Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Hi Fergus,

Interesting that this discussion is still rolling on after sixteen years ;-)

SRC is real... some of the flowery discussion around it is the product of various hyperactive imaginations, but the game itself is most certainly real.

I am the game's inventor (Topov has written extensively about SRC, but he didn't invent it), and I wrote the software which runs behind SchemingMind.com... so I can attest to it's authenticity with some authority.

I have sent you a challenge; I hope you accept... it's a fun game, you might enjoy it.

Sure, you can argue that the occult nature of the rules mean that it doesn't belong on this website... if that is the case, then please just go ahead and delete the article rather than describing it as a hoax... because it isn't.

Cheers, Austin

I have updated the notice to a warning that says this game is a hoax.

My understanding is that the description of the game is a hoax, but the game itself is not.

I will quote some excerpts from the linked document that suggest it is a hoax:

The precise rules are far too numerous to list here, and the above rules merely introduce some of the unique aspects of SR Chess.

Even the page linked to does not describe the full rules of the game.

A good grasp of the more comprehensive laws that govern legal and winning patterns and sequences is essential for expert play, but these are amply documented and explained in Samuel Worthington's fourth edition of Stanley Random Chess: The Official Player's Guide - Vol. 1, The Rules (Vol. 2, The Players and Vol. 3, Developing Winning Strategy are also worthwhile).

A Google search for this book did not turn up any links to it. It apparently does not exist. All that turned up were the page linked here and copies of it.

Over 535 such variations have been documented by the ISRCA, and the appendix of their 2004 Official Stanley Random Chess Handbook summarizes the 32 more popular international variations.

When I searched Google for "Official Stanley Random Chess Handbook", I did not find any link to this document.

But I did find an Uncyclopedia article on Stanley Random Chess. Uncyclopedia is a parody of Wikipedia, which is full of falsehoods written as humor. Checking who wrote the first version of the Wikipedia article, it is in fact Gregory Topov, the author of this page. I consider this an admission that Stanley Random Chess is a hoax.

Playing Online

This section talks about playing it on schemingmind.com, the very site the article is hosted on, but it does not include a link for actually playing it online.

Given that full documentation for the game exists only in fictional documents, the author of this page wrote an Uncyclopedia article on this game, and I cannot find anyplace to actually play it online despite claims that it can be played online, I conclude that this game is a hoax.

My understanding is that the description of the game is a hoax, but the game itself is not. It's normal chess where, with each move you make, there's a 50% chance of your move being replaced with a move chosen at random from all legal moves.

It's an improvement, but the linked page doesn't contain the rules either - because the "game" is almost certainly a hoax.

I just noticed that this is a link page, and one of the links provided on the page did go to a page with more information. I fixed up the HTML, added a notice to the top, and removed all but one link. Some were Geocities links that no longer worked, and some were general links that didn't go to information on this particular game.

I think it should be removed. As I recall, it was a joke that the author stubbornly insisted was not a joke, making it basically an act of trolling.

Should I remove this page? The rules section does not describe the rules, and this page does not make it clear how to play this game.

My take on this, is that Mornington Crescent, and is a bit like Calvinball.  I would consider SRC to be the Mornington Crescent of Chess games, a bit of an inside joke actually.  I will say that it does serve a useful purpose of showing people who play a game like chess, or even a particularly variant, what their game sounds like to those who don't know about it.

So, on this note, we can use this comment here as a note that SRC is very likely a joke.  The funny thing is someone I have messaged on BGG said they were responsible for its creation.

And I mean this is a poor joke at that! 
I don't think this should be at this site unless it is categorized as a joke and a poor one at that. 
This is like one of the numerous Wikipedia joke/bogus entries and far less   interesting to boot.

Why do I have a feeling this is connected to CalvinBall Chess somehow:
http://www.chessvariants.org/index/listcomments.php?subjectid=Calvinball+Chess

Topov!! i thought you were dead!?!
http://geocities.com/verdrahciretop/src7.html
'This was GM Topov's last published article about Stanley Random Chess,
prior to his unfortunate death at the hands of escaped primates at the New
York City Zoo. Stanley Random Chess today owes much of its popularity to GM
Topov. Under his influence it has an active presence on the internet,
notably the excellent web-based email chess server
www.schemingmind.com.'
Nice to see someone got that wrong and you are alive and well :))

austin take it easy, i don't think there is a strong drive to have this
game removed, just ya normal bunch of knockers, which you should
understand, because games make it to this site, and they are a 'joke' on
purpose, and src can easily be mistaken as this.
anyway, now to a important question ...
how was src played before computers came along ... someone must of known
of the rules lol ...
kind of funny how much talk this game gets, with seemingly no one
bothering to try out the game at schemeingmind he he

I think I can clear up the problems presented by those who are mystified by
the rules of Stanley Random Chess.  As the current American Grand Master, I
can assure you that even I find it hard to keep up with the volumes of
rules and stipulations that are involved.  In fact, I would suggest that
about 50% of the moves I make feel as if they were chosen at random from
all the possible moves available at that time.  It's only afterwards that
I'm able to determine the reason for my own errors, after looking up the
specifics of the situation in my leatherbound library.  (My personal
Achilles Heel are the moon phase transition instituted in Berlin, 1484.)

So while I often like to open with e4, about half the time my opening move
is substituted with the nearest legal ('random', to the layman) move from
all the available legal moves.  Again, I've never failed to be able to
find the rational for this transition upon review of the historical
journals.  I almost always find time to note these transitions to my
opponent, who sometimes finds such things humourous.  For example, when a
King joins inline with a row of pawns, this is known as 'Slumming'. 
When a Queen is prematurely brought into play she is often refered to as
'Dancing'.  The terminology is quiet liberating.

Should you have further questions, I'm sure playing a game would satisfy
your curiosity.  Feel free to challenge me on Scheming Minds.

I personally believe that pushing sleeping trolls over, or 'trolling', is
a cruel and rather childish act.  And besides it has nothing to do with SRC
since the use or participation of trolls is strictly forbidden by the 1987
Articles of the Tongalese SRC Convention.

It's not that trolls have low IQs which cause the problems, it just that
when they become fixated.  This can result in them endlessly staring at
such things as moving fan blades, constantly digging in their noses, or
humming the same tune over and over and over....

But SRC still commemorates their past participation by tournament
audiences spontaneously breaking into rousing rounds of 'Pop Goes the
Weasel'.  The humming of such by a player can result in severe
penalization.

This article was submitted in a complete form and accepted for publication as such by a ChessVariants editor nearly a year ago, it's been available for peer review ever since. No respectable publisher would demand changes so long after publication, and I'm sure that ChessVariants is no exception to this. OK, if the editors now feel that the article is offensive in any way then simply remove it and we'll discuss it no more; but please don't ask Greg to change it at this point.

The rules of SRC are occult within certain limitations; moves which are legal in SRC are always legal in Standard Chess, but not necessarily the reverse... so if I enter the move 1.e4 in my game, the server might (or might not) deem that move to be illegal under SRC rules, and change it to 1.a3. The reason for this is unimportant, it could be because dark squares are modal on the third Tuesday of the month, or it could just be because there's a random number generator hidden somewhere within the software - you don't know and it doesn't matter, the fact is that it's impossible to say why without some degree of confabulation - and the more outrageous that confabulation, the more enjoyable the game.

Yeah, OK, some of the things that have been written about SRC may have been slightly exaggerated... but c'mon guys, relax - it's only a bit of fun!

Larry Smith:

This comment is a joke, right?  Or are you trolling?

It is obvious that the Anti-Stanleys have reconstituted their effort to
eradicate SRC.  The previous attempt resulted in decades of repression,
lost documents and rather boring knock-offs of SRC, like the Mad Queen
variant which many still believe is the original game of Chess.

Anti-Stanleyism is an ugly thing.  Usually the genetic result of the
absence of the buffo-osso.  There are maintenance techniques which can
counter-act this deficiency.  Visit the ASA(Anti-Stanley Anonymous)
website for a list of phrenologists which will be glad to assist in
alleviating this crippling condition.  The local support groups are quite
nice, too.

Unfortunately, the effect of the Anti-Stanley movement cannot be totally
wiped out.  There usually survives a Master and an Apprentice.

Also, Austin Lookwood said:

The rules are occult - nobody knows them.

How exactly is this possible? How could the scheming mind server have been programmed to enfore rules that are unknown by anyone? Also, editor Tony Quintanilla has stated that the rules were disclosed to him. So the rules are known by some people and to say otherwise is just more misinformation.

This whole discussion could terminate in a hurry if a simple change was made to these pages. State up front what SRC is and what it isn't. This would help encourage support from the members of this community, rather than discouraging it, and would not detract from whatever humor may be present.

I agree with Derek.  If the rules themselves are hidden information, then
that is an interesting idea which merits consideration (and, perhaps,
playtesting.)  But as Derek points out, the pages don't say that this is
hidden information, and these pages are so long and convoluted as to
deliberately dance around that point.

Furthermore, what is missing from the discussion on this page, is the fact
that this is a continuation of a previous discussion.  I assume that the
start of the discussion is not here because it originated under a
user-created topic thread before the game had an official page.  In any
event, when the questions of the legitimacy of the so-called history of
SRC came up, and I insisted that SRC does not pre-date Orthodox Chess, the
response was a resounding denial that any of the history was invented.  He,
(Gregory Topov, I believe,) insisted that, although the history may be
humorous, it was completely legit and that future research will prove
centuries-old heritage of SRC as the true, original form of Chess.  (This
is paraphrased from memory since I do not know how to locate the original
thread, but my memory is quite good.)  As I previously stated, humor is
one thing; lying is quite another.

I would at least recommend that your editorial policy insist that all 
gamepages be mainly serious and rational in describing the rules, board,
pieces, history, etc.  In this case, it should clearly state that Stanley
Random Chess is a game where the rules are hidden information.

Advocates of this game are not winning any new fans by having their game
genuinely mistaken for a hoax or a practical joke by intelligent peers. 
Furthermore, frustrating people who show a serious interest with endless
layers of presumably funny or witty bullshit is neither humorous nor
clever.  A number of people have received extremely-far-from-straight
answers to their straight questions.  The humor in their treatment escapes
me completely.

First of all my apologies if my promoting this chess variant has caused any offence to members of this site, I can assure you that this hasn't ever been my intention. I do realise that SRC is not a conventional chess variant, however I would hope that people who were sufficiently enlightened to change the rules of orthodox chess would be prepared to at least consider the possibilities.

Whether or not this page remains on this site is clearly an editorial decision, however Stanley Random Chess is a chess variant. I fail to see why some people find it distasteful, but then many orthodox chess players find CrazyHouse and Fischer Random Chess distasteful in the same way...

I can assure everyone here that Stanley Random Chess is a real game, which is currently being played and enjoyed by dozens of people. The rules are occult - nobody knows them; whether you choose to believe that this is because they are contained in hundred year old bound leather volumes which are only available to members of a secret society, or because they are encoded in a computer algorithm on the SchemingMind server is up to you - the important thing is that it doesn't matter, you don't need to know the rules to play the game... that's the whole point.

Regarding the previous posts here - part of the fun of SRC is discussing the mythology around the game, and a common style for this prose seems to have evolved. I do recognise the names of some of the posters here from SchemingMind, and if I am correct in identifying these people then these posts have been made by discrete individuals. I would urge you to check IP addresses if possible before taking any further action.

[This comment is hidden pending review. It will eventually be deleted or displayed.]

The rules are honestly not that difficult to find out, and most players willing to take the time to play one or two games at schemingmind.com will discover them quickly. Nobody should be allowed to question the authenticity and legitimacy of Stanley Random Chess without first trying the game online at schemingmind.com.

I have personally played several games, and can appreciate and understand the game's appeal! New players should not give up too quickly, and indeed the best way to learn the game is simply play one or two games with experienced players.

yep, most chess players have no sense of humor alright lol
he never said he was going to play the game, so i guess he stills finds it
amusing. i find it amusing, and i find your post amusing too :)
i get the internet, regardless of if i was to play src or not, i don't
really see a cost in it, maybe there is, who cares, and anyway, who would
seriously play src ha ha, but if you did, i think that is great :)
let us know how it goes :)

For most of us, Internet costs money, and playing a game of Stanley Random
Chess would certainly be bound to eat up a lot of time, and therefore cost
a lot of money.  Although you said that SRC is amusing, do you really think
it is worth the money to play it?  For instance, let's put the shoe on the
other foot.  Suppose I (or someone you don't know, but whom I were to
approve of, and you had absolutely no way of locating that person) were
the one to define the 'secret rules' behind Stanley Random Chess, and
she alone were to decide on whether your moves were acceptable or not. 
That kind of a setup could certainly have the potential of driving up
costs, don't you think?  Not to mention 'bandwidth' in the form of
noise, or near-noise.

Would you still find the game amusing enough to play for a few months, or
a few years?

(Now for an 'opening the floodgates' argument:)

The next hypothetical offers us even more food for thought:  suppose a
hundred thousand people or more found my version of Stanley Random Chess
(with my own list of approved but anonymous rulemakers) engaging, would
the increased consumption of bandwidth be worth it to you, to call it
amusing?  Or, if the ante is upped to an even higher stake, would it be
worth it to society?  After all, if robots could be programmed to play
Stanley Random Chess - not that they are /that/ creative - and even if
they would be answerable to their owners alone, and not to society, would
you still find it amusing?

well, not a complete lack of example games, there is one here.
http://geocities.com/verdrahciretop/src8.html
i havn't checked it out, and i am guessing it teaches you nothing, but
not sure, 
as i havn't looked at it.
At the end of that game, there are another 2 example games, but you must
 be member to see (free membership i think)

I looked at the mao game and I think that one will be easier to catch than
SRC. Just curious how will the cheating be prevented in such games.

I consider that SRC can not be learned by playing at all.
Else it needs some consistency which does not exist in SRC.
For example white moves 1st d2-d4 does not work every time. How will a SRC
grand master see that in advance? And playing of someone who knows all
rules against someone who does not is quite unfair. At least someone who
knows the rules should says this in advance of a game of SRC. Then the
player not knowing the rules can at least try to learn them.
And another thing is the complete lack of example SRC games.

Another thing is how the client works at www.schemingmind.com.
If a player makes a move, which is illegal in the case of the SRC rule
set, it makes a random move from all available legal moves.

Two players playing SRC who don't know the rules is very funny.

The other game (MC) is just a nonsense. How can someone keep a '125
volume' ruleset in the mind? And what is the playing material for that
game?