Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Re: Ben Reiniger

I tried to upload the image with the upload files link, but it didn't work. It said I needed to enter a username and password, even though I did that.

I'll explain the rules.

3) Yes, that is what I mean. They can't promote to Star Cat, because that would be an overwhelming increase in power. A Star Cat can be more powerful than a queen in some situations.

4) The multi-capture is similiar to that of a Chu Shogi lion. (That wasn't the inspiration for the name, in case you're wondering.) To be more specific, a car or star cat may capture the pieces on the intermediate squares, as well as the destination square.

5) It replaces resignation, essentially meaning that you can't resign if your king isn't in check.

I did test a 12x8 or 12x10 board, but I couldn't find a good setup. The Cats are meant to take a long time to get across the board. That's why they promote. The Star Cats take 4 moves to get across the 12x12 board. That's just as much a FIDE Knight on an 8x8 board.

The Star Cats have little to do with the Half-Ducks. Half-Ducks only have some of moves that Star Cats have. In fact, Half-Ducks have exactly half the moves of the Star Cats. I guess I should've called the Star Cats by the name Ducks instead. Well, I didn't know about Chess with Different Armies when I first created it. However, this game was based on a different game made by Ralph Betza.

I changed it accordingly. Please take another look at the webpage.

We'll have to look into the Upload Graphics script then.

A pawn can promote to cat, then make a move and promote to star cat though, right?

If a star cat jumps over two pieces, can it capture any subset of them it chooses?

Sorry about the half-duck; I had misread their description as including a Wazir move instead of the Ferz move they have.  Which Betza game?

I tested the ability to upload graphics with the upload script, and I was able to.

A pawn promoted to cat must move off the last rank, then back on to promote. Same if a regular cat declines the opportunity to promote.

Yes, a star cat may capture all, none, or one of the pieces it jumps over.

Don't worry about the half-ducks, it's okay.

I also retried the upload image. It still didn't work.

This game was inspired by "Chess on a Really Big Board"

I have given you Contributor status. Now you should be able to upload graphics.

This looks like an interesting game, and I like many aspects of it - including its large size, good blend of traditional and new pieces, and clean crisp graphics. They work together well to create an interesting and appealing game.

I was wondering what it would take to play this engine-vs-engine.

The first thing I noticed is that CVPs page on ChessV brings up an error. Is this related to the recent server move?

I've also read that ChessV has a scripting option, which might allow custom variants to be entered and played. Is this game (Chess and a half) within the possibility to enter as a script? I've never tried anything like that, but I'm always willing to try new things.

Lastly, I know that custom variants can be entered to Fairy-Max. Does anyone know off-hand if this variant is within the size limit of Fairy-Max?

With a little bit of work, I MIGHT be able to get an engine-vs-engine game going of this variant. That would be really awesome. Why play myself, if I can let an engine do the work???

>  Lastly, I know that custom variants can be entered to Fairy-Max. Does anyone know off-hand if this variant is within the size limit of Fairy-Max?

Alas, Fairy-Max is not able to handle multiple capture. (Board size (up to 13x16) and number of piece types (up to 15) would have been be no problem. Having more than one promoting type would be, however.)

I have an engine (still under development, but it already plays some variants at a reasonable level) designed for handling large Shogi variants. But I also added the possibility to implement FIDE Pawns, so it could do Shatranj and Makruk (which apart from the Pawn are somewhat Shogi-like: no castling, no promotion choice, wide promotion zone). Note that the Star Cat of Chess and a Half is a restricted version of the Lion Dog piece occurring in Dai Dai / Maka Dai Dai / Tai Shogi. The restriction being that it cannot flip its step direction during the move (out-in for a rifle capture on the adjacent square, or 2out-in). My goal is to have this engine (HaChu) also play Dai Dai and Maka Dai Dai Shogi, and the Lion Dog is already implemented.

So it should not be too difficult to extend HaChu to play Chess and a Half. Promotion choice of the Pawn could be a problem, but I think in practice promotion to Queen would always be preferred. (Jumping or multi-capture becomes rather useless, in the end-game, while crossing the board quickly to stop enemy promotions becomes often crucial.) I will think about it.

> Why play myself, if I can let an engine do the work???

This has always been my philosophy too! :-)

The ChessV link from the "Play" pulldown menu is working:

http://www.chessvariants.com/link/ChessVUniversalC

The ChessV page doesn't show up in the alphabetical index though.  I'll have to look into that.  The ChessV page here is just an external link, though, to the offical site:

http://www.chessv.org/

To program Chess and a Half, you would need to code it in C# and compile.  The script function isn't yet powerful enough to support the multi-capture.  If the game is play-tested, though, and gets positive reviews, I'd add it in.

Thanks for the info. I did suspect that this game for a few reasons is pressing the limits of what variant chess engines can play. (Games will always be ahead of engines, if for no other reason that nobody makes an engine before the game. Plus, I'm sure programming is not a fast easy task, especially for chess).

HGMuller: Keep us up-to-date when HaChu is released!

Greg: I didn't know that a link to ChessV is in the "Play" menu. In an internal (CVP) search for ChessV, results for both pages come up (plus less related pages). Users will have a 50/50 chance of finding a useful page on the first try.

About "Chess and a Half". This board is 1.5x as wide as a normal chessboard - is that why it's "Chess and Half"? At this size it has 144 squares, so has 144/64 = 2.25 times as many squares. Not counting the new pieces, I think this is massivelly more complex than ordinary chess. Btw: I like how you kept the tradition "queen starts on her own color", and I also like how each of the two knight face in opposite directions. Even late in the game, when there's just one knight of a color, you can know which one survived.

Even the minutiae appears to be well-thought out. Great work!

I don't understand what an 'initial double step' on a Knight means. Does it mean it can do two independent moves in one turn? Or must they be in the same direction? Can any of them be captures?

The rule about admitting defeat just seems nonsense. As you can resign in any position, what would be the point to make an immediately losing move? (One assumes that King capture does result in an immediate win, although you do not actually mention that.) Hoping that the opponent would not see it? That would never be the case with engines. If you cannot continue the game when the opponent fails or intentionally refuses to capture the King, it is nothing more than a clumsy way to announce resignation, which presumably you can still do in the normal way (and are dependent on that when not in check).

What is the purpose of the (rather complex) turn-passing rule? To make the KNNK ending a forced win?

The intial double step must be two steps in the same direction, and can only capture one piece. The admission of defeat replaces resignation. i.e. you may not resign unless checked. The pass turn isn't hard to make. Just add a hidden piece with the lions ability to make a non capturing move and then go straight back, but no other power.

> The admission of defeat replaces resignation. i.e. you may not resign unless checked.

Then the rule should really say: "you cannot resign unless checked", because by default it will be assumed you can resign whenever you want. And the "admission of defeat" rule would still be pointless.

And not allowing resignation is as silly as making it illegal for gravity to pull you down. It is a 'law of nature' that people can abandon a game whenever they want. Forcing their opponent to wait out the resulting time forfeit is just hard on the opponent, and on most servers considered the rudest and most unsportsman-like thing you can do. You seem to want to elevate this behavior to a standard...

> The pass turn isn't hard to make. Just add a hidden piece with the lions ability to make a non capturing move and then go straight back, but no other power.

I didn't say that it was hard to make. I asked what the use was for allowing it. Except in the very late end-game, in real games, passing a turn is never good. (I.e. there always are better moves. Only artificially constructed positions sometimes have zugzwangs.) So how does this affect late end-games? E.g. does it make KPK always draw, or always won, rather than depending on subtle conditions such as opposition and zugzwang? And if so, why do you think that makes a better game? What defect were you trying to repair that it was worth adding an extra rule?

I wasn't comfortable with the idea of resignation not being allowed except when someone is checked, but H. G. expressed it better than I was able to. Resignation is a part of Chess because you can't stop people from quitting a game, but you can penalize people who quit with a loss. So, if you say that resignation is not allowed under some circumstances, all you've done is created a sitation where the game might be abandoned without any resolution because it could not be cleanly ended.

Maybe rules 5, 7, and 8 should just be eliminated. Then the game would have the quality that the graphics are clean, crisp, and interesting, and the rules are simple and concise.

Only the game is mathematically complex (due to large size and extra pieces).

Those are the three rules that cannot be programmed in Zillions-of-Games.

At the risk of adding an unwelcome observation, in the case of a type of chess variant that's apparently taboo on this website (i.e. chess variants with a twist, as played by newlyweds), it may make sense not to allow resignation in certain circumstances. For instance, in case one side can promote a pawn next turn, if there is a possible bonus/penalty involved off the board as far as adding or subtracting a given article goes.

All observations are welcome and I certainly don't think that there is any taboo against new 'twists' in general.  I hope it doesn't appear that way.

What I see is that a lot of new inventors get carried away adding rules.  It's possible that every single rule is good, but I've played a very large number of variants over the last 15 years, so I have some basis for my doubts.  Especially since often the new inventors have no history of playing chess variants here, and so I assume they have no real history of exploring the world of chess variants in general (although in some cases that may be incorrect, but probably not.)  It's good to explore first so you have a better idea of what makes a good game, and then start simple.  You can always add rules later when you find room for improvement.

That said, inventors who want to go hog-wild are welcome to do so, but understand that it greatly increases the changes that your game won't see much play.  There are thousands of games on this site and most are not played with any regularity at all.  Many will probably never, ever be played again.  It takes care, research, dedication, and flexibility to make a variant that plays well enough, and is appealing enough, that players will want to play it.

Regarding the specific rules in question in this game, forbidding a player from resigning a game doesn't make any sense to me.  A hypothetical situation goes like this... White: "I resign."   Black: "No, sorry, you are not in check so you can't resign."  White: (stands up and walks away.)  Now what?  If you are playing on a clock a player can always just stop moving until his time runs out.  That's identical to a resignation but you've just forced the winning player to sit around and wait for the clock to run out.  (The would-be resigner isn't forced to wait around as he can just walk and not waste his time - unless, of course, you add another rule that players must be chained to the table until the game is over.)  And with a game with no clocks - no time control - the situation is even worse.  The player who does not want to play just stops moving.  At least with a resignation, the game ends.  Now the game officially never ends.  Walking away can't be considered a resignation, since that is illegal, so effectively, any time you are losign a game and are not in check, you can walk away and the game never ends and you never lose.

Regarding Kevin's comment on why this might make sense I can't address as I don't really understand what he is saying.  But remember, in any formal tournament, the they can stipulate custom scoring systems or other guidelines for that tournament.

The rules around passing may be good or bad.  I don't know.  Like H. G. I'm wondering what the use case is for this rule.  With unusual additional rules like this, if there is a reason, it should be spelled out - since naturally people will wonder.  If it was just something that was made up on a whim, it should be acknowledged that it's an untested idea and raised as a discussion point.

Note that even if you would impose some 'off-board sanction' on abandoning a game when not in check, such as deduction of points rather than a zero, or even forfeit from the entire tourney, you can still not force people to play in a meaningful way. They would start to move randomly, or march their King to the center where the opponent can hardly avoid to check it. There would not be any fun in a game where players are coerced to continue against their wishes, neither for the player that wants to abandon it, nor for his opponent.

I agree with Greg's comments. While I do like the restrictions this game puts on passing, I don't understand why passing is needed in the first place. There appears to be no more need for it here than there is in Chess. Allowing passing doesn't seem to be solving any problem with the game, and on a board this size, where all the new pieces are short-range, I would think that players would normally want to keep moving rather than take the opportunity to pass.

Sorry Greg, I was trying to indirectly refer to chess variants that involve disrobing, as played by newlyweds (maybe such a type of variant is too obscure, even in the age of the internet?). Haven't seen any such variants in the main CVP alphabetical index (such as even one sanitized entry that would address all such variants). I can understand why such variant(s) haven't been seen on this website, if only because youth may visit CVP. In such games a capture or promotion (for example) possibly may result in adding or subtracting an article(s) of clothing from a player.
[ed. note: see this thread --BR]

Note that there might be a scoring bonus/penalty for, e.g., capturing (or promoting to) certain pieces in any number of conceivable variants otherwise, such as winning double the stakes or point value scored for a given game. Resigning just in time to avoid such might be undesirable to allow in such cases. One could argue that by resigning a game a player agrees to any additional bonus/penalty(s) that might have been pending the next move, but this perhaps could be seen as a more awkward solution (what if the opponent has a choice of captures next turn, for example?). Also, one thing done in over-the-board chess games (as opposed to on Game Courier) is to play a move (perhaps even a capture) and quickly resign before the opponent can make a move in response, which may have been a promotion for example. Again, a possible bonus/penalty may be avoided. Note that if a game is played using a clock, a player might choose to lose on time rather than resigning, but at least there might be a special bonus/penalty for a time forfeiture. As for not ever (or slowly) moving when there's no clock, there's theoretically a risk of that happening even if a game is not yet arguably resignable.

I think all the things you describe should be rules specific to a given tournament.  Different chess tournaments stipulate different scoring, so the rules of chess don't address it.

I simply removed the whole resignation vs admit defeat mess, as well as the abillity to pass. They just had little use. On the other hand, I noticed that the Knight was a pretty weak piece in this game, given that it is short range, and unlike the short-range cat, it doesn't promote to a longer-range piece. So, I added the abillity for a knight to promote to nightrider. With three promoting types, two of which only have one promotion choice, a engine that can play large shogi variants seems to be the way to go. I could also make the pawns all promote to queen, or have a tamerlane chess-like system where the pawns promote to different pieces based on their start position, in order to deal with the promotion choice issue. Woah, that was pretty long.

> I could also make the pawns all promote to queen, or have a tamerlane chess-like system where the pawns promote to different pieces based on their start position

Then the grand acedrex-like system, where the Pawns promote dependning on the promotion square is much more friendly. Then you don't have to remember which Pawn came from where (which makes all Pawns in fact different piece types).