Comments by catugo

As, from what I remember, the article says considering all possible games is meaningless. So what people usually do is get statistics for the average branching factor and the length of the game. With a program like chessV you can do this. Take grand chess for example. Run 1000 games in decent conditions. Say 4mins +3 secs time. Read the data. You probably need help here but I think it can be set up. Same with Omega chess or Shako (one of your favorites I remeber) for a few more known games.

It seems to me though that you aim for the more theoretical rather than applied part of math. There might be relevant conclusions to be drawn from things like number of captures and so on as long as games are chesslike enough.  

For some games like go or havannah the game lenght is quite obvios based just on board size.

When the time I'll maybe try to deduce some such heuristics on games, I'll try on Apothecary as the final article on them is pending on my to do list along with chessV2 expeiments which I hope to be able to do soon!...

@HG

Bug found!

I was adding a bishop ray twice!... Shame on me for not noticing!...

I guess this is how people sometimes find "faster than light" objects.

This link with different armies opposing the black orthodox army from the musketeer chess website could be of interest. To me it seems that much effort has not been put in the balancing of the 2 armies.

http://musketeerchess.net/games/castellum/rules/rules.php

http://musketeerchess.net/games/castellum/rules/rules-marsu.php

http://musketeerchess.net/games/castellum/rules/rules-jumpers.php

I know in Tamerlane chess the picket piece is a bishop that cannot move just one step but must cross the first step. What is the rook's counterpart for this piece? What about longer "blind" steps? I remember Ralph Betza naming a piece anti-rook. But I think it was different, although I don't recall the details!...

Indeed, great work!...

@HG

Remember your point for an upcomming game of mine!...

I have completed all my round 1-3 games. How are the standings and who still plays?

Thanks Mikk!

Hi Fergus,

A few days ago this on this post : https://www.chessvariants.com/index/listcomments.php?itemid=0000000100000000&order=DESC    I've made a few days ago the title has been misteriously lost :)! Any idea why? When others have answered things seemed to have happened here:

https://www.chessvariants.com/index/listcomments.php?itemid=19990302b57b7f27&order=DESC

Trouble is that things got disconencted and they have to not be :)!

First I'm not sure why my original title for the subject has not held.

Anyway Jeffrey thanks a lot for discussing it.

Yes, I mean a new game indeed with more formal time controls (which we can establish), but the crux of the matter was to design a game with that in mind along with other features which should define nextchess. The disadvantages of "classic" bughouse is exactly what has got me into this. But the concept of a 2vs2 seems intriguing to me. It is just poorly executed here.

Ladybug is the name of a  supposed to be a variant, or more likelly a class of variants, as I think new bughouse should be (it's just my taste though), but more female friendly (hence the "lady" part)

. I think ladybug is a small insect.

Because it is a difficult task I decided it's better to make it a team effort. Ex-president Kenedy was not there for no reason either.

Short story I strongly believe that the computer almost AI era needs a reformation in what we call chess.

 

Hello all you guys and hopefully gals.

A few weeks ago (February the 9th) I had encountered on the Facebook group here : https://www.facebook.com/groups/AbstractNationX/ the question if " Is there any dedicated team vs team abstract games? ".

Bughouse was given as example and a question has been risen whether bughouse and it's solitary counterpart crazyhouse. It has been argued that bughouse was designed to be a 2-player/team (4 players in total) game. I disagree. Bughouse is just regular chess shoved into two board with a shogi-like reuse rule!..

But we chess player do tend to get a weird/nerd/geek stamp in a "anti-good" way. And I wondered could I do it. Could I design such a game? Maybe aI could have had. But even most importantly many things needing improving in chess have crossed my mind.

Among them especially important is that chess and it's many variants are not female friendly designed. So that would be a second task.

But then I got so many ideas and then got blocked. It was clear. I can't do it on my own.

The discussion about nextchess is a very old, initial and dear to most on this website. So let's think about it together while crushing the quite unfair believe (ok, maybe a little fair) that chess players are not people persons. So together why not identify what next chess would require and design I propose a few nextchess variants together.

And by know ad-hoc skeptics would complain that it has been tried before: yara,yara,yara.

To that I leave you tto the explanations of someone who does it much better than I :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th5A6ZQ28pE

After this above link is well comprehended let me establish some initial ground rules.

1. Principles need to be established which will guide future conversation without having necessarily any obligatory ones nor the list should ever be closed.

2. The purpose of this post is to design a bughouse game (pair game) for 2 pairs that will benefit from designed goals aligned with this objective.

3. The second purpose (but as primary in importance) is to create a another such game with female friendly concepts in mind. I think a nice name for it would be ladybug.

4. The principles enumerated by Fergus in the link bellow are generally to be considered.

https://www.chessvariants.com/opinions.dir/fergus/design.html

5. Down bellow I will name a few high council member (like in the klingon empire- I know you know what I'm talking about) but most important try to bring into the fold as many people as they think this will matter.

 For starters I name to consider all this active members with a lot of lately contributions and quite interesting and different ideas : Fergus Duniho, Greg Strong, HG Muller, Vitya Makov, Kevin Pacey. I could have missed others though so please, everybody.

6. The ladybug game should be considered to be played on one larger board where partners could see eye to eye as opposite to stay shoulder by shoulder. It is proven that evolutionary speaking women communicate better this way where men communicate better in the later.

7. In order for that to work I propose for consideration that each member of a team should have it own color (although some pieces could change color adding a second way of giving - this time your own- pieces to your opponent). The inspiration for this was the game dada : https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/dada

8. stones like in 8 stones chess are an interesting addition. They would also provide interesting tactics and yet another way of giving pieces to your partner.https://www.chessvariants.com/large.dir/contest/eightstones.html

9. I engage to update the list from time to time as the discussion progresses

10. Most importantly Try to bring lady friends into this. We won't be able to properly do 3. otherwise

I would also prefer more alike games. Like with slightly different pieces (like I had done in my 2 apothecary games). For now this is it. I'm waiting for your feedback :)!

And in closing may I add two examples of game principles for orientative puropses as the above ones are rather general (7. & 8. are also game principles). Ex1. There should be a balance between leapers and riders. Ex2. Pieces that are blockable short range but have long range like the picket and giraffe from tamerlane chess are to be considered.

It does for 9 or 10 players.

ANd by the way, Fergus is correct. Sunday is march 3 :)!

Is anyone else finding weird similarities between Chaturanga (Davidson's variantion) and Makruk?

Is anyone else finding weird similarities between Chaturanga (Davidson's variantion) and Makruk?

@Greg

I have edited my previous comment with the needed information.

Good luck!

Why not? The back rank pieces are neat.

But your games do give me a feeling of more of the same.

I'm stil playing that has not changed :)!

As a temporary solution for users facing this problem would be to just use multiple tabs. This way the inconvenience is out and least until an opponet makes a move :)!