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H. G. Muller wrote on Fri, Jul 21, 2017 09:12 AM EDT:

Unfortunately the diagram in your posting does not work, because you refer to betza.gif instead of betza.js in the line

<script type="text/javascript" src="../membergraphics/MSinteractive-diagrams/betza.gif"></script>

Newer browsers apparently do not accept a .gif file as a a source for JavaScript. Originally I had uploaded the script as .gif to the CVP site, because uploading of .js files was not supported in the submission script. By now there is a .js file for this available on the CVP site, though. Just change the extension.

I have adapted the Design Wizard in the Interactive Diagrams page to use betza.js in the diagram code it generates already some time ago, so I have no idea how you got stuck with the .gif extension.

Unfortually it is somewhat impossible to edit the HTML of posted comments here, with this new editor. Even when you switch it to 'source code' it completely f*cks up the original source. The easiest way I found to do this is click the 'View' link in the posting to get a page that only contains that posting and no others, then ask the browser to see the Page Source for that page, and then locate the submitted posting source near the bottom (behind an enormous amount of JavaScript to generate the CVP menus), copy that HTML search, and then finally paste that back into the comment editor in 'Source Code' mode. Then you can start editing.

Note that when you are not happy with the XBoard piece graphics, you could upload your own images for the various pieces to the CVP site, and tell the diagram to use those by setting the 'graphicsDir' to their location.

Also note that you can have the diagram implement the Cat -> Star Cat promotion, if you want. For that you have to embed a small JavaScript routine in your HTML. The betza.js code looks for such a routine, and uses it when present to handle exceptional promotion rules. This should do it:

<script>
function WeirdPromotion(x1, y1, x2, y2, promo) {
  var piece = board[y1][x1] & 2047;
  var promoRank = (piece & 1024 ? 0 : 11);
  if((piece & 512) == 3 && y2 == promoRank && y1 != promoRank) return piece + 3;
  return promo;
}
</script>
> Sorry to be pedantic, but doesn't a knight have 8 moves, and a cat have 16, not 8?

Oops, my mistake. Of course it is 16. Also sorry for the duplicate posting; I was posting from a tablet through a public network in a train, and have no idea why it did that.

BTW, I reformulated the formula a bit in order to make it more generally applicable:

value = 33*ELC + (33*ELC)*(33*ELC)/1584 (in centi-Pawn)

where ELC is the 'Equivalent Leap Count'. Through this formula you could assign an ELC to sliders of known value, e.g. 12 for Rook (on 8x8), and 8.5 for Bishop, based on values 495 and 330. The ELC would be additive, i.e. e Queen would have ELC = 12 + 8.5 = 20.5, which would result in a value of 965. Chancellor would have ELC = 20 (as Knight has ELC = 8), for a value of 935. So most of the time it seems to work pretty well, but it still cannot explain the high empirical Archbishop value (875). The predicted vanlue would be 732 (ELC = 16.5) Neither is there any explanation for why orthogonal slides seem worth so much more than diagonal slides. This suggests there is an ELC bonus involved with covering orthogonally adjacent squares. The Archbishop also has a lot of that. But it doesn't really show up in the value of Commoner or Woody Rook (WD). But those pieces might have some 'global defect' of their total move patter suppressing their value: they lack speed, and the number of squares they cover in 2 moves is much smaller than average for pieces with 8 moves. In addition, the formula was derived from SR leapers, many of which (especially those with many moves) do attack orthogonally adjacent squares, and thus contain the contribution of an average expected number of orthogonally adjacent squares for that ELC, explaining why Queen and Chancellor don't get any extra bonus despite the fact that they each have 8 extra orthogonal contacts between their move targets compared to their component R, B or N moves. Perhaps 8 extra such contacts is what you would expect when the ELC goes up from 12 to ~20. But the Archbishop has 16 such extra contacts.


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