Comments by GregoryStrong
Chess with Different Armies. Betza's classic variant where white and black play with different sets of pieces. (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Jan 17, 2023 01:37 PM EST:@H.G., I've been trying to use Kingslayer/CwDA for playtesting but I have one issue regarding the notation for promotions. I believe the ' should be used to indicate a piece from the opponent's army, but when Kingslayer plays black, it puts the apostrophe on the notation even when promoting to a piece from its own army. I haven't had an opportunity to look through the source code yet.
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Jan 14, 2023 05:15 PM EST:ChatGPT: As an AI, I do not have the ability to invent anything, including chess variants.
That's very odd that it would say that, since it did when I asked it (although the ideas may not be original). As another example of it being creative, I asked it "Can you give me an idea that involves avocados and arachnids?" It replied:
One possible idea involving avocados and arachnids is to create a themed café or restaurant that serves dishes featuring both of these ingredients. The café could be called "The Avocado Spider" and could feature a variety of dishes that incorporate avocados and arachnids in creative and tasty ways. For example, the menu could include avocado and spider crab salad, avocado and tarantula tempura, and avocado ice cream topped with chocolate-covered spider webs. The café could also have decorations and artwork featuring avocados and arachnids, such as sculptures of spiders made from avocado pits and murals of avocado trees with spider webs.
Unfortunately, I've been unable to connect so far. I can't go farther than checking I'm not a robot. After, it is not responding.
Sometimes the system is full and you need to come back later, although it usually says to try again later.
'Another variant could be to allow pawns to move diagonally when capturing, but not when moving normally.'
This seems to be just FIDE pawns, perhaps - is there a typo/omission?
That is my impression also. There is no typo - sometimes ChatGPT is just wrong. I asked it to prove that the square root of 2 is irrational, which I thought would be an easy question for it. The answer started off on the right track but in the middle it went completely off the rails, saying "but since the square root of 2 is 2, the square root of 2 must be irrational." (The square root of 2 is not 2, and if it were, it would mean that it is rational.)
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Jan 14, 2023 01:54 PM EST:If anyone hasn't checked out ChatGPT, it's worth a look. It's creativity is pretty impressive. I asked it "Can you invent a chess variant?" and it responded:
Sure, here's a simple chess variant:
Introduce a new piece called "The Timekeeper". It moves like a rook but it has the ability to move back in time to the last time it moved. It will change the position of the board as it was in the previous move.
Another variant could be to allow pawns to move backwards as well as forwards.
Introduce a new piece called "The Portal". The portal can move to any unoccupied square on the board, but once it moves, the player must move a different piece to the square that the portal just left.
Another variant could be to allow pawns to move diagonally when capturing, but not when moving normally.
Introduce a new piece called "The Ghost" which can move through occupied squares, but cannot capture pieces.
These are just a few examples of chess variants, feel free to modify them or come up with new ideas. The possibilities are endless!
I then asked it if it could explain the move of the Timekeeper in more detail:
The Timekeeper is a chess piece that moves like a rook (horizontally or vertically in any direction, any number of squares) but it has the ability to move back in time to the last time it moved. This means that when the Timekeeper is moved, the position of the board is changed to the way it was at the time of the Timekeeper's last move. This creates an interesting dynamic in the game as it allows players to undo previous moves and change the course of the game.
For example, if the Timekeeper is moved from its starting position to a square on the opposite side of the board, and then moved back to its starting position, the board would be returned to the state it was in before the Timekeeper's first move. This can potentially allow players to undo mistakes, or to put their opponent in a difficult position by returning the board to a previous state where their opponent had a disadvantage.
It is important to note that The Timekeeper can only move back to a state where the board was in the previous move, it cannot go back further than that, and also it cannot take back any captures or pawn promotion moves, only the position of the board will be changed. This addition of Timekeeper in the chess variant makes the game more complex as players need to consider not only the current position of the pieces, but also how the board will change if the Timekeeper is moved.
Then I asked it to write a rap song about chess variants:
Verse 1: I got a new game, it's called chess variants A whole new way to play, it's gonna be magnificent I got a new piece, it's called the timekeeper It moves like a rook but it's a game changer
Chorus: Chess variants, chess variants A whole new way to play, it's gonna be fantastic Chess variants, chess variants A brand new game, it's gonna be ecstatic
Verse 2: I got another one, pawns can move backwards too It's a game changer, it's a brand new view I got a new piece, it's called the portal It can move anywhere, but it's not mortal
Chorus: Chess variants, chess variants A whole new way to play, it's gonna be fantastic Chess variants, chess variants A brand new game, it's gonna be ecstatic
Verse 3: I got another one, pawns can move diagonally When capturing, it's a whole new strategy I got a new piece, it's called the ghost It can move through pieces, it's a game host
Chorus: Chess variants, chess variants A whole new way to play, it's gonna be fantastic Chess variants, chess variants A brand new game, it's gonna be ecstatic
Outro: So come on and play, this brand new chess It's gonna be fun, it's gonna be a success Chess variants, chess variants A whole new way to play, it's gonna be fantastic.
ChessV
. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]📝Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Jan 7, 2023 06:24 PM EST in reply to Daniel Zacharias from 04:23 PM:What would be good settings for evaluating the balance of a different armies variant? I've tried some tests with 0:30+10 and Medium variation but got conflicting results.
Your results are understandable. Although the armies are not balanced, they are close, so you need to play a *LOT* of games to get valid results that are not swallowed up by noise. At a time control of 30+1, you can't play many games. And such long controls aren't necessary since with games on an 8x8 board ChessV can reach a search depth of 10 in a fraction of a second on a modern computer. But the other thing to watch out for is that you aren't playing the same game over and over. The search variation setting helps, but I also use different pre-calculated opening lines. I will post more about this soon ...
Grand Cavalier Chess. The decimal version of Cavalier Chess. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Jan 7, 2023 06:09 PM EST in reply to H. G. Muller from Fri Jan 6 09:47 AM:You get many draws. I hardly had any.
Yes, it seems I have a problem. I am using time too agressively ... It is not running out of time as such, it is just getting to the point where it is moving instantly with a search depth of 1 because there is no time to do anything more. And, with a search depth of 1, the sides are stumbling around until a draw is called in positions that should be won. I am working on updating my time allocation now.
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Jan 7, 2023 11:18 AM EST:I ran the test again with the value of the Cannon set to 500/400 (midgame/endgame), Nightrider still set to 500. This time the Nightriders won 41, the Cannons won 8, and there were 51 draws. So this increased the cannon's win percentage slightly and the number of draws dramatically but not the overall outcome. Given this, I think we can safely conclude that the Nightrider is worth than the Cannon, meaning the results of my first test were more accurate. That test had a 76% win percentage for the Nightrider, which is very close to H.G.'s result of 78.6%.
As an aside, here are the Betza mobility scores of the pieces:
Equus Rex 12.60
Queen 15.91
Marshall (RN) 14.77
Paladin (BN) 12.65
Nightrider 9.87
Rook* 9.01
* The cannon will be somewhat less than this, but I cannot calculate it. I also cannot calculate the Cavalier presently.
Conservative Capablanca Chess. Alternative, more traditional Capablanca chess setup.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Jan 6, 2023 06:08 PM EST in reply to John Vehre from 03:37 PM:After 1. f4 ...
I let ChessV contemplate this position for almost half an hour, reaching a depth of 27. It considers black to be behind by only 1/25th of a pawn. It's preferred response is 1. ... f6 (an "ok, you can take my pawn by I can take yours too") response. But it does not proceed to do that. 2. b3 e5 3. Pxe5 Pxe5 is what it's contemplating.
Stone Garden Chess. The animal statues in the stone garden came to life and attacked the two rival kings! With the help of a policeman each, they…. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Jan 6, 2023 02:45 PM EST in reply to Diceroller is Fire from 01:47 PM:I am not in favor of publishing this, at least as it is now. Some problems I have with this page:
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The writing is very bad. English may not be your primary language, and I am willing to fix these things, but I only spend the time if I think the game is worthwhile. To me, this game just looks like a random collection of ideas.
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A game can have a theme to give it character, but please keep that to the introduction and/or notes. Putting information in each piece description about whether it is a person, or a statue, or was a statue ... this makes a reader think that this information is relevant to the game when it is not (as far as I can tell).
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The Raven is not well-enough defined and the move is too complicated anyway. Things like "can only do this once in 5 moves unless something else in which case every 3 moves" is much too complicated and basically guarantees the game cannot be played. No program supports this and even players over a board are not likely to remember exactly how many moves it has been since something happened. Pieces that rotate are already rare, and most programs don't support, but they are still usable and can be played. The additional only-every-X-moves restriction is too much and makes the game almost unplayable. (And, is it important? Is rotating a Raven really so powerful that it must be limited?)
Grand Cavalier Chess. The decimal version of Cavalier Chess. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Jan 6, 2023 06:55 AM EST:I have completed a run of 100 games with different time controls and tiny random adjustments to evaluation parameters. 50 games were played where white has two nightriders and black has two cannons and another 50 the other way around. The side with the nightriders won 61 games, the side with cannons won 9 games, and there were 30 draws.
Granted, ChessV is scoring the pieces with the evaluation parameters I have given it, and that can certainly affect play. I've given the nightrider a value of 500 and the cannon 400/275 (midgame/endgame) because those were my best estimates, but there could be a self-fulfilling prophecy aspect to this. Tonight I can try it again with a higher value for the cannon. I don't think that will change the overall outcome, but it would be interesting to see what effect it has.
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Jan 5, 2023 07:43 PM EST in reply to Fergus Duniho from 06:38 PM:I would think that Nightriders are stronger than Cannons, but certainly worth testing. I'll set ChessV up to test this out overnight.
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Jan 5, 2023 03:08 PM EST in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from 02:45 PM:In my opinion Zillions is completely out when estimating the value of the Cannon, and other hoppers
Zillions is out, period. Even in standard Chess, it thinks a Queen is worth less than Rook+Bishop when we know it's worth more. Its evaluations should be given no consideration whatsoever.
Greg Strong wrote on Wed, Jan 4, 2023 03:23 PM EST in reply to Kevin Pacey from 06:27 AM:j2j7 doesn't seem all that decisive. ChessV does like to respond to it likewise (a9a4), but other responses seem OK. I tried a black response if f8e6, then let ChessV compute on this for 15 minutes, reaching a search depth of 23. It responds with j7b7, threatening the Marshall, and thinks white has an 1/8th pawn advantage. So there may be some advantage, and certainly some harassment potential, but it doesn't seem too bad.
Opulent Chess. A derivative of Grand Chess with additional jumping pieces (Lion and Wizard). (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]💡📝Greg Strong wrote on Wed, Jan 4, 2023 10:07 AM EST in reply to Kevin Pacey from 06:38 AM:I'm wondering if there is a graceful way of coping with his first move in each game, i.e. Lion to b5, attacking the undefended Black pawn on b8 and menacing the Black Chancellor on the a-file in next going to a6, which also sets up annoying(?) lateral moves on the sixth rank depending on what Black tries.
I'm afraid this setup has a problem also (that you have identified). I am not sure why earlier versions of ChessV didn't agressively exploit this, but the current version does. So I'll need to do more testing to see if there is a better option. With long-range leapers like Wizard and Lion it can be difficult.
ChessV. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]📝Greg Strong wrote on Wed, Jan 4, 2023 10:04 AM EST in reply to Aurelian Florea from Tue Jan 3 01:27 AM:May you specify if the new version is ready? I am on the tip of my toes for that!
I'm sorry, I know you're anxious. I will post as soon as it is ready, but I can't say when exactly that will be.
Diagram Designer. Lets you display diagrams without uploading any graphics.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Mon, Jan 2, 2023 03:43 PM EST:The chancellor2 and cardinal2 are not being recolored for some reason.
Duck Chess. A Duck that must be moved by both players can block your moves. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Mon, Jan 2, 2023 09:33 AM EST in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from 07:10 AM:Yes, nice page. I have published it.
Greg Strong wrote on Sun, Jan 1, 2023 08:31 PM EST in reply to Kevin Pacey from 08:05 PM:This link has complete rules but you need to scroll down a while to get to them:
Diagram Designer. Lets you display diagrams without uploading any graphics.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Sun, Jan 1, 2023 01:25 PM EST in reply to Fergus Duniho from 01:00 PM:Here is another suggestion alongside the present default
It's ok, but I like the looks of the khaki scheme better.
The board feels less solid to me because of the lightness of the colors, especially without a border around it.
How about a thin black outline around the squares? Is that possible?
EDIT: I mean one outline around the whole board, not an outline around each square
Greg Strong wrote on Sun, Jan 1, 2023 10:51 AM EST in reply to H. G. Muller from 04:21 AM:BTW, I consider the khaki/smoke theme presented in Fergus' latest posting excellent
I do think these are aesthetically pleasing. If there are no objections then they are fine with me.
But we should be aware that the technical possibility exists to use different defaults in both cases. And that this might make sense. After all, we also print the comments on different background color as the articles.
I think this makes sense. Making the khaki colors the defult only for comments seems like a good idea.
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Dec 31, 2022 07:58 PM EST in reply to Fergus Duniho from 07:25 PM:I object to the lack of process.
I will restate again, we have colors we have used for a very long time. They are not what I would choose, personally, but they have worked:
It's possible that these colors are what nobody still here would specifically choose, but they could still be a reasonable compromise. If we are going to make a change, then we need a DEFINED PROCESS. If we need a change, why, what are the criteria, and how are they to be judged? This is a long established forum, the results of which are the results of the free contributions of hundreds of people. Given that, we cannot make such sweeping changes just because one editor wants to.
I will anticipate the response: these changes are forward-only changes and have no effect on the existing content. Ok, while there is truth to that, the argument is insufficient. The only reason this forum has any value, (the only reason people are reading it), is because of the established content. And it only continues because a community drives it forwards. Almost no one would be here if it wasn't for our foundation. We stand on the shoulders of giants.
So any posting of new default color schemes is completely inappropriate without first establishing a DEFINITION OF PROBLEM to be solved and a PROCESS for how changes are to be submitted and results are to be measured.
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Dec 31, 2022 06:32 PM EST in reply to Fergus Duniho from 11:12 AM:I'm considering changing the comment background color to #FFFFF0 to match the ivory page background color. This would make it easier to use darkkhaki and beige for the diagram colors, since in my mobile tests, darkkhaki contrasts better with the pieces than olive or olivedrab do.
Is this really necessary? We need to change the color scheme of comments just to get the color scheme you've decided we should have for board diagrams? I think it would be appropriate to get some community feedback on what colors are desired before we start making far-reaching changes. I've heard nothing on why the standard board colors we've been using for 15+ years are no longer acceptable. And, if it's decided they should change, then we should vote on a replacement.
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Dec 31, 2022 06:27 PM EST in reply to Fergus Duniho from 04:30 PM:
;filter:url(#filter855)
Very interesting. This is similar to the code that was injected into the Chancellor that Jean-Louis reported that I can't explain. Perhaps we should just search the text for "filter:url" and get rid of all of that. Absolutely nothing I have done should involve hitting the web to load any filters. AFAIK my images should be nothing but local layers, paths and polygons.
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Dec 31, 2022 05:25 PM EST in reply to Fergus Duniho from 01:05 PM:Okay, I got the left and right x coordinates for the triangle's base and used these to match the lower base to it.
Try InkScape. No reason to hack the SVG text directly if that's what you are doing.
Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Dec 30, 2022 09:09 PM EST:I have converted 23 pieces from the Abstract Piece Set to SVG and placed them in /graphics.dir/abstractSVG. They should be extremely close to the originals. The geometric nature of them made it fairly easy to match most of them up exactly.
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Hey, David. Good to see you're still lurking on occasion! Shoot me an email some time.
Best,
Greg