Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

It would probably be good enough to test at 40 moves/1 min. There still seems to be a problem running matches starting from set-up positions with 'engine-defined variants', where the engine also sends a position. At least in the WinBoard version I distributed in the Sac-Chess package. I will check if the latest WinBoard also has that problem.

- waiting 1 turn to get a rook is a big deal, what can the oposite bishop do in 1 turn to turn the tables.

The Bishop might be able to attack the square in front of the opponent passer, so that he cannot promote at all. This is only a 50-50 chance, because the Bishop might have the wrong color, but the chance that a Knight, Zebra or Camel (or a Wizard or Champion) can do that in one move seems much smaller. And if there are other, blocked Pawns elsewhere on the board, you might win much easier with a minor against nothing than with a Rook against a minor. Which is what you would get if you delayed promotion to go for the Rook, while in the mean time he would promote to minor.

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.

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!

Ok, thanks!

It is probably not a good idea to try too many pieces of the same type (especially weak pieces), because that would allow them to protect each other in an unnatural way. (Unless they are Pawns, of course, as for those this is natural.) So I would not go beyond two Elephants against two Zebras.

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.

No trouble at all. I am glad you detected this double-push bug.

I think it would benefit Fairy-Max' strategy when you assign the piece values such that the minors have values just above 256, Rooks 400-500, super-pieces starting just above 768. There is no harm in lowering the Pawn value to around 60. If you set the values much higher Fairy-Max will be to slow in recognizing the end-game started and it should involve its King, and too reluctant to push Pawns in the opening.

I think Fairy-Max could be a very useful tool to determine piece values, despite the problem that it cannot implement the exact promotion rule. Because piece values will not be very dependent on the promotion rule. So you could for instance play from a start position where white has to Griffins, and black two Aancas, and see which side wins more often, to determine if the Aanca or the Griffin is the stronger piece on this board. If, say, the Griffins would win this convincingly, you could remove one of their Pawns from the start position, to see if that is enough to flip the odds.

With your latest promotion rules it becomes kind of hard to decide what should be Fairy-Max' default promotion choice, as it would probably still be better on average to always promote to minor on 8th than to always defer there and take a Rook on 9th. But since the minors are all very close in value in Apothecary 2, it would depend very much on the situation which one would be best. But I would go for the Bishop, as, being a slider, this has the biggest chance to stop an enemy promotion in case of a promotion race.

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.

?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!

If I download from that same link I definitely get 5.0b2 .  So it is the internet that is fooling you. Try to append ?t=1 to the link when you download it. This should bypass any cached old versions. If that does not work, I will upload the 5.0b2 version to a different link.

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.

Is the link the same one?

When it says 5.0b2 you ca be certain it is the fixed version. The first fixed version I made was also called 5.0b, but since you still had problem, that leaves doubt which version you were using.There are many ways mixups can occur when downloading new versions (like browser caching).

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

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

The fixed version (that would consider Pawns set up on the 3rd rank virgin) is 5.0b2 . You can double-click fmax.exe to see what version number it prints. If that prints 5.0b the download must have gone wrong. (Perhaps because your browser still caches the old download?) If it prints 5.0b2, but WinBoard still says 5.0b (e.g. in the title bar), there is something wrong in picking the right version to run on your system.

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

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

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.

That change looks OK, but note that the 9 and the 11 in case one select a Pawn on the last rank stand for a WHITE Queen, so that black in that case would promote to an opponent piece. I later corrected that in the script I posted, but by then you had already copied it. The proper way would be to write promo+8 or promo+10, because promo in that case would be 1 (white Pawn) or 1025 (black Pawn).

What exactly is not working with Fairy-Max now? Can you run the one with version number 5.0b2 in WinBoard? For me this version workedfine in both Apothecary 1 and 2.

I am pretty sure that doing Aanca orGriffin is beyond Sjaak's capabilities.

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>

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.

OK, I uploaded a version of the fixed Fairy-Max now that prints as version number 5.0b2. You could try that to know for sure you are using a fixed version. But in preparing it I noticed something EXTREMELY WEIRD, which might be the same thing as that you are facing:

I am using Windows 8.1. When I replaced the old Fairy-Max with the new one, it seems both continued to exist, and double-clicking the file would run the new one, but WinBoard would run the old one. If I renamed the file, the new one got renamed, and both names would work in WInBoard, the reamed one printing the new version, the old name (no longer existing in the folder) would print the the old version number.

[Edit] It seems that the old one it is running is in the same folder as winboard.exe. I also had an fmax.exe there. When I renamed that to yet another name, I get an error message when I use the old name. But I can still choose between the old (in the WinBoard folder) and the new (in the sub-folder Fairy-Max) by just changing the nameof the .exe. I don't understand how it can run files in different folders by just changing the file-name.

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