are "immune" to this particular bug?): http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game=Alice+Chess&log=haltija-jeok-2014-160-090
Amalgamated Chess. Incorporates some aspects of historical variants, but uses only usual equipment. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Wow... sorry about this. I really should have mentioned (the last time I moved) that I was leaving for a much-anticipated 3-week vacation the very next day. While away, I did log in to G.C. every once in a while, but only for a few minutes at a time, to just move quickly in my current games so that they would all remain active. The problem was, the A.C. game never appeared on my list of current games, so I wound up not seeing what you'd written at the end of it until now (just got home earlier today, and was sifting through the "Finished Games" list when I finally found it). Guess I ought to get back on topic now... The vulnerability of the Wazir-Prince was something that I immediately expressed some concern over, but what worried me wasn't that it would make him too easy to attack; the issue was that he could be targetted right from move 1, leading to forced opening moves and tactics (rarely a good thing). The new opening layout seems to have solved this problem**, however (and very nicely, I might add), which is why I'm going to have to disagree with your assessment that giving the Prince the Wazir move was seemingly a mistake. According to the introduction at the very top of the rules page, Amalgamated Chess is meant to be "a fast-paced, aggressive game". As it is now, the game accomplishes this about as well as any chess variant could ever hope to; it's about as close to pure attacking chess as you can get. Is this really "the opposite" of what you had hoped for? Personally, the extremely sharp, dynamic, and non-materialistic nature of the gameplay is one of my favorite things about the version of A.C. we've been playing. Moreover, I think it is something that a lot, if not most, of chess variant players like to see - variants that are faster and more aggressive than FIDE chess. For this reason, I think the idea of weakening the royal pieces in this game was actually a brilliant one. If A.C. has any shortcomings, it may be the lack of defensive resources available to its armies. Because of the way promotion works, every single piece on the board is 10 times more effective on the opponent's side of the river than on its own side. I did have an idea that may help to balance attack and defense in this game. It involves replacing the Elephants (which can be dangerous offensive pieces) with a useful defensive piece, that cannot cross the river. Because the invading pieces are so powerful (due to promotion), I would suggest making these defenders reasonably strong - perhaps the move of the "War Elephant" is a good fit. The above proposal would give the game an additional similarity with the popular Xiangqi from the East, as well as preserve the game's ability to be played with a standard chess set. Most importantly, it would give both sides at least a sporting chance to fend off attacks, so that victory is not always guaranteed as soon as 1 or 2 pieces break through into enemy territory. One last note: the rules page still gives the following description under "Setup": "Position the ... armies as in regular Chess." This should probably be edited, in light of the recent changes made to the initial setup. ** Admittedly, the playtesting we've done for the game's latest version has been very limited, with only one game so far from the correct starting position.
Cetran Chess 2. Missing description (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I'll add in a well-deserved "Excellent" rating while I'm at it :) The main reason for this comment, though, is that I'd like to request that the game shatteredglass-judgmentality-2014-237-084 be continued in another log. It really doesn't do this outstanding game justice to have its 1st official G.C. tournament be decided by a rather needless timeout.
The continuation of the game would obviously have to be timed in some way, but unless Jeremy doesn't think the position is worth playing out, the result should REALLY be determined by actual play, since 1st place now hinges entirely on that one game.
I'd first like to thank Carlos for posting the preset linked below, and more importantly, for organizing this event. Not only was it the first "Cetran Chess 2" tournament ever, but it was also MY first Game Courier tournament ever, and (aside from the long break taken in the middle of it) I enjoyed it a lot. While it would still be nice to play out that last game, I'm [finally] inclined to agree that there's no longer any good reason to delay making the final standings official. In the current position, if I still had the outcome of the tournament in mind, I'd most likely set up some sort of fortress to secure a draw (enough to hang on to the lead), which wouldn't be very interesting or exciting. Yet White retains reasonable winning chances, and can easily lose if too aggressive, so it'll be much more fun playing for a win than for a draw. I'm especially looking forward to discussing future events, as it seems there are now a significant number of serious variant players taking Game Courier by storm, who would be more than willing to get in on the action. If anyone should want to email me about planned/upcoming events, my address is miles.cmn@gmail.com (and NOT dglassman11@gmail.com, which I abandoned almost a year ago; unfortunately, this site does not allow one to replace the email address associated with their account).
Game Courier Logs. View the logs of games played on Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Due to the serious increase in activity that Game Courier has recently had, I'm thinking it may be worth it to bring this issue up again (so that, if nothing else, everyone else is aware of it). The bug in "Player Ratings" that I mentioned below has by now wreaked total havoc on almost every ratings list on the site. There's no longer any point in highlighting specific examples -- they are too numerous, for one thing, but more importantly it's easy to see the general pattern. Nearly all games decided by an entered "won"/"lost" command, or by a checkmate recognized by the preset, are somehow being recorded as wins for the losing player (and as losses for the winning player). Unless/Until this is fixed, the vast majority of GCR pages are rendered meaningless, unfortunately.
Thank you for the reply. It's clear now that the problem will be a lot more difficult to resolve than I had thought, because there are many different things contributing to it. If you don't mind, could you briefly describe the method that the ratings script used to award one player the win for a certain game (in which a "won"/"lost" command was implemented), and the other the loss? Because it seems, at least intuitively, that if a given procedure consistently produces the wrong result [out of two], then there ought to be some trivial means of creating a procedure that produces the correct result with just as much consistency. I obviously haven't verified this for all such logs, but of the ones I have checked, it seems that for ANY log displaying the color of the winning side instead of the winning player's name, the corresponding game was recorded as a win for the wrong player, with the sole exception of Alice Chess games.
Game Courier Ratings. Calculates ratings for players from Game Courier logs. Experimental.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]It looks like everything's been fixed! Well done, Fergus, and thank you! I see that the Finished Games database also allowed for the creation of a page listing Game Courier's top 50 most-played games, which is a very nice addition. Now I guess I have to see if I can catch Hexa Sakk... ; )
Game Courier Logs. View the logs of games played on Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I've just discovered a bug, which has probably resulted from all of the changes being made. It's no longer possible to view finished games at any position other than the final one, or ongoing games at any position other than the current one.
Shogi. Play the Japanese form of Chess, in which captured pieces can be dropped back as your own. (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The game below is not logical, or even plausible by any stretch of the imagination; it is, however a sequence of legal moves leading to a position in which Black's king is in check (and about to be mated), but cannot save himself with a pawn drop for the sole reason that it would give an illegal checkmate to White's king.
1. p 7g-7f 1... P 7c-7d 2. n 8i-7g 2... K 5a-6b 3. n 7g-8e 3... P 3c-3d 4. n 8e-7c; skip 4... K 6b-7c 5. b 8h-5e 5... K 7c-8d 6. b 5e-8b; skip 6... S 7a-8b 7. p 9g-9f 7... K 8d-8e 8. r 2h-9h 8... K 8e-7f 9. r*2f 9... K 7f-8g 10. s 7i-6h 10... P 7d-7e 11. s 6h-7g 11... K 8g-7g 12. g 6i-7i 12... K 7g-6g 13. g 7i-8h 13... P 7e-7f 14. p 5g-5f 14... N*5g 15. p 5f-5e 15... B 2b-5e 16. g 4i-4h 16... B*3c 17. r 9h-9g 17... P 7f-7g; skip 18. r 9g-8g 18... S 3a-2b 19. r 8g-8c; +r-dest 19... S 2b-3a 20. +r 8c-8g 20... L 1a-1b 21. g 8h-7g 21... B 5e-7g; skip
By the way, when entering these moves, I noticed an odd glitch. When I tried to play 9... K 7f-8g, a message appeared saying that the move was "not marked as legal". Strangely, the preset still allowed the move (but would not allow moves that truly were illegal). This may be connected to another glitch I stumbled across a couple days ago, which caused one of the Shogi presets to prematurely end a game by false checkmate. The log where this occurred was: tamandua-cvgameroom-2015-175-942
Game Courier Logs. View the logs of games played on Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Uh... not to be a pest or anything, but it seems that whatever you did to "fix" the problem has actually replaced it with something much worse. Not only can earlier positions in a game not be viewed, but now, the one thing that CAN be done when viewing a game (even games you aren't playing in, as well as finished games) is to in fact ALTER THE LOG. [Yes, you heard that correctly.] And not just with a move from the current position, but also take-back moves from earlier positions. So literally any prankster who comes along (until this is all somehow resolved) can practically turn Game Courier upside down at his/her very whim, since as long as you are logged in as a registered member, the server will indeed allow you to actually SEND moves without a password (yes, regardless of whose turn it is, who is playing, or even whether the game is still in progress!!). "Small" glitches are of course nothing more than a minor concern, but this... someone needs to get on it, ASAP! Edit: I only slightly exaggerated the situation. Finished games cannot be modified in any obvious way (but are still impossible to view at any position other than the final one, not to mention the fact that there is no [easy] way to determine the opponent of the winning player).
Ah - for obvious reasons, I never actually clicked "Send" to see what would happen. Nevertheless, it looks like everything has returned to normal, so well done!
The kibitzing system appears to be broken. Not only is it now impossible to edit [one's own] comments in the kibitz section for a game, but kibitzers' names are no longer displayed next to their comments.
Thank you for fixing the kibitzing system, Fergus. With all the obstacles associated with the recent move of the website, I hadn't expected you to get around to that so quickly. I'd now like to call attention (from anyone and everyone who reads this) to the following log, which I would consider to be "nearly hard evidence" that an impostor of some sort has taken over the account of long-time CVP member (and well-respected chess variant inventor and player) Carlos Cetina: http://play.chessvariants.com/pbm/play.php?game=Circular+Chess&log=sissa-cvgameroom-2015-291-618 If it is unclear what "nearly hard evidence" refers to, please read the comments posted in the "Kibbitzing Section" at the bottom of the page. I will of course try to confirm this myself by asking Carlos about it via email. If anyone out there (who happens to be a much closer friend of his) has a more surefire way to contact him, I'd appreciate any help I can get in obtaining 100% confirmation that his account here was stolen. Assuming it turns out that my suspicion is indeed correct, does anyone have some idea about the best way of handling such a situation? I suppose (in the worst case) Carlos could always create a new CVP account, but then his "active" account would no longer be directly connected with his many contributions to the site.
Yes, assuming his account here was not hacked into specifically by means of having somehow taken over his email account (something that is not entirely unheard of). Though actually, he has already responded to the email I recently sent him, and assured me that no such hijacking ever took place. So I can now definitively say (with relief) that you were right all along, and I was mistaken. Cheers!
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