Ratings & Comments

Hey!  I rather like the Chess++ idea.  And it even fits my game concept
thematically.  Dibs again!  ;)  So here's a coding question for Peter or
the other top ZRF experts.  I'd like to set up a game where pieces are 'in
the queue' off the board behind specific pieces that start in the array. 
For example, let's say that a 'general' starts in the queue behind the
'cardinal.'  When the cardinal moves away from its array square, the
general appears there.  This only happens once, though, and additional
moves by the cardinal do not create more generals.  This idea might allow
me to incorporate unorthodox pieces on the standard chessboard without
clogging up the array and therefore bogging down the opening.  And who
wants clogging and bogging, anyway?  But I need to playtest it.  Any hints
on the best way to code this in Zillions?  I could probably come up with
something, but I have the feeling it would take me ten times as long to
reason it out as it will take Peter et.al.  Thanks!

Well, as usual with Zillions, there are a number of ways to do what you
want.  The approach I'd be inclined to try is use a first move attribute
for the piece, and on the first move use an add-copy instead of an add,
and then go back and do a change type on the starting square.

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Had I understood that the comment pages would now display my ID instead of
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I can have it display your full name. But if you hover your mouse pointer
over the smiley face, it will give your name.

testing one two.

I absolutely agree.  But I note several practical difficulties.

1) Which variants?  This also invites subquestions...how is a variant
recognized for official play, how is the list determined for a
championship series, how do we develop laws which cover the wide realm of
variants...
2) Should games such as shogi and xiangqi (or Western chess!), with their
own firmly established organizations, be considered as variants?
3) Should tournaments utilizing only one variant be counted, or only
events involving two or more?
4) How does one balance the variants in issuing ratings, given that player
proficiency is certain to vary across the spectrum of games?
5) Is there enough of an audience of variantists (who play more than one
or two games with some proficiency) to be credible or worthwhile?

Certainly as the contest guy here, I'm keenly interested in the idea you
raise.  But we'd have quite a road in front of us...

Glenn Overby

Look at:

http://www.schoenberg.at/6_archiv/designs/designs_chess_e.htm

http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/schoenberg/painting/gamehtms/noritter10.htm

hey, thanks.  the rules are horribly written, i can't tell if this because
it's not a good translation, or cause schoenberg's original rules were
written badly also.  it's not clear to me if the plane can only capture at
the end of the second move, or if it can capture on the first and then
make a second knight move (chushogi lion-style), but it's more likely that
he meant the former, in which case his claim that the plane is the most
powerful piece is false, considering that the sub is equivalent to the
amazon.  anyway, i'll add it to my (long) cv to-do list to submit a page
to the editors for linking to these pages.

mmm... looks good. But you must tell what happens with an arrow that points
directly at a board corner (vg a northeast arrow at h8)

Here is a piece of code which works for another pair of drops (plus a third
one on a phony square). The macro drops a pair of halfling long-leapers on
b1 and g1, or b8 and g8, by clicking on g1 or g8, after veryfing that
shooters, coordinators, advancers or withdrawers haven't been dropped by
either player(only one pair of halflings will be dropped -- the same type
for each player, but the first player chooses where -- and which kind --
to drop), and that the two squares to receive the halfling long leapers
are empty . (It also drops a third one on DroppedLongLeapers, to prevent
the drop of shooters, coordinators, advancers or withdrawers.)

(define drop-halfling-long-leapers-on-g (
	(verify (and (neutral? WhiteKingMoved) (neutral? BlackKingMoved)))
	(verify (empty? DroppedShooters))
	(verify (empty? DroppedCoordinators))
	(verify (empty? DroppedAdvancers))
	(verify (empty? DroppedWithdrawers))
	(if (am-white) b1 else b8)
	(verify empty?)
	(if (am-white) g1 else g8)
	(verify empty?)
	cascade
	(if (am-white) b1 else b8)
	cascade
	DroppedLongLeapers
	add
))

The procedure is called in the drops part of the piece. So something like

(if (am-white) 'this square' else 'that square'
(verify empty?)
cascade
(if am-white) 'that square' else 'this square'
(verify empty?)
change-owner
add


should work, at least if the rotational or reflectional squares are known
-and empty?

That would be up to the committee. :)

Seriously -- the committee might publish standards and guidelines
regarding the naming of certain common pieces or variants. Consider how we
currently reference 'Chess': FIDE Chess, International Chess, Western
Chess, Usual Chess... It would be nice to settle on an accepted standard.

Coming up with standards and guidelines wouldn't force anyone to use them,
but we as editors might make use of them when editing documents for
publication. I'm not trying to stifle creativity, but merely avoid some
confusion and inconsistencies.

All the discussion over Marshal(l) vs. Chancelor got me thinking about how
issues like that could be resolved. Hence my suggestion. I won't be
surprised if nothing comes of it however.

Zillions also overvalues dramatically the Teleporter in my ABChess.  That's
a divergent piece which can move anywhere (outside Xiangqi-like
fortresses) to a space of the opposite color, but captures only as a Wazir
(including into or within a fortress).  ZoG makes it worth about 1.5
Queens on an 11x11 board.  I figure it for perhaps half that, and that may
still be high.

the queen reverts back to a pawn. I'm assuming you're playing bughouse,
which seems to be the case.

I haven't settled on nominating another game yet, but Hostage Chess is
quite possible.  It's an outstanding modification of the idea of drops to
fit a standard chess set.  David Pritchard called it the variant of the
decade for the 1990s; he may well be right.

There are more current developments, like 'zB' for Crooked Bishop.  I try
to find them and add them here.

Thanks, John.  I have z in my list of modifiers.

While compiling my notes, I was thinking about compound notation for such
pieces as bent riders and Xiangqi horses.  I have an idea involving () and
&, but wonder if other solutions exist.

Defining y as a modifier for 'away from the square of origin' (a common
enough limitation in these moves), we might have:

(W&yF) for the Xiangqi horse

F(F&yR) for the Gryphon.

I also considered extended notation for leaps greater than (3,3).  Since
there is an indefinite number of such leaps, the possibility of something
like [14] comes to mind in lieu of another hard-to-remember letter for a
(1,4) leaper.

[17][55] for the Root-Fifty Leaper.

I don't know what other extensions may be in existence or proposed.

I think that's pushing it.  :)  Defining moves alone (with a provision for
divergent pieces) is hard enough.

Note that Betza Notation doesn't begin to define castling, promotion, or
en passant...just to name 'powers' of the orthodox pieces.  And to attempt
to do so would make it less useful, not more.

My $.02, of course.

I was looking over the funny notation page a while ago, and it seems to
lack punctuation and operators. I imagine a better system could be made if
it made use of punctuation and operators. Here are some initial
suggestions. I'm sure it could be developed better than this.

? move continues if piece is not over occupied space
& move continues regardless of what's on current space
+ piece completes left move and continues with right move
| means makes one move or other
* means indefinite repetition of last move -- unless otherwise specified,
* means ?*
! means move end with capture
. means move must end on empty space
[] means move cannot be made unless whole move is made
() used as punctuation marks

[W&F] = Knight
W|F = Man
[W?F] = Mao
W* = Rook
F* = Bishop
W*|F* = Queen
(W!|F!)|(D|A) = Murray Lion
((D|A)|(W|F))|((W|F)+(W|F)) = Chu Shogi Lion

Pages I have found with extensions to Funny [Betza] Notation:

http://www.chessvariants.com/piececlopedia.dir/rhino.html
http://www.chessvariants.com/dpieces.dir/diffknights.html

I'm sure there are others.

IMHO, the purpose of Funny [Betza] Notation is to make move descriptions
easier to understand.  When you add operators, the move descriptions start
to look like symbolic logic expressions, and thereby become more opaque to
the reader.  When that occurs, the variant author will also describe the
move in words, and the main reason for using the notation has been
obviated.

We could also consider extending Funny [Betza] Notation to cover movement
on triangular, hexagonal, and higher dimensional boards.  We could also
extend it to include the nature of the board and the opening array.  Then
a variant could be described by a list of statements in Funny [Betza]
Notation (or FBN), sort of a Backus-Naur Form for CV's

I have written a summary of the notation as it stands, including the
extension introduced for the Rhino.  It is a bit more organized than
Ralph's earlier notes, but probably could use some enhancement.  It will
be up soon.

I didn't intend to start an animated debate, and I apologize for doing
so.

'I didn't intend to start an animated debate, and I apologize for doing
so.'

Bushwa! You should be proud of starting such an animated debate.

Don't you understand the dynamics of group creativity? If you can start an
animated debate, you will cause many new ideas to be generated and then a
consensus to be reached which will be the next stage of the advance of
human knowledge. Starting an animated debate is perhaps the third highest
thing one can accomplish in human experience.

'When that occurs, the variant author will also describe the
move in words, and the main reason for using the notation has been


Bingo! You win a prize. This is a fundamental flaw in the very idea of a
notation, and yet I have found it better to have some notation than to
have none. A paradox.

With due respect to the person who apologized for starting this animated
debate, he didn't start it, I did with my comment on the
Chancellor/Marshall/Empress thread on 3/24 in which I recomended using
Betza notation on the games pages in parens after the piece name.  

Out of curiousity, Ralph, what are the two things higher than starting an
animated debate?  :)

Perhaps a special punctuation character could be added to the notation
meaning 'this notation does't fully describe the piece, you must read the
description.'  The purpose of this is to use notation to describe the
piece as well as possible even when it can't do so completely.

So for example, I might have this piece on my game page:

Bogeyman (RN#)

where # means 'not completely described'.  Then you can tell at a glance
that the piece is similar to a Chancellor, even if not identical.

Maybe what we need is 'Betza Notation' and 'Betza Notation Lite' :-)

And just to make it more complicated, why not have arbitrary state
indicators?  They would have no definite value, but be assigned by the
variant inventor.

So, for instance, in Optima, Michael could say up front that certain
symbols designate the manner a piece captures, or such states as 'armored'
or 'loyal'.  

A 'method of capture' indicator could actually be a worthwhile extension
for descibing Ultima-like variants.

I put in some symbols to be used as methods of capture in the betza
notation comments.

Let's see what I can do about the Rhino.

Single-step Rhino: O?T
Sliding Rhino: (O?T)*
Mirror Rhino: D?T
Sliding Mirror Rhino: (D?T)*
Double Rhino: ((O|D)?T)*
Monster: ((O|D)?T)*|(O|D)*

The ? works differently than F. While F unconditionally and non-optionally
moves in the last direction moved, ? adds an optional continuation of the
whole move that repeats the last move made, and, by default, it adds it
only when the current space is empty.

For example, O??? describes the movement of a Short Rook, one which can
move no further than four spaces. It is the equivalent of
(O|OeF|OeFeF|OeFeFeF). In contrast, OFFF describes a piece that leaps four
spaces in any orthogonal direction.

Let me add some comments on the system I have designed. I call it Piece
Code, and its purpose is twofold. One is to provide a clear and concise
way to express how a piece moves to a human reader. The other is to serve
as a macro programming language for describing piece moves in short
strings, which may eventually be incorporated into the PBM to check the
legality of moves. Unlike Betza's funny notation, it does not share the purpose of serving as notation for identifying pieces.

Fergus,

I like your system, but I have an idea that I think might be an
improvement.  Though you allow for O or D, you only allow 4 relative
directions (F, B, L, and R). Would it be better to have 8 relative
directions? Then a Knight would be (O#) where # is whatever symbol means
turn 45 degrees either way, rather than the current (OFT). Though it
doesn't matter much for the Knight, I think it would make the Mao
clearer.

This would also be adaptable to hex board by defining 6 relative
directions.

How would you code a piece from Henk van Haeringen's Exchess called the
Herald?  It is normally a straight-forward FA in Funny Notation, but on
its owner's first rank it becomes FAsW.  Another challenging example would
be the Ultima ruleset where the range of a piece varies with the rank it
stands on.

On a hex board, I would consider using clock hours for the six 'orthogonal'
and six 'diagonal' directions.

When I first described Piece Code here, I gave a brief legend only for the
symbols actually used in the examples, but several of these symbols were
macros for code you didn't see. Absolute directions have been defined as
hexadecimal digits between 1 and C, as per the clockface model. But this
does not work so well for a square board. So I think I will use a numeric
keypad model for square boards.

There is a relative direction for every absolute direction. It is
presently identified by prepending an absolute direction with the /
operator. F, L, R, and B are aliases for four of these. I plan to add P
and S for port and starboard directions. On a square board, these would
default to the two forward diagonal directions. Y could be used for (P|S),
and a Mao's movement could be represented as OeY. A Knight might be
described as moving OY. A Holywar Squire would be OeY|DeY or (O|D)eY.

I'm also planning on adding symbols for rotation without moving. I may use
lowercase d and w for deasil and widdershins, which mean clockwise and
counterclockwise but start with different letters. Each of these would
rotate a piece's orientation to the next axis. This would be 45 degree
turn on a square board, a 30 degree turn on a hex board. The letter u
could be used for a U-turn, i.e. rotating 180 degrees. Rotation would
change a piece's relative directions without moving it. This would give
another way to do a Mao move: Oe(w|d)F. Using lowercase y to represent
(w|d), a Mao's move could be expressed as OeyF, moving one space
orthogonally, then if the space is empty, rotating one turn deasil or
widdershins to one of the forward diagonal directions, then moving
forward.

Regarding the Herald's move, I have not yet added anything for taking into
account the position of a piece. Given that I want Piece Code to define
pieces in a board-independent way, and to be understandable both by humans
and by software, there may not be a feasible way for it to handle how the
Herald moves. I plan to eventually add strings of Piece Code to PBM piece
sets, and these are intended to be used with any board someone gives FEN
code for. If I tried to define a piece in terms of a particular board, it
may break down on another board. Instead of trying to make it do
everything, I'll accept some limitations in Piece Code and use it mainly
for generating warning messages that a given move may be illegal. I may
take the earlier suggestion of using some symbol that indicates that the
code only partially describes how a piece moves.

And some more:
Fighter Pawns, which can capture forward in addition to normal pawn
moves,
Quickpawns, which can always use the double step move,
Zip Pawns, which can always move any number of squares forward,
Pawn Plus, which can move sideways but not capture,
Berolina Pawn Plus, which can capture sideways and
Chinese Pawn Plus, which can move and capture one square forward and one
square sideways always.

all these are merely suggestions.

Michael,

I look forward to seeing your finished product.  I would also add Tony
Quintanilla'a Fresh Pawn--which can only take a double step once, but can
do so on any rank.

While I admire your abiltity to program all possible en passant
situations, I can't help wondering if the game would be more playabe
without e.p.

K + NN vs K cannot possibly be a win, because there are no positions in
which a king and nightrider can checkmate a bare king.  To be able to
checkmate the bare king (with the assistance of the friendly king) it is
at least necessary that a piece attack two orthogonally adjacent squares.

Point well taken, Peter.  I had assumed an 8x8 board.  On a larger board I
would expect the Maorider to be stronger than the Knight, but still equal
to the Bishop, which is also stronger than the Knight on a larger board. 

As an aside, I think the Moarider (based on the Moa, which moves one
diagonally, then one orthogonally) is worth very slightly more than the
Maorider because it is easier to develop.

Using Betza's 'magic number', the probabity of at least one of two adjacent
squares being open is quite close to 90%, so the moorider/outrigger should
be worth 90% of the Nightrider--perhaps a weak Rook rather than a strong Bishop.

'(Somehow I have an image of a large flightless bird wearing an ugly jacket
and holding a little red book.)'

Yeah, or in the case of a maomoarider, a guy in an ugly jacket holding a
little red book riding a saddled-up flightless bird.  Anyway, after some
experiments I have found that the maorider is too blockable to be terribly
interesting, but that the maomoarider is too unblockable for my taste.  So
I'm currently experimenting with a set of augmented mao/moa riders:
horseman = maorider plus ferz; equestrian = moarider plus wazir; caballero
= maorider plus wazir; postilion = moarider plus ferz.  Of course, others
are possible, but so far I've not tried combining mao-moa riders with
dabbaba or alfil.  These should be in between bishop and rook in strength
and the added one-step moves should give them enough added mobility to
bring their rider powers into play more effectively.  We'll see.

Regarding the Moo-rider, I am not clear on one thing: is it optionally
either a Mao-rider or Moa-rider on any given turn, or do you get to choose
either the moa-path or mao-path between each touch-down point on a single
move?

I get the image of a cow on a motorcycle.

You could call it 'Maa-rider'!  So, if your game includes moariders,
maoriders, mooriders, and maariders, you'd better not make any typos in
the rules, and you would have to provide handicaps for dyslexic players.
;-)

Hey, you could set the rules to music!

'You say moarider and I say maorider.
You say moorider and I say maarider.
Moarider, maorider, moorider, maarider,
Let's call the whole thing off!'

In my game Holywar, the Mao+Moa was called a Squire, because it was like a
Knight but weaker.

the most logical guess is that the game you have is Minishogi,
chessvariants.com has a page on it.  in fact, if you can get access to a
digital camera and take pictures of your set, the editors would probably
be interested in them for a photo page.

Intersting application of Enneagram theory.  How would you classify Ralph
Betza, a master Chess player and probably the most most prolific living CV
designer? Or Tony Quintanilla, who is a quite strong CV player and a
skillful, creative CV designer?

what is enneagram theory?  where'd this come from?

See some of the links at http://www.duniho.com/fergus/enneagram/ for more
information on the enneagram.

Regarding what Ralph and Tony might be, I would look more at why they
create variants than at how well they play Chess. Although Threes are more
competitive than Fives, I think Fives have more natural aptitude at
Chess-like games. I think Chess appeals mainly to people in the
intellectual triad (567) and to people in the competency triad (135). Type
Five is the only type in both triads, which probably gives Fives more of
an interest and more of a natural aptitude at such games. Also, when I
spoke of best players, I meant people like Bobby Fischer, who played Chess
very competitively. I'm sure many Fives play Chess very well, and I
know that Fives can be competitive, since I am a Five and frequently enjoy
competition. Regarding competition, I think one difference between Threes
and Fives is that Threes put more of a premium on winning, while Fives
enjoy the challenge of competition without worrying as much about winning
or losing. 

Concerning why Threes and Fives create Chess variants, I have more
thoughts on the matter. Besides creating variants for viable markets,
Threes may create variants for the sake of competition. I suspect that the
competitions at this site prompt some Threes to create Chess variants.
While Fives, such as myself, also enjoy competing in these contests, I
think one sign of being a Five is that someone frequently creates variants
without entering them into contests.

Getting back to Ralph and Tony, I'm fairly certain that Ralph is a
Five. Tony might also be a Five, but I have less evidence to go on. Ralph
clearly loves to play with rules. He has created several variants without
any hope of marketing them or entering them in competitions. He seems to
create Chess variants for the fun of it rather than for any extrinsic
purpose. Also, his funny notation is the sort of thing that I expect only
a Five would create.

This is interesting. It explains my artistic, intuitive and usually wrong
approach to chess variants, eventually spurning functionality and
playability. I am, of course, a four :)

Fergus,

Just the kind of detail I was hoping for--your response was very clear and
quite well-reasoned.  Thank you.

I scored 15 as a Five, and then a three-way tie with Two, Seven and Eight
with 9 each, and Three and Six with 8 each. Aren't I complicated? ;)

'The three personality types in the Enneagram's competency triad'

This is an interesting concept. However, I'm having trouble
finding in this thread the url where this enneagram thingy is.

I suspect there's more to it than 1 3 5.

I sometimes think that surely by now all the good chess variant ideas have
been mined and then I amaze myself by discovering another half-dozen or so
that are really basic fundamental building blocks. Maybe I just take a 3
attitude towards being a 5.

As a chessplayer, remember I'm just an fm, not an im nor a gm. Although
sometimes when I'm logged on to fics I'm the top human player, in
reality, I'm just a fish.

I gave up trying to be Bobby after I played him. So, I just try to be me.

As good a place to start as any is my own page on the Enneagram at

http://www.duniho.com/fergus/enneagram

It includes links to several of the main Enneagram websites.

I am reading this in another window as I write this. By the way, when on
the job at work professionlly I was clearly INTJ. Here are my guesses:

1. Siegbert Tarrasch, a seeker after Truth. Read his annotation to a2-a4
in game 14 of his match vs Schlechter.

2. John W. Collins. 

3. Bill Lombardy?

4. A. E. Santasiere

7. Emanuel Lasker??

8. Bobby??????

However, we Aries don't believe in astrology.

Aries? I take it your birthday is close?

The poll is now closed. Since there was a 3-way tie between Tamerlane
Chess, Crazyhouse, and Marseillais Chess, the voting of the site editors
must be counted and is as follows: 

  Tamerlane Chess: 3 editor votes
       Crazyhouse: 2 editor votes
Marseillais Chess: 3 editor votes

Since this results in a tie between Tamerlane Chess and Marseillais
Chess, the voting of the site's chief editors must be counted and is as
follows:

  Tamerlane Chess: 1 chief editor votes
Marseillais Chess: 2 chief editor votes

Marseillais Chess is the next recognized variant. The next poll will be
between Tamerlane Chess, Crazyhouse and Hostage Chess.