Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Okay, try it again. It should now include the value of the tournament in the SQL too.

Not quite.  It's better - it is now setting the Round to 2, but it is still leaving the Tournament field blank.

Try it again. I just updated it to include the value of the round in the SQL.

The tournament gane assignment isn't working correctly.  It is creating the game, but it is not associating it with the tournament/round.  Fergus, can you take a look?  The two games I have created are now associated with the tournament, but that's because I went into SQL and did it manually (which would be a pain to do for all 18 games, but I'll do it if you are busy or it is not a quick fix.)

Excellent.  I'll assign the second round games on Saturday afternoon.

All games in the first round have finished.

Oh Thanks. Sorry I didn't notice. Congratulations to all the players!

I'll probably check back occasionally - this is interesting!

Take a look at the comment I left just before yours.

Just curious about something - is there anyway for a spectator to easily see the status of this tournament, or is it necessary for interested passers-by to seek through the individual games to see who's emerging as the leaders?
 

Okay, that has been fixed. My code for constructing the query had missed the comparison operator. Here's an URL you can use to view the games in this tournament:

http://play.chessvariants.com/pbm/logs.php?tourney=GameCourier2017&age=0&stat=any&sort=gamelog

I'm no longer able to pull up the results for the tournament via PBM query.  Is that something still in process?

You still not seeing your Victorian Chess game?  It shows up for me:

http://play.chessvariants.com/pbm/play.php?log=catugo-fergus-2017-175-107&game=Victorian+Chess

Remember that Wildebeest preset has no enforced the rules.

Victorian Chess fixed.

Victorian Chess isn't showing up among my games.

Good luck, all!

The games of the first round - Fischer Random Chess, Xiang Qi, and Victorian Chess - have been assigned.

I will also send an email to all participants informing them that the tournament has begun.

Please be aware that for almost all games, you have the ability to change the graphics for both the pieces and the background, as well as the rendering method.  As long as you are signed in as yourself when you open the game you will see the graphics you have selected.  Please take advantage of this to tweek the appearance to your liking.

Also, please note that the Victorian Chess preset needs a correction.  Castling works correctly as long as you select the correct squares, but the squares it displays as legal are not correct.  Hopefully I will fix this before we get to the point where people are castling, but even if not, the rules are enforced correctly - it just doesn't show the legal moves correctly where castling is concerned.

Good luck everyone and have fun!  Please let me know if I can be of any help.

I used grep to find every Game Courier script with the wrong path and fixed it.

That's a path I didn't change over from the old site. I'll get to it tonight.

Man, got some tough pairings there.  I like it.

Fergus,

I'm having issues.  First I couldn't create the tournament round because of a lack of permission to create a new folder under /play/tournaments.  I got around this by creating the directory first through SFTP.

Now I can't assign games though.  It says it can't find the file:

/home/forthel1/chessvar/public_html/play/tournaments/gamecourier2017/1.php

The file 1.php does exist.  I'm guessing it's an issue with the "forthel1" in the path.  Probably this should be a relative URL?

Thanks!

Pairings have been posted.  I will create the games later this evening.

Sounds good :)

Great, thank you both.  There are two players not paired with Daniel, so I'll take one of those spots.  For the other spot, I used random.org to select between the two of you and it selected Zachary.

I wouldn't mind either Greg. Good luck :)

No worries, Greg.  I'm glad you got it figured out.  If you want, you can have me be one of the ones not paired with Daniel in case he doesn't make moves and so it'd be one less person worried about unfairness.

Ok, the pairings worked cleanly with 12 players and the existing 9 games, so that's what we're going with.  SxG and Daniel MacDuff are both in.

I'll update the web page to show the final list of games, players, and pairings.  (I still need to work on balancing it so each player has the white pieces in either 4 or 5 games.)  Then I'll create the actual games in GC.

Thanks, everyone, for bearing with me.  I didn't think making the actual assignments would be difficult.  Clearly I need to crack open my "Discrete Mathematics with Applications" textbook which fortunately I saved.

Thanks, Nick, for the ideas.  Just running with Daniel included is certainly one possibiliy, even though he's disappeared.  If he didn't re-appear, it would wind up being a bye for almost everyone, but not everyone, so not completely fair.

Adding two more games and everyone gets a bye doesn't work.  I think we have the same pairing problem.  We'd essentially have 12 players, because you'd consider "bye" a player.  We'd have 66 games (counting a game against "bye" as a game.)  And we'd have 66 possible pairings.

Hey Greg!

It could be not a matter of forcing the tournament into certain parameters, but maybe designing the parameters around the tournament.  Without taking too deep of a look into it (as it is late here too and I wish I was intoxicated), maybe adding 2 more variants to the mix.  With 11 games, everyone plays everyone once and gets one bye.  (4 rounds - 3 games/each and 2 in the last or 3 rounds - 4 games/each and 3 in the last)

Also, subtracting variants to 6 and doubling the games played (one black and one white) in each variant should yield the same amount of games played with 1 bye each if my math is correct.  (3 rounds - 2 variants/round  and 2 games/variant)

Alternatively, we can just start the tournament with Daniel in the games, as he committed previously.  He could be on a short vacation or have wrong contact info or family emergency.  I'd be upset to join a tournament and then find out that I wasn't in it, in spite of attempts to contact me.  

I know that all of this kind of trounces the intended spirit of the tournament, but these are just a few ideas that could end the suffering for you.  I'm down for whatever, but one thing that I don't feel is right is to cut someone from the tournament after giving them the green light to participate.  

Sorry, guys, but I've hit another snag.

The odd number of players doesn't work, so I was going to drop SxG, on the basis that he was the latest joiner, so he should be the one to be dropped.

Then I turned to generating the pairings.  Been struggling with it for hours, with no success.  Eventually I discovered that the problem was not solvable.  The parameters: 10 players, 9 games, no players play each other more than once.  Seems like this is possible, but it's not.  Number of games = 3 rounds of 3 games with 5 pairings in each = 45 total games.  What are the number of unique pairings?  9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1 = 45!  Ok, so 45 games and 45 unique pairings - great, right?  No, because there is the additional restriction that the pairings are grouped into the 9 games.  Not possible.

This problem is surmountable if we allow pairs of players to play more than one game.  But it's late, and I'm pretty intoxicated, and the mathematics elude me at the moment.  So I'll attack this tomorrow.  Maybe, if we're really lucky, Daniel will turn back up by then and confirm his participation, and the whole problem will go away, as with 12 players, the number of pairings will far exceed the number of games.

Incidentally, if anyone knows how to contact Daniel MacDuff, that would be awesome.

I don't see any preset for anything called Anarexic Chess. Give me a link if you want me to look at it.

I have finished writing a new preset for Berolina Chess. This one uses chess3, and like chess3, it displays legal moves and also enforces three-times repetition and the 50-moves rules.

I think fixing that bug messed up my preset of Anarexic Chess.  Can't make any moves now.

Scrap what I said. This would work only if everyone plays the same game twice, which would double the number of games played.

So long as there are more participants than games, this method will create unique pairings, so that no one ever plays anyone else more than once, and so long as the difference between players and games isn't too great, it will assure that players who don't play against each other will still play against several of the same opponents. If you hope for everyone to play everyone, then you will need to add more games. But if you are content with everyone playing only nine games, then this method will allow you to distribute players for every game, no matter whether there is an odd or an even number of participants.

The same bug that was in the chess include file had also been copied into the chess2 and chess3 include files, which I have now fixed. Since most of the programmed presets use one of these include files, this bug was widespread among several games. Thanks to spotting it one game, it is now fixed for several games.

Unfortunately, we have 9 games and 11 participants.

It would work with 9, 10, or 12 participants, but it's not clear to me how to make it work with 11 (without adding 2 more games)

The bug discovered in a game of Capablanca Chess is now fixed. It was in castlepos, which was in the chess include file. It made a potential King move, verified that it was safe, and then restored the position. But verify [condition] is equivalent to "if [condition] is false, return false". So, if the King was not safe, and the Black King was not at g8 thanks to the White Chancellor on the exposed g file, it would exit the castlepos subroutine before it had restored the position, which resulted here in an erroneous move by the Black King to an unsafe position.

Greg, you can handle any number like this. List all participants, copy the list and rotate it by one person. Copy and rotate it again for each additional game. So long as the games and players are equal in number, pairing the original list with a rotated list will give you unique pairs of players for each game.

Kevin, whether the bug in Capablanca's Chess could affect the tournament depends on where it is. Although it doesn't share any code with Victorian Chess, which is the most similar game, it does use the chess include file, which might be used by other games in the tournament.

unfortunately Daniel hasn't confirmed leaving us with an odd number.  It occurs to me now that I try to make the pairings that my scheme doesn't really work with an odd number.  I could include byes but 2 people wouldn't get a bye so that's not really fair.

Don't suppose anyone else wants in?

Hi Fergus

The Capablanca Chess log for my game with Carlos was this one:

http://play.chessvariants.com/pbm/play.php?game=Capablanca%20Chess&log=panther-cvgameroom-2017-14-164

If you play my last king move of the game with 'View' you'll see Carlos' king is dragged one cell in the same direction as a result. At that point, after many days had passed, I offered him a draw (by person to person regular email) so he wouldn't lose on time if he didn't try any move. When you view the last move 'Drawn' you'll then see that Carlos' king is somehow put back on the proper cell as a result.

P.S.: Tournament participants have no need to worry, I think, as I now recall Capablanca Chess was not one of the final choices made for variants to be played in this tournament. My apologies for any confusion.

Kevin

Since Antoine is not around to update the Berolina Chess preset, I have started on a new one, which will display legal moves properly. I'll see if I can get it done today.

Refresh my memory, Kevin. I don't remember what bug you mentioned.

While I am sitting this tournament out, I wish to ask Fergus, for the sake of the tournament, alone, whether a bug in the Capablanca Chess preset (that I noted in a Kibbitz Comment to an old game I had with Carlos) has been fixed or not.

Kevin

Confirm.

I am still waiting for confirmation from:

Vitya Makov
John Davis
Daniel McDuff

Please let me know in the next day or so.  When I make the pairings anyone who hasn't confirmed won't be included.

Thanks,
Greg

Sure, SxG, you're welcome to join.

I have confirmation from everyone except:

Vitya Makov
John Davis
Daniel McDuff

One thing that will need to be addressed before the future rounds is Berolina Chess.  The rule enforcing preset does not work so someone will have to fix it or we will have to use a non rule enforcing one.  I can probably do it, but with each preset, I'm spending quite a bit of time learning how to do things and I'm no longer on vacation, so I don't have the few hours a day to research and learn.  I believe all of the other presets are good - I did not check Wildebeeste, though.  I'm not sure if it is a rule enforcing one or not.

If an email gets returned to you as undeliverable, you can go mark the address it was sent to as dead in the Person table of the database, which will cause the display of the email address to be replaced with a notice that it is not working and should be changed. It's the last column in a row, and you can change its value to 1.

I have sent a confirmation email to everyone who has asked to be in the tournament to make sure everyone is aware that it is starting and still wants to participate.

These are the people who I think are playing:

Greg Strong
Carlos Cetina
Aurelian Florea
Fergus Duniho
Nick Wolff
Jarid Carlson
John Davis
Erik
Zachary Wade
Daniel McDuff
Vitya Makov

Please either respond to the email or post a reply here to let me know you still wish to participate.  I know the email address that some people have listed with this site are not current, so I am posting here as well.

Thank you!

Ok, three rounds of three games each.  I will work on creating the pairings and updating the web page.

Thanks Greg for the clarifications. I'll sit this tournament out, but it does look like fun.

Some time I would like to play an engine-assisted game. Might be interesting for a game on a large board, like chess on a 12x12 board. I've always been curious if a flank attack (attack from behind the king) can be well-executed. It takes extra moves to get there, but the defense from that angle might be weaker.

Have fun in the tournament.:)

Either are good for me but I'll throw my votes in with 3 for 3 too :) 

I think 3 games at a time is good. But 4 games are also OK for me. 

I agree.  With the amount of people, I think 3 games for 3 rounds would be nice (plus, I like Wildebeest Chess haha)

I'd say 3 games for 3 rounds. Seems easier to me. 

Fergus is correct with everything except for playing all 8 games at a time.  That was not my intention.  That would be overwhelming for many of us (myself included.)  Conversely, playing one at a time is also not really workable as the tournament would last far too long and people would lose interest. This is one thing I never nailed down.

I'm thinking either 3 or 4 games at a time.  If we do 4, the tournament will end in two rounds.  If we do 3, the tournament will run for three rounds.  If we decide to go with three rounds, I'd also increase the number of games played from 8 to 9 so there would be an even three games in each round.  The game with the next highest vote total not selected is Wildebeest Chess, so that's the one we would add.

So what do you all think?  Two rounds with four games at a time or three rounds with three at a time?  Although I'm running it, (because someone has to,) this is really your tournament.

Regarding game selection, as previously posted, the game selection has been finalized.  New participants are still welcome to join, but voting for games is closed.  (This is because I have to cut it off at some point - people would be reluctant to commit if I never made it clear what the games were going to be.)  The final game list is: Fischer Random Chess, Berolina Chess, Xiangqi (Chinese Chess), Victorian Chess, Eurasian Chess, Glinski's Hexagonal Chess, Courier Chess, and Chess with Different Armies.  (And, if we go with three rounds of three games, we will add Wildebeest Chess.)

As for a computer-assisted ("cyborg") tournament, this is an idea that has interested me, and I may run one at some point, but this is a human-only tournament. I'd imagine a cyborg tournment would attract a different, and probably smaller, crowd.

Thank you everyone for bearing with me as we nail down these final details and excusing the delay caused by the server move. Games will be created and the tournament will officially begin a week from tomorrow - Saturday June 24th - somewhere between noon and 3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (GMT-4)

Thank Fergus,

(Q1) Playing eight games concurently with time-control (4 moves/week) is playing an average of 4.6 moves per day. Obviously it would be good to learn all the games rules before-hand. That's a bit much to learn "on-the-fly".

(Q2) Thanks for the answer.

(Q3) Thanks. Someone on one of these forums once mentioned cyborg chess, and I wasn't sure if that was the format. A format (human + computer) vs (human + computer) could be fun too. I just wanted to know for sure (better to know the rules before the game starts rather than in the middle of the game).

Playing eight games concurently is a bit much for me with my other commitments, but sounds fun. Good luck!!

Three questions (sorry if these were already answered, but I couldn't immediatelly see these topics in the rules or the thread):

Since I'm not running this tournament, Greg can correct me if I'm wrong.

1) There are 7 categories. If we sign-up does that mean we are committed to playing seven games (1 in each category)? We play only one game at a time?

I think he plans for us to play eight games concurrently. Since games won't be played in a single sitting, there is no reason to play one at a time. And if we did it that way, the tournament would go on too long.

2) If we have an extended time without access to internet (travel or work assignment) can we use "spare time" while game is on-hold?

The time controls should include spare time that can be used for that purpose.

3) Is computer-assistance allowed (I haven't checked, but I believe some of these games can be played on chess engines).

While no one can stop you from doing that, it would be cheating. The point of the tournament is to challenge yourself by playing Chess variants against other people. If you're just here to win, even if it means cheating, then you shouldn't enter.

Three questions (sorry if these were already answered, but I couldn't immediatelly see these topics in the rules or the thread):

1) There are 7 categories. If we sign-up does that mean we are committed to playing seven games (1 in each category)? We play only one game at a time?

2) If we have an extended time without access to internet (travel or work assignment) can we use "spare time" while game is on-hold?

3) Is computer-assistance allowed (I haven't checked, but I believe some of these games can be played on chess engines).

Thanks:)

I'll officially sign up for the tournament now.

Great! Thanks Greg :) 

If this still applies then these are my preferences (if not then even the games I haven't played look interesting):

1 (most want to play to least)

• Extinction Chess
• Switching Chess
• Berolina Chess
• Marseillais Chess
• Fischer random

2

• Xiangqi
• Shogi
• Janggi
• Makruk

3. I have no preference for any of these, they all look interesting.

4. Same as 3

5. Same as 3.

6.

• Chi shogi
• Shatranj
• I don't mind the rest

7.

• Alice Chess

See you all in the competition :)

Hi Zack.  You are more than welcome to join.

Let's plan on kicking it off a week from Saturday (June 24th.)  I will generate and post the list of pairings this weekend.

I've just seen this. Is there any spots still left open? Or would I make the numbers uneven?

Also, I can't see the other comments on the page as I don't have a desktop at the moment.

Hey Greg!

Just wanted to get an update on the start date for this.  Thanks for putting it on, Greg!

-Nick

Excellent, welcome!

I've been adding up points based on everyone's rankings to determine which games we will be playing. Before your entry, we had ties in three of seven categories! So thank you for resolving that :) I'm now ready to finalize the game list. New joiners are still welcome, but I'm locking down the game selection. We will be playing the one game from each category that got the most points in the voting, plus the one remaining game with the highest points overall, which was Berolina Chess, so we'll be playing two games from category one.

Here's the final list:

Chess with a small modification: Fischer Random Chess and Berolina Chess

Regional variant: Xiangqi (Chinese Chess)

Capablanca variant: Victorian Chess

Decimal variant: Eurasian Chess

Alternate geometry: Glinski's Hexagonal Chess

Historical game: Courier Chess

Recognized variant grab-bag: Chess w/ Different Armies

We'll get started soon after the server move is complete.

I accept this challenge.

Fischer/Xiangqi/Victorian/Unicorn/Cylindrical/Grande/CwDA

Ok. Lets try)

Chess with a small modification:Berolina Chess,Fischer Random Chess,Switching Chess,Extinction Chess,Marseillais Chess.

Regional variant:Jangii (Korean Chess), Xiangqi (Chinese Chess),Makruk (Thai Chess),Shogi (Japanese Chess)

Capablanca variant:Embassy Chess,Janus Chess,Capablanca Chess,Victorian Chess,Grotesque Chess.

Decimal variant:Eurasian Chess,Unicorn Great Chess,Grand Chess,Omega Chess,Opulent Chess.

Alternate geometry:Circular Chess,McCooey's Hexagonal Chess,Glinski's Hexagonal Chess,Diamond Chess,Cylindrical Chess.

Historical game:Courier Chess,Shatranj,Los Alamos Chess,Grande Acedrex,Chu Shogi

Recognized variant grab-bag:Chess with Different Armies,Wildebeest Chess,Pocket Mutation Chess,Alice Chess,Ultima

 

Excellent!  Welcome.  We will wait until the server move is complete before starting.

Would you like to rank all games in each category?  It is not necessary, but partial rankings will have no effect on the relative position of games not ranked.

Hi! I would like to participate. My favourite is: Berolina, Korean (or Chinese), Embassy, Eurasian, Circular, Courier, CWDA.

Also. I'm making preparations to move this site to a new server, and I would like to get the move done before the tournament starts, so that it won't interrupt it.

Excellent.  He's certainly welcome, and there is still time.  I was sick this weekend, so I didn't do anything as far as the tournament goes.

I know we are looking to finalize the tournament games and roster, but Vitya has finally made some moves in our games and I let him know about the tournament.  I'll see if he is interested and maybe we can get a 9th player.

Hello,

My ranking is:

1.FRC,Berolina,Switching,Marseillaise,Extinction

2.Shogi,Xiangqi,Makruk,janggi

3.Capablanca, Embassy,Grotesque,Janus,Victorian

4. Eurasian, Grand, Omega, Unicorn Great, Opulent

5.Glinkski's, McCooey's, Cylindrical, Circular, Diamond

6.Chu Shogi,Courier Chess, Shatranj, Grand Acedrix, Los Alamos,

7. CWDA, Wildebeest, Ultima, Pocket Mutation, Alice Chess,

Official page for the tournament has been created.  We presently have eight people who have expressed an interest in playing.  It would be great if we could get one more.  Then we'd play 8 games with everyone playing each other player exactly once and everyone would play with the white pieces exactly half of the time.

Please post a reply if you are interested in participating.  If there is no more interest, I will finalize things at the end of the weekend.

Also, I have received game rankings from Carlos, Nick, Erik, Fergus, John, and myself.  Jarid has abstained from voting.  Aurelian, would you like to rank your game preferences?