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Foolish King Chess. Players have different armies and victory conditions. White has a fool for a king. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Sep 25, 2020 11:34 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 10:17 PM:

Ok, thank you.  That is helpful.  Maybe something like:

A Fool may never move to a square that is a kings-move or knights-move away from a King.  (In other words, it cannot move into a position where it would "check" a King.)  Likewise, a King cannot move to a square that is a kings-move or knights-move away from a Fool (as though it would be moving into check, even though Fools can't actually capture.)

I am a bit worried about the promotion rule: can white promote only to Fool, or is this just an extra possibility? The Fool is practically useless as attacker, similar to an Elephant in Xiangqi. That they are uncapturable and that you can have many cannot compensate for this; N times zero is still zero. The possibility for white to win an end-game seems bleak if he can only promote to Fool.

That is a good point... However, I think it is very, very hard to balance unequal armies, even without adding different victory conditions.  So, I think this game is almost certainly unbalanced.  But I think it could still be fun to play.  If you could get the interactive diagram to play a close approximation, that would be awesome.  I'd add that to the page.  But can it really do the free castling rule?  (If not, I think that's ok, I'm not even certain that was the intention.  The page literally just said "castling is free".)


40x12 chess. Members-Only Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

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Nine elder (아홉 장로). Sittuyin + Shogi.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Sep 26, 2020 01:08 AM UTC in reply to Daphne Snowmoon from Fri Sep 18 04:52 PM:

Hi Daphne,

This is something that could be published, but I have some questions:

Promoted Incense. It moves as a Rook or moves 1 square orthogonally.

A Rook already moves orthogonally, so this only describes a Rook.  Did you mean diagonally?  Also, you sometimes describe this move as "Rook" and sometimes as "Incense" although I think they are the same.  Using "Rook" would help most people here to understand, but either way you should be consistent.  You could still call the piece "Incense" while describing its movement as that of a Rook.

Cannon - It moves as a Rook but it must hop over a intervening piece.

Ok.  Just to be clear - it cannot move or capture without hopping?

Van - It moves as a Rook but it must hop over a intervening piece to capture enemy.

Ok.  So like a Cannon in Chinese Chess...  (You already used "Cannon" for something else so our readers will find this confusing.)  And then:

Copper - Promoted Van. It moves as a Cannon or as a Van.

Either I do not understand Cannon and Van or this does not make sense.  A Cannon is just a Van with fewer options.  So Cannon + Van is just a Van.

Cassia - it can leap over piece, but if there is a piece in the path, it cannot move in that direction.

This is a contradiction.  Can it leap or not?

Pieces that reach the enemy camp (7th to 9th rank) are promoted.

Is this automatic or can a player chose not to promote?

Cannon, Van, Incense, and Angle are counted as 5 points and the remaining pieces are counted as 1 point each. When becoming Jishogi, the player with a total score of less than 35 loses.

I do not understand this.  Are you saying that as soon as a player has less than 35 points worth of pieces, they lose immediately?


Tax Chess. King mobility affected by the placement of pawns of the same color.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Sep 26, 2020 01:24 AM UTC:

This is a very interesting idea, although a player would have to consult the rules frequently until they became proficient.  But I do think this sort of idea has potential.

An observation: this game is not symmetric.  It has neither mirror symmetry nor rotational symmetry.  Consider this rule:

For each pawn of color C on D file the king can slide 1 square diagonally forwards towards lower file.

File D is file D for both players (mirror) - but the "lower file" is reversed (rotational).  This may not be an issue, but I think it could lead to an advantage for one player or the other.

Also, there's this:

(Imagine pawns being wrapped around king's starting position)

I do not understand what this statement refers to.

Finally, I assume when a king can move more than one space, (because of doubled pawns), it still cannot move through check?


Ben Reiniger wrote on Sat, Sep 26, 2020 02:04 AM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from 01:24 AM:

An observation: this game is not symmetric.

I think it is mirror symmetric, and I think the confusion stems from "left for white and right for black". I believe the author means "files earlier in the alphabet" for both, and the different handedness comes from players generally sitting on opposite sides of the board.

(Imagine pawns being wrapped around king's starting position)

In the starting position, remove the major pieces. Treat the pawn row as a cellophane film, and pull it tight around the king, "sticking" the e pawn where it is. The d and f pawns also get stuck where they are, the c pawn gets pulled down into d1, the b pawn further pulled to d0 (offboard), and the a pawn down and around into e0. Similarly for the right half of the pawns, and now the position of the pawn relative to the king is the same direction that that rank's pawn grants power to the king. I do think this is a good mnemonic; anybody good at a quick animation? :P


Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Sep 26, 2020 03:15 AM UTC in reply to Ben Reiniger from 02:04 AM:

I think it is mirror symmetric, and I think the confusion stems from "left for white and right for black". I believe the author means "files earlier in the alphabet" for both, and the different handedness comes from players generally sitting on opposite sides of the board.

Hmm... Maybe.  Now that you mention it, it is ambiguous whether "left" and "right" in this context (e.g., "for black") means from that player's perspective.  I still think that's probably what the author meant, but it is not clear.  It should be phrased like "toward the A-file" for clairity.

In the starting position, remove the major pieces. Treat the pawn row as a cellophane film, and pull it tight around the king, "sticking" the e pawn where it is. The d and f pawns also get stuck where they are, the c pawn gets pulled down into d1, the b pawn further pulled to d0 (offboard), and the a pawn down and around into e0. Similarly for the right half of the pawns, and now the position of the pawn relative to the king is the same direction that that rank's pawn grants power to the king. I do think this is a good mnemonic; anybody good at a quick animation? :P

Ah!  Thank you!  This makes sense :)  You don't need to remember which files are which directions because there is a pattern to it.  I wasn't thinking of an animation, but even before your comment I was picturing diagrams with the kings surrounded by file letters to indicate which file's pawns corresponded to which directions.


Apothecary Chess-Classic. Large board variant obtained through tinkering with known games.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Aurelian Florea wrote on Sat, Sep 26, 2020 03:29 AM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from Wed Sep 23 09:59 PM:

@HG : And I could not find a solution on my own :(!


Foolish King Chess. Players have different armies and victory conditions. White has a fool for a king. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Sep 26, 2020 03:42 PM UTC:
files=10 ranks=8 promoZone=1 promoChoice=*H*F graphicsDir=/graphics.dir/alfaeriePNG/ squareSize=50 graphicsType=png symmetry=none maxPromote=2 extinction=1 royal=9 royal=8 baring=4 baring=5 baring=9 pawn:P:ifmnDfmWfceF:pawn:a2,b2,c2,d2,e2,f2,g2,h2,i2,j2,,a7,b7,c7,d7,e7,f7,g7,h7,i7,j7 knight:N:N:knight:c1,f1,h1,,b8,c8,h8,i8 bishop:B:B:bishop:d1,g1 rook:R:R:rook:a1,j1,,a8,j8 cardinal:C:BN:cardinal:b1,i1 queen:Q:Q:queen:,,f8 hunter:H:BnDD:archer:,,d8,g8:0,10 fool:F:mkNmkW:fool:e1:10,0 king:K:KisO2isO3ilO4kN:king:,,e8

It seems the above diagram does approximately what is needed. The diagram script initially choked on only black having a piece that can castle; the code for determining the castling partners only considered white pieces, assuming symmetry, and thus left things undefined, which propagated through the calculation to finally make everything undefined. I fixed this now.

I also had some problems with the implementation of baring. This counted only non-royal pieces. But in this variant black should not suffer even from being totally bared, and I thought I was clever by defining the King as a piece that should be counted. But the old code overruled that. I changed the code so that it now only discounts the royal from the total number of pieces when it was not explicitly defined by a royal=N line (in which case the last piece in the table is taken to be royal). This allowed me to define the black King as a baring piece as well as a royal, so that being bared is the same as losing your King. For white, however, the Rooks and Archbishops are baring pieces, and the Fool an extinction royal.

Another problem was the promotion. I could have defined it as Shogi promotions, as there is apparenly no choice. But then white and black pawns would have to be different piece types, as they promote differently. (And it would allow youto defer.) So I opted for another solution: I allow promotion to Hunter or Fool, but only to pieces 'in hand'. And the white hand starts with only 10 Fools, and the black hand with only 10 Hunters.

The capture restriction on Fools is implemented by a BadZone JavaScript routine embedded in the page. The AI pays attention to this. For castling I just took flexible castling.


Apothecary Chess-Classic. Large board variant obtained through tinkering with known games.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Sep 26, 2020 10:03 PM UTC:

I guess the current diagram script cannot do this, because the specified symmetry is applied both to the shuffling and to the setup. You seem to want a point-symmetrical setup, (symmetry=rotate) but then a line-symmetric shuffle (symmetry=mirror).


Foolish King Chess. Players have different armies and victory conditions. White has a fool for a king. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Sun, Sep 27, 2020 01:49 AM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from Sat Sep 26 03:42 PM:

Wow. Very nice! Thanks for updating the script to accommodate!

Flexible castling is fine. I emailed the author to inquire about the castling. The email didn't bounce but I haven't heard back either. If I don't hear back, I'm inclined to change the rule to flexible castling. I think that's fair for a couple of reasons, which I will go into if that time comes...

After a few days, if I haven't heard back from the author, and others haven't weighed in, I will update this page and include the interactive diagram.


Do-or-die Chess. Chess on an 8-by-5 board. Three ranks have been removed. (8x5, Cells: 40) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Sun, Sep 27, 2020 04:37 AM UTC:

I have made a first pass at updating this >20 year old game page. There is one outstanding question from the comments that was never answered - if the squares are open, can an unmoved pawn make a two-space move?

The author did not address this question. But he did say that all the rules of Chess apply. So, does that mean a pawn can move 2 spaces? That depends on how you look at it. True, the FIDE Chess rules do say that an unmoved pawn may move two spaces, but that is on a much larger board. Ralph Betza argued that, applying this rule to chess variants in general, an unmoved pawn should be able to move up to the middle of the board. (Sorry for the lack of reference, I'm sure I read this but I do not remember exactly where.) I think this makes a lot of sense. It is the "spirit" of the rule rather than the "letter" of the rule. And, in Chess, even with a 2-space move, you are still behind the midpoint. But here, since the board has an odd number of files, even a single step puts you farther, proportionally, than a double-step in chess. Therefore, a 2-space pawn move here would be very different in effect than in chess. And, it is widely believed, that simplicity is best wherever possible. (Hence the awesomeness of Go.) Adding the complexity of a 2-space pawn move and en passant to a game where it is unnecessary and probably would never happen anyway is therefore undesirable.


Apothecary Chess-Classic. Large board variant obtained through tinkering with known games.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, Sep 27, 2020 08:20 AM UTC:

This night the following occurred to me: I normally write a Diagram definition by first specifying all parameters, and then all pieces. Although some parameters (such as the board size) must be set before placing any pieces, in general there is no need for this ordering, and parameter definitions and piece definitions can be mixed in any order. Furthermore, it is not an offense to specify the same parameter multiple times with different value; each definition simply replaces any previous value, so that the value from the last definition prevails.

You could therefore try the following: start with a line symmetry=none amongst the parameter settings. Then specify all pieces with their locations. Because at the time of their processing the symmetry is set to none, it will not automatically place any mirror images, and you specify the squares of both white and black pieces in any way you want. After defining all pieces, you add a line symmetry=mirror . This will alter the symmetry spec, but this new spec will not be used during setup, which is already done. It will be used during shuffling, though, which occurs after the entire Diagram definition is read.


💡📝Aurelian Florea wrote on Sun, Sep 27, 2020 09:09 AM UTC:

Thanks so much HG. very cool tool you have made!


Apothecary Chess-Modern. Large board variant obtained through tinkering with known games.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Aurelian Florea wrote on Sun, Sep 27, 2020 12:10 PM UTC:

I have played this game against the interactive diagram's AI. It takes less time that an game courier match and I wanted to see how the games feel after the final changes I have made. The game seems to be very tactical now with many strong pieces quickly engaging . I'm really unsure about how good the game is. It's learning curve is quite steep but maybe once properly learned it is fun. I was hoping that more experienced player will take a look and try to play against the interactive diagram until the endgame (me I always blunder something before the endgame).


Apothecary Chess-Classic. Large board variant obtained through tinkering with known games.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Aurelian Florea wrote on Sun, Sep 27, 2020 12:10 PM UTC:

I have played this game against the interactive diagram's AI. It takes less time that an game courier match and I wanted to see how the games feel after the final changes I have made. The game seems to be very tactical now with many strong pieces quickly engaging . I'm really unsure about how good the game is. It's learning curve is quite steep but maybe once properly learned it is fun. I was hoping that more experienced player will take a look and try to play against the interactive diagram until the endgame (me I always blunder something before the endgame).


Foolish King Chess. Players have different armies and victory conditions. White has a fool for a king. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Sep 28, 2020 08:25 AM UTC:

The diagram's AI uses a bit of a quirky method for detecting game end: it incrementally keeps track of a 'royalty count', where each piece type has its own 'royalty weight'. Pieces defined as royal get weight 1024, pieces defined as baring get weight 1. If the opponent's royalty count is negative after your (pseuo-legal) move, you win immediately. If not, and if your own royalty count is exactly zero, you lose. Except when the opponent is at 0 too. Then, if this was the consequence of the latest move (i.e. before the move the opponent was still positive) the game continues to check the legality of this counter-baring; otherwise it is ruled a draw.

Normally the royalty count starts at 1, so that loss of any royal makes it negative. For extinction royalty 1024 times the number of spare royals is added to the initial value. I there are any baring piece types, the initial 1 is replaced by the number of baring pieces (so that you will hit 0 when they are all gone).

You can specify which piece types should be counted for the baring, through a number of baring=N parameters. For cases like Shatranj, a short-cut baring=0 is recognized as the instruction to make all non-royal pieces baring. (Piece-type numbering starts at 1.) This system so far was able to handle all cases I encountered; in this case I defined the Rooks and Archbishops as baring, and to prevent black from losing when he loses both Rooks, I defined the King as baring as well. Then black can only lose by baring if he loses his King, but as the King is defined as royal, that would make him lose anyway.

 


Apothecary Chess-Classic. Large board variant obtained through tinkering with known games.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Aurelian Florea wrote on Mon, Sep 28, 2020 03:35 PM UTC:

I have switched the places of osprey and mamluk in the opening position in order to give more opening opportunities.


Apothecary Chess-Modern. Large board variant obtained through tinkering with known games.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Aurelian Florea wrote on Mon, Sep 28, 2020 03:35 PM UTC:

I have switched the places of sangoma and wizard in the opening position in order to give more opening opportunities.


Nine elder (아홉 장로). Sittuyin + Shogi.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Daphne Snowmoon wrote on Mon, Sep 28, 2020 05:47 PM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from Sat Sep 26 01:08 AM:
Promoted Incense. It moves as a Rook or moves 1 square orthogonally.
A Rook already moves orthogonally, so this only describes a Rook. Did you mean diagonally? Also, you sometimes describe this move as "Rook" and sometimes as "Incense" although I think they are the same. Using "Rook" would help most people here to understand, but either way you should be consistent. You could still call the piece "Incense" while describing its movement as that of a Rook.

= Ah I'm sorry. I wrote wrong... I fixed it.

Cannon - It moves as a Rook but it must hop over a intervening piece.
Ok. Just to be clear - it cannot move or capture without hopping?

= Yes.

Van - It moves as a Rook but it must hop over a intervening piece to capture enemy.
Ok. So like a Cannon in Chinese Chess... (You already used "Cannon" for something else so our readers will find this confusing.) And then:

= Yes. the Van is same as the Cannon from Xiangqi. but i already used name Cannon, so I felt the need to create a new name. that is Van.

Copper - Promoted Van. It moves as a Cannon or as a Van.
Either I do not understand Cannon and Van or this does not make sense. A Cannon is just a Van with fewer options. So Cannon + Van is just a Van.

= So, It can move like the Cannon. and It can also move like the Rook but cannot capture with this move.

Cassia - it can leap over piece, but if there is a piece in the path, it cannot move in that direction.
This is a contradiction. Can it leap or not?

= Ah it cannot leap. I wrote wrong. I fixed it.

Pieces that reach the enemy camp (7th to 9th rank) are promoted.
Is this automatic or can a player chose not to promote?

= Both players can chose not to promote.

Cannon, Van, Incense, and Angle are counted as 5 points and the remaining pieces are counted as 1 point each. When becoming Jishogi, the player with a total score of less than 35 loses.
I do not understand this. Are you saying that as soon as a player has less than 35 points worth of pieces, they lose immediately?

= Yes. he lose. it is same as Jishogi from Shogi, but only the point calculation is different.


Greg Strong wrote on Mon, Sep 28, 2020 10:01 PM UTC in reply to Daphne Snowmoon from 05:47 PM:

Copper = So, It can move like the Cannon. and It can also move like the Rook but cannot capture with this move.

I believe this just describes the Van.  How is a Copper different than a Van?


💡📝Daphne Snowmoon wrote on Tue, Sep 29, 2020 01:22 AM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from Mon Sep 28 10:01 PM:

Iron and Copper have the same movement. Iron/Copper can move like the Van or Cannon.

so, as Betza notation,

< Cannon = pR >

< Van = mRpcR >

< Iron/Copper = mRpR >


dax00 wrote on Tue, Sep 29, 2020 09:23 AM UTC:

It doesn't make any sense to use a piece whose movement is widely known to be that of the cannon (from xiangqi) and call it something else, while calling another piece a cannon. The solution is simple: switch the names to follow convention. Van to cannon, cannon to van.


H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Sep 29, 2020 10:28 AM UTC in reply to dax00 from 09:23 AM:

The problem is that in Korean Chess the Cannon moves as described here. So it depends on what your background is which move you consider more natuaral.


💡📝Daphne Snowmoon wrote on Tue, Sep 29, 2020 10:37 AM UTC in reply to dax00 from 09:23 AM:

dax00 / ?? nope;


💡📝Daphne Snowmoon wrote on Tue, Sep 29, 2020 10:43 AM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 10:28 AM:

Miller / Yes. Cannon and Van keep their names. Thank you.


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