Comments by catugo

I have finished the first iteration for griffins vs aancas for the new set of experiments, results are below. No surprises threre. Now queens vs griffins has started under similar conditions.

 

Griffins wins:114

Aancas wins:61

Draws:25

Griffins Points:126.5

Aancas Points:73.5

Also I decided to rename the to title variants: Small Apothecary 1 and Small Apothecary 2. The reason for that is that I already sketched 3 12x12 variants, and bigger is to come. The main trouble with those is that I doubt I can find a program that can play them, so I'll have to build my own. In the particular cases of the 12x12 Apothecary variants the problem with regard to Fairy-max is that both armies use promotable berolina and regular pawns and moreover the problem with sjaak 2 is that it uses aancas and griffins. Also the weird promotion rule stands.

Apothecary 2 piece values used in the first iteration:

pawn:60

knight:162

bishop:200

elephant:175

camel:153

rook:345

zebra:143

archbishop:476

marshall:524

queen:571

 

 

 

 

Apothecary 1 piece values used in first interation:

pawn:60

knight:190

bishop:200

wizard:181

champion:191

rook:345

aanca:476

griffin:524

queen:571

 

H.G.,

I've decided for keeping values computed earlier as good enough for first iteration.

Also, you've said nothing on minors vs few (3-4) pawns. That should also provide info on the values of minor pieces.

Ok, Here in Romania is late at night, but tommorow is a reduced materials endgames day test, like knights vs bishops and so on!

And you also said 2 weeks ago something about taking the pawn to an absolute value of 60 or somewhere near.

And you forgot to mention the modern elephant.

So you were saying H.G. that is better to do more iterations with 100 games for example and then get to the fine tunning part!

Bad news,

I haven't used the proper piece values, in all four experiments. So I restarted them.

The worse was a peculiar  small rook just a few centipawns above the minors. That's noise inducing. I actually seen a rook-champion exchange sack I found particulary weird.

So I'm redoing everything for the sake of consistence. I'm still new and learning, so guys please excuse my blunder!

H.G.,

Preliminary results in apothecary 1 show after 130-ish games 65% points for griffins in their fight against aancas, nothing strange here.

But, in apothecary 2 I have in also 130-ish games only 52% for marshalls against archbishops. Could this be correct. I don't see it! What do you think? I can't find a gross error yet, but it certaintly seems so!

Ok, I understand, thanks!

H.G.,

If you don't mind me asking. From where the 45% comes, I don't get it!

I think it is normal for the pawn in apothecary 2 to worth a tiny bit more than in apothecary 1 as the minor pieces there are weaker.

Also there will be a Queens vs Griffins experiment, coming up next after griffins vs aancas.

About R-P vs N and R+P vs 2N, keep in mind that knights aren't the same nor the same with the classic knights so they have to be measured first. Moreover I'd rather put an aanca/archbishop -pawn(s) at the upper bound of a rook. It makes more sense to me as it involves the natural progression of pieces.

Thank you, H.G.

 

Now I'm starting Griffins vs Aancas and Marshals vs Archbishops respectively.

It is likely that the Marshals vs Archbishops experiments will confirm the already known Grand chess values.

The difference between Griffins and Aancas on the other hand is virtually unknown in previous games.

I have finished the pawn odds experiments for both apothecary 1 and apothecary 2 games.

The experiments were setup in the following way:

In the bishops inside initial setup a8 pawn gets deleted

In the bishops inside initial setup a3 pawn gets deleted

In the knights inside initial setup a8 pawn gets deleted

In the knights inside initial setup a3 pawn gets deleted

In the bishops inside initial setup b8 pawn gets deleted

In the bishops inside initial setup b3 pawn gets deleted

In the knights inside initial setup b8 pawn gets deleted

In the knights inside initial setup b3 pawn gets deleted

repeat for each column until j for a total of 40 games

repeat for 25 times.

Total number of games=1000

 

Apothecary 1 results:

normal setup side wins: 529

draws:124

deleted pawn side wins:347

normal setup side points:591

deleted pawn side points:409

 

Apothecary 2 results:

normal setup side wins: 531

draws:164

deleted pawn side wins:305

normal setup side points:613

deleted pawn side points:387

Ok! So back to square 1!

H.G., My pawn odds tests are almost completed, but I think that I am going to redo them as I think I found a way to implement the promo rule în fairy-max. Here how it goes : I use a second piece, say pawn 2, to optionally promote the pawn to at rank 8, then because pawn2 can GO only further at rank 9 he Will promote there to The apropiate piece or a pawn 3. Is that possible? If so how will The AI react to IT? Which value should I use for The Power of pawn2 and pawn3? I'm proposing bishop value for pawn2 and slightly below rook value for pawn3.

Kevin,

I personally would be interested in finding out if there is room for variants like apothecary chess which use weird pieces like the griffin, aanca or zebra (which is weird enough on a 10x10 board). I think there is.

Chess has some arbitrary aspects to it like en passant and castling, but they complete the game.

One of the cristicisms brought by Fergus to my variants was that they don't use "classic" fairy pieces like the marshall and archbishop, and the regular knight (by indicating gross chess as an better alternative to my apothecary). My point here was  to enhance chess by adding new pieces and expanding the board. If I failed please state that, I could stop!

H.G.

Kevin Pacey's link makes me wonder. How do we take into account the engine strength in our experiments? Suppose we make n experiments at 40moves/1min and n experiments at 40moves/2mins.We get obviously a better pawn in the second experiment. How does this relate to the real strength of the pawn, whatever that means?

I'm quite confident that the article applies to weak engines, too!

I meant otherwiselly than writing a small c++ program that prelucrates the final string from the *.trn file

H.G.,

And one more question:

Is there a way to see partial results?

H.G.

If I have the time defeat disabled, is there a way to find out if negative time was ever an issue in my experiments?

H.G.

FYI: In your apothecary 2 variant pawn promotes to zebra.

So, it works, now I'm going to setup pawn odds games in order to see how strong the pawns are and then games aancas vs griffins, aancas vs queens, griffins vs queens and equivalent for apothecary 2.

I think archbihop vs queen will lead to expected results.

I'm so excited , thanks for the opportunity!

It Works! The problem was that everything was in 1 folder!

Nope, that was not it, still getting in time trouble at game 4!

I think, I managed to solve the time trouble, It camed from cloning Fmax by copying to a  second exe file.I can't explain it why but it consumed a lot of resources, by comparison to the fairy max.exe proper. I have to play more games but it seems fine, now.

No that doesn't work either, I never seen time trouble in 15mins+15secs in 20 games now (not even with the old program), but that's simply to slow!

I guess I'll switch to 5mins+5secs, it never lost on time with added time as time trouble has a slightly different meaning here.

Once again the time lost 3/24, That's really bad, Of course I can just ignore those results as I still do things manually!

Ok, the time thing happend twice in 22 games, BAdddd! I think my computer is stupider because it's slower, so what exactly should I do?

H.G.

I'm not sure how things are at your end but I've just seen a time loss, but now it's rare it was the first in rougly 30 games, It's playing at 2mins/30moves.

Any ideeas to help me set up automatic tournaments? Should I send you somehow what I have for you to check?

Even if I manually plot the good position, the tournament handler, makes it wrong and then it starts- wrongly.

No problems with the fen or the piecetochar table, I stil get the same message.

Now I can start the tournament but without proper setups.

Which apothecary game were you running, and how did it seemed to you if you had the time to watch some?

Ok, now I get the error, bad fen position in file, and the position in start.fen is ok!

I guess I should not have in the winboard.ini file both /variant=apothecary and /variant=eleven

Also as now a pawn worth 60 and a queen worth 571 I might benefit from lowering the resign threshold from 800 to say 400 (a rook and a bit).

Ok, I've done almost everything, I don't understand how to run with apothecary.ini set.

I assume that the pieceToChar used in apothecary2.ini should be the one used in fmax.ini under the apothecary2 game.

It seems yes, there you go I answered my own question!

In order to clone FairyMax is it sufficient to just copy the .exe to say fm2.exe or is there something else?

That game must have been a fluke then!

I have not considered the noise effect, you are correct I'll redo experiments from scratch, this time automated.

The time troble thing was more a nuissance than a problem as winboard doesn't take it into consideration, but I considered that it is good that you know. I hope I managed to help you H.G. Thanksm and see you soon!

The program of testing is Fairy-Max 5.0b2. The games are played at 2mins/30 moves. Fairy-Max 5.0b2 cannot implement the promotion rule so the promotion rule is promote to rook starting in the 8th rank.

For now I'm doing the following experiment in order to find out how strong a pawn is:

delete a3 pawn in bishops in setup for 25 games

delete a3 pawn in knights in setup for 25 games

delete a8 pawn in bishops in setup for 25 games

delete a8 pawn in knights in setup for 25 games

delete b3 pawn in bishops in setup for 25 games

delete b3 pawn in knights in setup for 25 games

delete b8 pawn in bishops in setup for 25 games

delete b8 pawn in knights in setup for 25 games

and so on for each pawn.

I'll keep in touch with the results.

Pieces for apothecary 2:

Pawn - is the classic chess pawn with the catch that it promotes from the 8th rank to a minor piece, from the 9th rank to also a rook, and to the 10th rank where promotion is obligatory it promotes to also a strong piece (Queen, Marshall or Archbishop).

Queen-classic chess queen

Marshall- rook and knight compound

Archbishop-  bishop and knight compound

Zebra - classic variants (3,2) zebra with ferz just move enhancement

cameL-classic variants (3,1) camel with wazir uncolorbounding just move enhancement

kNight- classic chess knight with a threeper just move enhancement

Elephant- modern elepahnt taken from modern shatranj with a threeleaper just move enhacement so FAmH in Betza funny notation

Rook - classic chess rook

Pieces for apothecary 1:

Pawn - is the classic chess pawn with the catch that it promotes from the 8th rank to a minor piece, from the 9th rank to also a rook, and to the 10th rank where promotion is obligatory it promotes to also a strong piece (Queen, Griffin or AAnca).

Queen-classic chess queen

Aanca- bend rider that starts as an wazir and then if not blocked may move as a bishop

Griffin-  bend rider that starts as an ferz and then if not blocked may move as a rook

Wizard- taken from omega chess C+F

kNight- classic chess knight with a zebra just move enhancement

Champion- taken from omega chess W+D+A

Rook - classic chess rook

These are one of the initial positions allowed in apothecary 1 (top) and apothecary 2 (bottom). In both games switching knights and bishops in the initial position allows for a second initial setup.

This post is in anticipation of two new (in 2016) variants.

The central discussion is about the values of the pieces involved in the two variants.

The main interest are the aanca and griffin from apothecary 1. Apothecary 2 has mainly known pieces with some enhacements.

I use as time control 2 mins for 30 moves as my computer is rather weak but it has 2 procs indeed.

How can I setup experiments over night or while I do other stuff? I have to copy paste the initial position everytime anyway and the game does not just restart, Also if I could restart it how do I get hold of the results?

The difference between aanca and griffin is  much smaller than I expected indeed!

On second thinking I should find out how much a pawn translates into a win, in both apothecary games!

So the total number of wins for griffins is slightly higher but not convincingly. Now I believe that the difference between them is less that a pawn. I think I have to continue the experiments as things don't seem to go any particular way, yet. If the 41% wins for aancas hold then the distance between aanca and griffin is probably small then a pawn. I'm not sure though. Then I'll do something else maybe take a pawn from the griffins or give a pawn to the aancas.

Here are the result of some preliminary experiments I've done:

bishops in aancas white:1.5
bishops in griffins black:4.5
1 draws (draws enter in the points above)

knights in aancas white:4
knights in griffins black:2
0 draws (draws enter in the points above)

bishops in griffins white:5
bishops in aanca black:1
0 draws (draws enter in the points above)

knights in griffins white:2.5
knights in aancas black:3.5
1 draws (draws enter in the points above)

total:
games 24 from which draws:2
aancas poins:10
griffins points:14

[edit:]

Here I pited an army with 2 aancas against an army with 2 griffins.

the promotion rule was rook at 8 rank.

Now I'm starting the serious experiments. I'll use values normalized to a pawn of 60 as H.G. suggested, and the rook lowered acordingly.

I have completed my general view on the 2 twin games:

There were six games of apothecary 1 and six games of apothecary 2.

Scores:

Apothecary 1: white 3-3 black no draws

Apothecary 2: white 2-4 black no draws

Length:

Apothecary 1: 50-80 moves

Apothecary 2: 70-90 moves

Piece values used by Fairy-max:

Apothecary 1

pawn:85
knight:272
bishop:286
wizard:258
champion:272
rook:510
aanca:612
griffin:748
queen:816

Apothecary 2

pawn:85
knight:231
bishop:286
elephant:251
camel:218
zebra:204
rook:510
archbishop:680
marshal:748
queen:816

The high rook was an accident It was supposed to be 493, but I won't redo this.

I must say I'm pleasantly surprised by the way Fairy-max handles openings. Being said that I used a generous time counter 15mins+15secs, I've seen pawn sacs and fianchetto bishops..

A weird thing is not until now there were no draws in 4 games of each incarnation. Fairy-max usually avoids repetition draws, which is also cool.

KPvsK still a win, I forgot about it, and is very important. It seems my rule devalues promotion rather than giving extra options as it was intended. It could work if you fine tune a variant just for it. It is not the case here. I think postponing for a rook could still work in many cases, I just don't see postponing for a queen happening to soon.

If I decrease the time that much Fairy-Max runs out of time all the time(! and - signs). I also wanted to see how stronger games go, because all the games I've seen so far were pretty imbalanced to a lesser degree the 2 pairs of games at 15 min. The real tests will be at shorter time spans in order to make more points on the graphics.

Also I have a slow computer. Just a probook Laptop.

I left Fairy-Max at 15min+15secs incr. twice, once with each initial position and not that 2 points are statistically relevant but the game seems to last 70-80 moves ( maybe a bit more for apothecary 2 that is the slower game), so not that bad.

About the promotion rule, I'm not that sure that you are correct, waiting 1 turn to get a rook is a big deal, what can the oposite bishop do in 1 turn to turn the tables. A rook can win you the game. Also now you have to pay 1 turn from rook to queen but I don't think this will come into play unless very weird situations like many pawns vs minor piece and the rest of pieces the same, although the rest of the pieces will be used to capture/block pawns!

Ok, thanks!

Actually for now I'm enjoying the fruits of my and especially your work H.G. . Apothecary 1 is quite slick and interesting from the games I see it has an interesting assortment of minor leapers, and the aanca and griffin are quite new on the play field. Apothecary 2 is a bit more stale with not so interesting leapers and usual power pieces. Tomorrow I'll be starting serious work.

H.G. I understand that the power of Aanca and Griffin are virtually unknown, so there is research to be made, but I have to take care of both of my twins so we could see a game with 5 elephants versus 6 zebras or something of sorts. I initially gave more points 3.7 vs 3 to the elephant as the just move enhancement works very well with the rest of the powers. Now I think it's a bit much.

H.G.

It now works pawns and everything, but here is what I've done I hope not to cause you any trouble.

After download in the initial run of the fairy-max5.0b2 avast antivirus started a scan and I interupted it abruptly. I think it has thought that your program did and now it says avast has this program under scrutiny.

Don't worry about me I just abort the antivir and is fine. Fairymax works.

I honestly hope I haven't caused you any trouble.

?t=l worked I got the new version but I have no some trouble with the antivirus after I solve those I see no reason why winboard wouldn't run the new version!

This link:

http://hgm.nubati.net/Fairy-Max.zip

provides only FairyMax 5.0b, not Fairy-Max 5.0b2. I'm sure of that. I'm not sure where should I find Fairy-Max 5.0b2.

Is the link the same one?

I haven't downloaded the proper version and I don't know how to do that!

It says 5.0b. I think I haven't dowloaded the proper version, I'll retry!

Now I get it, It is fairy-max 5.0b, but when I paste the new inital position pawns loose their virginity!

Actually 5.0b is installed, but not working in winboard!

I've made the script chages as you've said. I'm still trying to run 5.0b. I redownloaded from the same link, pasted over what there was with copy and replace in both game directories and double pawn move doesn't work, I think because I'm not running 5.0b. Still working on that.

I managed on my own the easy task of rewriting the weirdPromotion script:

 

<script>function WeirdPromotion(x1, y1,x2, y2, promo)
{
  if((board[y1][x1] & 15) != 1) return promo; // moved piece is not a Pawn
  if(y2 == 9 || y2 == 0) return ((promo & 15) == 1 ? 9 : promo); // on last rank: cannot stay Pawn
  if((y2 == 7 || y2 == 2) && ((promo & 15) > 6))return board[y1][x1]; // rook or larger than Rook: remains Pawn
  if((y2 == 8 || y2 == 1) && ((promo & 15) > 7))return board[y1][x1]; // larger than Rook: remains Pawn
  return promo; // choice was acceptable
}
</script>

 

<script>function WeirdPromotion(x1, y1,x2, y2, promo)
{
  if((board[y1][x1] & 15) != 1) return promo; // moved piece is not a Pawn
  if(y2 == 9 || y2 == 0) return ((promo & 15) == 1 ? 11 : promo); // on last rank: cannot stay Pawn
  if((y2 == 7 || y2 == 2) && ((promo & 15) > 7))return board[y1][x1]; // rook or larger than Rook: remains Pawn
  if((y2 == 8 || y2 == 1) && ((promo & 15) > 8))return board[y1][x1]; // larger than Rook: remains Pawn
  return promo; // choice was acceptable
}
</script>

The thing with the executables happens to me, too. I can't get the new version working. But I'm willing to give it up, as the new promotion rule chages the game significantly and it's unimplementable in Fairy-Max. And I still haven't found a way to write the aanca and griffin in Skaak II.

Weirdly, no! Even pawns set back to the 2nd rank don't get the 2move!

Oh! Ok, Silly me!

Well first, I decided to change the promotion rule to:

8th rank:less than a rook

9th rank:also to rook

10th rank: also to the 3 strong pieces

The reason for the initial rule was to not always promote to queen, but we got always promote to rook (I mean practically). The new rule is more flexible, but I'm afraid that it still leads to many rook promotions.

Second: the pawn double move still doesn't work, or it is something I did wrong?

I did all that and it works, but I'm afraid that now I took away the zebra as a promotion choice as I moved the zebra to the 8th rank!

H.G.

I tried to set up the second game the same way and I sadly failed.

Here is what I got:

Initial position:

r2zeel2r/1qnbkabnc1/pppppppppp/10/10/10/10/PPPPPPPPPP/1QNBKABNC1/R2ZEEL2R w - - 0 1

.ini file

/settingsFile=settings.ini
/saveSettingsFile=settings.ini
;
/cp
/fcp="fmax.exe"
/fd="./Fairy-Max"
/scp="fmax.exe"
/sd="./Fairy-Max"
;
/variant=apothecary2
/size=middling
/autoLogo true
;
/showTargetSquares=true
/pieceMenu=false
/sweepPromotions=true

fairy .ini file

// Large-board variant
Game: apothecary2 # PNBRQW.A..C......GKpnbrqw.a..c......gk # elven
10x10=3
7 3 4 5 10 11 9 4 3 7
7 3 4 6 10 12 8 4 3 7
p:100 -16,24 -16,6 -15,5 -17,5
p:100 16,24 16,6 15,5 17,5
n:340 14,7 31,7 33,7 18,7 -14,7 -31,7 -33,7 -18,7 45,6 51,6 -45,6 -51,6
b:420 15,3 17,3 -15,3 -17,3
e:370 15,7 17,7 -15,7 -17,7 34,7 30,7 -34,7 -30,7 48,6 -48,6 3,6 -3,6
l:320 47,7 49,7 -47,7 -49,7 19,7 13,7 -13,7 -19,7 16,6 1,6 -1,6 -16,6
z:300 46,7 50,7 -46,7 -50,7 35,7 29,7 -29,7 -35,7 15,6 -15,6 17,6 -17,6
R:725 1,3 16,3 -1,3 -16,3
A:1000 15,3 17,3 -15,3 -17,3 14,7 31,7 33,7 18,7 -14,7 -31,7 -33,7 -18,7
C:1100 1,3 16,3 -1,3 -16,3 14,7 31,7 33,7 18,7 -14,7 -31,7 -33,7 -18,7
Q:1200 1,3 16,3 15,3 17,3 -1,3 -16,3 -15,3 -17,3
k:-1  1,7 16,7 15,7 17,7 -1,7 -16,7 -15,7 -17,7
k:-1  1,7 16,7 15,7 17,7 -1,7 -16,7 -15,7 -17,7
#
# P& fmWfceFifmnD
# N& NmG
# L& CmW
# Z& ZmF
# E& FAmH
# C& RN
# A& BN
# K& K

Where am I wronG?

What about Grand chess from where apothecary chess 1&2 take inspiration, wouldn't it have the same pawn problem?