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Comments by MarkThompson
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![A contest or tournament](/index/contest.gif)
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There's a problem with the graphic for Anti-King Chess II: the Black piece at b8 is a King, but it should be a Knight.
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I like the way this game addresses the problem of the too-powerful royal piece (which can make it hard to win the game) by the rule that the queen cannot slide through check. That seems original and yet chesslike, and sounds likely to do the trick. The explanation on this page was a little hard for me to decipher, however: I'd suggest rephrasing somehow to remove the reference to queens capturing other queens. Is 'cover' as you use it here a standard chess term? I hadn't run across it yet. I wish the board had a fourth color, so that each dragon would be restricted to squares of one color. Shouldn't there be a piece for Ireland? A Harp, perhaps? No idea what it would do, though. 'There must be dozens of possible names that would suit it better and have the advantage of being offensive.' Surely Charles simply forgot to type the word 'not' in this sentence. 'the three heraldic-based pieces could be considered 'brutish'.' I imagine Charles G's use of 'brutish' harks back to the use of 'brute' to mean 'beast,' which is comprehensible enough. The idea that a CV inventor's choice of a name should be second-guessed at length is certainly odd, though.
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The basic idea of the game is that, as there are two simple sliders (B, R) and one combination slider (B+R=Q), so in Wildebeest Chess there are also two simple jumpers (Knight = (1,2) jumper and Camel = (1,3) jumper), and one combined jumper (Wildebeest = N+C). I wonder how well the idea would work instead with Knights and Zebras ((2,3) jumpers), and a combination N+Z piece? There is the idea that, as one of the sliders is color-bound, so perhaps one of the jumpers ought to be also, hence the Camel. But it's not obvious to me that rule makes for the best game. I'd be interesting in knowing whether Wayne Schmittberger or anyone else has tried it. Actually, since the preset to enforce the rules has not been written for this game yet, it would be possible to try playing this way, simply entering Zebra moves for Camels and Knight/Zebra moves for the Wildebeest.
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The name 'Harrold Pooter' certainly sounds pseudonymous, being so similar to the hero of J. K. Rowling's books.
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If this is the square you're proposing the white King to move to, I don't see how the move puts him in check. [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][p][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] Caps are black, lowercase are white [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][P] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [p][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [k][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][K][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
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Perhaps the server should also prevent people from creating invitations under game-names that are known to be trademarked, at least for games whose owners are known to be particularly protective of their legal rights.
I think it would be useful to have a field on the Game Courier move-entry form for 'annotations', which would be for comments a player makes on his own moves, but which would not be displayed until the game is over. Would people use such a field? If we did, I think it would increase the value to CV students of the library of games that the system is creating.
Tony, that sounds like a good idea. Something like 'the World against Kasparov.' Maybe the winner of the CV tournament could play one side and 'the world' could play the other? Or, just 'the world against the world.'
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I've suggested in the forum that the Games Courier might implement a 'The World Against ...' system, whereby a champion at some variant would play White and everyone else plays Black. 'The World' can use a public forum to discus possible lines of play and could vote (in a strict time-span) on which move to make. Grand Chess would be a good game to investigate this way, because Mindsports Arena has held tournaments some years back, so it has recognized champions: Wayne Schmittberger and John Vehre. Either 'The World Against Vehre' or 'The World Against Schmittberger' would be great fun, I think, if either party could be enlisted for it.
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Robert Abbott now has a set of Ultima puzzles on his website! http://www.logicmazes.com/games/puz1to4.html
If Japan and the US have an extradition treaty, does anyone know why Fischer is still in Japan? Are they refusing to extradite him for some reason?
It does seem odd for someone to get in trouble for 'merely' playing chess, but remember that economic sanctions are supposed to serve an important purpose--namely, as a last-ditch effort to avoid a war. The US (acting in concert with other countries, hooray) had imposed such sanctions against Yugoslavia, Fischer knew about it and blew it off. I'll grant you, of course, that the military actions Clinton eventually resorted to would probably have been necessary even if Fischer had complied. (In fact, forget 'probably', of course they would have been necessary.) But that will always be true of any single individual who defects from the program, and if we make a regular practice of not enforcing economic sanctions after we declare them, then we're not really making as much effort to avoid war as we could. And that would be a Bad Thing.
freebobby.org seems to have vanished--anyway, my service is telling me it can't be found. (an hour later) ... Woops, there it is now. I guess if your ISP can't find it you should try again a little later.
I hope Mr. and Mrs. Fischer are very happy in their marriage. But this business of the Japanese holding him prisoner on false charges is disturbing. Surely the Japanese do not customarily hold people on false charges? Are we quite certain that the charges are not in fact true? I hope no one would assume automatically that anything alleged against a man admired for his chess expertise is false.
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If I wanted to play a game over-the-board, I think I would create a system in which each player would write down his move and they would reveal them simultaneously. If they finish so close together that it's not obvious which finished first they could flip a coin.
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Here's that page I couldn't find before, that describes how to make fairy chessmen out of regular Staunton pieces: http://www.chessvariants.org/crafts.dir/fairy-chess-pieces.html It's listed in the alphabetical index under 'How to make ...', but I think it would be better to list it in the index page of the Crafts section: http://www.chessvariants.org/crafts.dir/index.html As I say, I've used the technique described to make a Marshall and Cardinal, though I haven't followed the full instructions for dismembering a whole chess set to make the full range of pieces the author shows. But I have enough to make an attractive set for Grotesque Chess.
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Alternatively, you could castle by pointing to two squares, and declaring you intend to make a move that will occupy both of them. Since the only way that could be done would be by castling, it could not be refused.
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Touche! :-) I wrote that years ago and have forgotten the wording enough that when I reread it nowadays I keep thinking, criminy, what pompous a$$ wrote this stuff?
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Welcome Paloma and congratulations Tony! Excellent name, and I hope she grows up in a peaceful world.
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I'd have to agree after our game of 'Zebrabeest Chess' (thanks to Greg Strong for setting that up on the courier) that Wildebeest C. is much better.
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That triangular arrangement of 10 objects is sometimes called the 'tetraktys.'
The links to the other contests don't seem to be working.
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If you really want to go for the ultimate in symmetry, I would suggest we need to do away with the notion of a square board. A square has only eight symmetries: reflection NS or EW, 180 degree rotation, or any (or no) combination of these. Indeed, the ultimate in symmetry would be to do away with the board's edges: the board should be infinite, hence giving it translational as well as reflectional symmetry. And we should do away with the notion of cells within the board: the most symmetrical 2-dimensional object being the entire Euclidean plane, in which any point is equivalent to any other. Then we have complete rotational symmetry, about any point, as well as translations and reflections. But since we're pursuing symmetry as the ultimate goal here, we need to embolden ourselves to take the next vital step as well. To do away with the last vestiges of ugly asymmetry, we must also abolish the pieces: for once pieces are introduced into our pristine continuum, they render the game asymmetrical again, by causing some points and directions to have more importance than others: in particular, the points pieces occupy, and the directions they would need to move to attack other pieces, would have special importance. Our ultimate, perfectly symmetrical chess must therefore consist of an infinite plane with NO PIECES AT ALL. It might be objected that without pieces it will be difficult to state rules of movement, capture, initial setup, and object. But clearly, since we desire a perfectly symmetrical game, we must abolish these notions as well: because the perfectly symmetrical chess game must be symmetrical in time as well as in space, and therefore it must have no beginning, no end, and no change: the state of the game at any point must be the same as its state at any other point. And so, at last, we have our perfectly symmetrical game: no cells, no pieces, no goal, no players: is not its perfect, chaste serenity a thing of beauty? Have we not achieved true theoretical perfection? And can we not get back to discussing real chess games now?
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