Comments by vickalan

I'm not sure what is going on at the game. The pgn doesn't seem to match the board position. I (the engine) tried to play 3.Nf6 but I'm not sure if it accepted it or not. It doesn't show that on the diagram.

I believe this is the gams so far:
1.e4...c5
2.Qh5...e6
3.(refuse)...Nf6

Ok, I believe I played a move. This should be an interesting experiment. For the record, I'm playing the "computer" where the computer believes it is playing normal chess.

For clarity, the way I'm using an engine is that it plays the best move. If that gets rejected, then it plays the next best move. It also accepts or rejects moves using this same logic.

(If nothing else, this has gotten HGM to play a game, who I believe doesn't frequently play games on public forums. Hooray!)

I've gotton busy with other stuff so I plan to usually only play one move per day.:)

That's fine. Just leave a message once you have your username, and I'll setup a new game with the moves we've made so far. I believe the game so far is:

White      Black
Aurelian   VReinhart
1.d4    ...Nf6
2.e4    ...Nxe4
3.Reject...d6

Since we don't have a working board diagram yet you don't need to make your next move yet. Once I setup the game with your and my usernames, I'll setup the game from here and we can keep playing.

Just for the record, my moves are chosen by the computer but the computer thinks it is playing chess, but we are really playing Refuse Chess.

Ok, I set up "VReinhart" as my username, and setup a game "VReinhart - VReinhart" since I plan to only use this to display a chess diagram. Now two more questions:

What is the data next to "white/black" (i.e. "+23.46/-79.96"). Is there an engine evaluating moves?

Any idea for the best way for Aurelian to communicate moves? Maybe just on this forum, while I update the diagram there?

HGMuller,
I can move the pieces and set-up the board to the current position, but I don't know what to do to save it.

I already have a username and password. The opening window shows a conversation between you and "jon".

So my two questions:
1) how do a save a position?
2) how do I clear the conversation, so it's a fresh board for Aurelian and me?

This may work, but having trouble with some basic things.

When I go to the game, it says "Drawn Game" and I do not have any options to do anything. (I haven't played a move, or accepted the draw, or anything).

Is there a way to take back my move (since you rejected it)?

All we need is a system to show a board diagram, and I'm wondering if there is an easier way to play this.

Game has started well so far, but no move has been refused yet. I'm sure it will happen soon. I didn't think about it, but I'm not even sure if the game courier allows take-backs. If there is no way to refuse and take back moves we'll have to find another way to do it. We'll see how it goes.:)
 

Ok awesome, to my knowledge, Aurelian is the first person in the universe willing to play Refusal chess against an engine - a historical landmark! I think we only need to play one game for this experiment. If Aurelian plays White and wins, then he has outsmarted the computer.

I've never played a game on the game courier here before, so I hope I did everything right. I set up an invitation here:

(I hope to play one move per day, but might miss a few days. I do have some travel planned this month that might slow things down for short periods.)

I agree that playing your own moves against an engine removes the "competitive" spirit. From my side, I would need to run an engine a few times at each move to learn its 1st and 2nd best moves - but still is not a lot of work on my part.

The idea was an experiment. It would be to test the theory that an engine would play "disastrously poorly". I've seen this discussion of human play vs engine for Refusal chess more than once, and (so far) I have not seen a human willing to go against the engine.

(btw: thanks for your offer - If I played a game against you it would be Enep. That sounds like a fun one too!)

Aurelian Florea, I also noticed you offered to play a game. If you'd like, we can do an experiment.

It's not human vs. human. It will be you (human) vs. computer (me).

I will always choose the best move by computer. If you refuse, then I'll play the 2nd best move (also by computer).

Let me know if you'd like to try that. I haven't played any game here on the courier(?) system, but I'm sure it's not too hard.:)

HGMuller, how far into a game will that be evident? I didn't detect anything like that happening in the first 8 moves of a simulation that I tried.

(In the example you provided, you say "...attack that knight with your queen. The engine will ignore it." This may be optimal play for the side with the engine)

I certainly believe an engine (as described previously) will falter at some point, but wondering how far into a game is it expected?

For me nothing was evident in the early stages. I could not find a way to out-smart the engine in the opening phase of the game.

Does anyone know how well a chess engine will play this game against a human?

It's not convenient, but this game can be played against an engine by setting the engine to its strongest level, then letting it play a move. If you refuse the move, then you make the engine go back, and play a different move (temporarily setting to a lower level, until you find the engine's "2nd" best move).

The computer will reject your moves by checking if they are "best" or not.

To me it seems that in a chess opening to the mid-game, there are enough move options that the computer's "2nd best" moves will always be very good - better than most human players. Therefore the board position will start to favor the computer.

In an end-game, the engine may falter - because it will not play well knowing that the best move will likely be refused. But to get to the end-game, the computer may already have achieved a formidable advantage, and the human player will already be in a hopeless position.

I tried this once, and couldn't find a flaw with this type of strategy (from the computer's point of view). But I only got to about 8 moves, and then stopped the experiement. The computer was in a winning position, but this was winning as judged by normal chess - not refusal chess. So I could not say for sure the result was conclusive.

I'd like to try again, but am already busy in other games. Can anyone predict (or know) the result if taken to its conclusion?

I have a few questions about this page.

First, does CVP have any connection with Zillions of Games? (other than both are about variant chess).

If there is no connection between the two websites, then what is the purpose of this page?

Is there an interest for CVP to promote Zillions of Games, could it be done more in a general way (like an ad on the home page) rather than at one specific game?

Also, some of the content on this page appears to be obsolete. Visitors such as me may end up wasting their time opening links that don't exist, or link to non-remarkable information.

Should this page be deleted altogether? (especially in light of the fact that Greg did superb work to make a better page for Roman chess).

Also, what does "It is categorized as Orthodox chess" mean? (mentioned on this page).

Thanks for any explanation or insight into the purpose of this page.

It does say that when looking at the board, but it goes away when looking at the move definition of pieces.

While on this topic, I wonder if there is a way to always uniquely specify a piece with a move diagram without requiring it to be interactive. Unless a piece is very complicated, I would think there is a way to do it, but haven't thought it through yet. If there is such a way, it would be my preference (why animate a specification if a static diagram would work)?

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts.

Oh, that helps. I didn't know that the interactive diagram is itself interactive (I thought it's interactive only because it appears when selecting on the piece name). There does still seem to be a minor discrepency in my view. The rules say "The new leapers/jumpers are capable of an optional multi-capture". I take this to include the speedy knight, and strictly speaking the knight is new too because it's not the same knight as in classical chess. But the diagram does not show capture symbols in the intermediate squares.

Again, these are minor points that should be cleared up before starting a game. As a whole - this is a very well-written game description and one of my favorite variants (although I have not played it yet).

Another comment, and again this is a stylistic idea, and not very important (but I'll mention anyway):

Would the page look better if "(revised)" was pulled out of the title, and instead (optionally) a very short "change history" added at the bottom?

A few questions/comments:

About the optional multi-capture: Rules say it is for new leapers/jumpers, so this includes knight, speedy knight, cat, star-cat, and eques rex, corrrect?

(I'm assuming the knight is regarded as new because of it's different allowed initial move, and promotion rule compared to classical chess).

The knight does say "may not double capture during the 2-step move". I take this to mean the initial 2-step move, and not its normal 1-step L-shaped move.

When a knight makes an L-shaped move, there are two ways to move over squares it jumps over. The optional capture allows TWO pieces on EITHER one of its two path to be captured, plus the destination square, correct? (so capturing three pieces possible in one move).

(or can the knight capture all 4 squares it jumps over, plus the destination, for 5 total captures)?

Last, I'm wondering if the very first sentence should be changed a little:

Instead of:
...but not mostly not because of it's L-shaped move...
better as(?):
...but mostly not because of it's L-shaped move...

Sorry to bring up minutiae, but I really like this game. If I didn't like it, I would't be asking these specific and detailed questions.:)