Ratings & Comments
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 Thu, Oct 1, 2020 07:15 PM EDT:Pawn movement clarified and interactive diagram added with classic Chess Utrecht font.
Apothecary Chess-Classic. Large board variant obtained through tinkering with known games.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I have tried this week to add a rider piece. Unfortunately this proved to make the game worse as more opening moves were forced. So I reverted to an earlier version while keeping the idea that black has more pieces on the non-king side. This will be the final apothecary chess-classic game. I'm satisfied with the game.
Apothecary Chess-Modern. Large board variant obtained through tinkering with known games.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I have tried this week to add a compound piece. Unfortunately this proved to make the game worse as more opening moves were forced. So I reverted to an earlier version while keeping the idea that black has more pieces on the non-king side. This will be the final apothecary chess-modern game. I'm satisfied with the game.
Jumping Chess. Pieces capture by jumping. Board has extra edge squares making it 10x10. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Oct 2, 2020 11:35 AM EDT:The page for this contest-winning game hadn't been updated in twenty years, so I thought it was about time. I've upgraded the graphics to be anti-aliased. All images are now dynamically generated by the diagram designer. A navigation menu has been added. ASCII diagrams have been removed. Made a few minor edits, such as removing the request to vote in the contest and adding a note that this game was the winning submission.
A rule-enforcing preset would be nice, but that would probably be pretty difficult.
H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Oct 3, 2020 12:19 PM EDT in reply to Greg Strong from Fri Oct 2 11:35 AM:A rule-enforcing preset would be nice, but that would probably be pretty difficult.
As far as I got it, the only unusual aspects of this variant is the piece confinement and the mandatory capture. So it should not be that difficult. The only special-purpose code that is needed would be for rejecting moves that end on an edge square and do not specify a locust victim (which could be added as the end of the Post-Move sections), and for apparently pseudo-legal moves with non-edge pieces or non-captures with edge pieces, a test whether any of the edge pieces has a capture.
Ultima. Game where each type of piece has a different capturing ability. Also called Baroque. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]A nightrider variant of this could be called Noctima
Apothecary Chess-Classic. Large board variant obtained through tinkering with known games.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]@H.G. (or Aurelian):
I tried playing the AI for this variant as White a couple of times, and in one game some things happened that apparently shouldn't have. Unfortunately I don't have the exact position or a record of the game, but here are the relevant details that may be all that's needed:
White: Pawn e7,f6; Rook f1; King i1
Black: Pawn d6,e8,f8; Bishop g9; King f9.
I tried touching my pawn on e7 and the Black pawn on f8 was lit in red, while the empty square f7 lit in green.
I then tried 1.Pe7xpf8 and Black's pawn on f8 took my pawn on e7 instead - at no point did I specify what to promote my e7-pawn to, yet (there's already been at least the Archbishops traded and a bishop of mine traded for a knight). After that, I simply elected to recapture Black's (improperly arrived) e7 pawn with my f6 pawn, to see what would happen. At that point I was allowed to make a second move in a row, which I used to capture Black's king with my Rook on f1 on a now open file, and I was told that the program had lost.
Any ideas what might have happened for such a case?
Have you used the diagram in the article or the one in the comments section?
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Oct 8, 2020 04:37 AM EDT in reply to Kevin Pacey from Wed Oct 7 11:07 PM:Well, it is hard to say without knowing exactly how you clicked. I can elucidate some general aspects of the Diagram, though:
- The Diagram does not enforce turn order. Hence you can always make as many moves in a row as you want. If the AI is switched on, however, it will always reply to every move with a move of the other player. This causes some alternation of turns, but would not preclude you from moving for the side that the AI just moved for.
- A click on a piece that is not highlighted as a valid target for a piece that was clicked before, will select that former piece, instead of any previously selected one. So it is not possible to enter illegal captures. Clicking an empty square will always move the selected piece there, whether it is legal or not.
- When a Pawn enters the promotion zone, and the piece table below the board is open, a message will appear (on red background) above the board requesting you to select a piece from the table to promote to. The table should then have highlighted (in light blue) all the piece types that are available.
- If the table is closed, however, a pawn entering the zone will automatically promote to a default piece, (the piece mentioned first in the promoChoice parameter of the Diagram) whether this is available or not. This is perhaps something I should improve on, e.g. by automatically opening the table and then following the same procedure as above.
If I must hypothesize on what happened, I would think you had the table open, but missed the request to select a piece (perhaps because it was out of view). When nothing happened after you clicked f8 you got confused about whether the click had succeeded, and clicked it again. (Or perhaps your mouse button 'bounced', and accidentally produced a double click.) But this click, instead of a click in the table for selecting a promotion piece, aborted the promotion move, and instead selected the black Pawn. This added to the confusion, and you tried to redo the entry completely, by clicking your own Pawn again. But this Pawn was a valid target for the (now selected) black Pawn (which, unlike the white Pawn, was not waiting for a promotion choice to be made). So what you intended as a first click for your move, was in fact interpreted as a second click for a black move, which was then executed (Pf8xe7).
I-Chess. Large board variant that adds two more piece types: the wolf and the eagle.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]@The Editors I have added an invention of someone living in my area. Please find the time to review this when possible.
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Oct 8, 2020 09:33 AM EDT:I'm afraid the name IChess is already used. Also, the Eagle does not work in the diagram for some reason. The diagram goes crazy when you try to move one. Finally, with pawns only able to move two spaces on a board with 12 ranks, it will take a long time for them to engage. I expect that the pawns would not be moved much and would not really take part in the game.
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Oct 8, 2020 09:38 AM EDT:I think the problem is that no royal is explicitly defined, so that the Eagle is taken to be royal. This somehow tickles a bug in the Diagram, as I run into the JavaScript error message 'aSide' undefined. So it somehow wasn't able to locate the castling partners because of this royalty issue.
Janggi - 장기 - Korean Chess. The variant of chess played in Korea. (9x10, Cells: 90) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Oct 8, 2020 09:53 AM EDT:Isn't it a bit strange that we rely on (old and disagreeing) western sources, while in this age of the internet it should be easy to get feedback directly from Korean players? Discussing disagreements between Gollon, Murray and Pritchard might be interesting in an article reviewing their books, but mistakes they might have made do not deserve to be mentioned in a rule description of the game. I never mention the 'Murray Lion' in the Chu Shogi article...
The Fairy-Stockfish developer has included Janggi in his engine now, and claims to have received a lot of feedback during its implementation from Korean amateur and pro Janggi players. I believe him. Which means I consider the current rule implementation in Stockfish to be reliable. Notable point in this are:
- Turn passing is always unconditionally allowed, not just when it is forced.
- The Bikjang rule for King facing is not applied in every tournament. If it is not, King facing is legal.
- If it is, but is declined, it has (indeed) no effect on the possibility to win later for either player.
- The point-counting tie breaker is not applied in every tournament.
So there are actually four sub-variants, bepending on application of Bikjang and point-counting rule.
It also seems wrong to describe Bikjang as "the Generals checking each other". Check is an imminent loss because of King capture. There is neither loss or King capture here, just a draw offer that can be accepted or declined. The whole idea that King facing is a check seems to be contamination by Xiangqi concepts.
I-Chess. Large board variant that adds two more piece types: the wolf and the eagle.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I had defined the king as royal and as HG had said that has solved the eagle problem. Now I'm thinking about the pawns problem. I had also asked the author for a different name.
The pawns are taken to be regular pawns as I used the stock button to generate them. I don't know how to define the xBetza move for them as they can move from anywhere on the home half of the board towards the middle of the board and one field after crossing the middle of the board! But I'm sure it is pretty long!
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Oct 8, 2020 11:25 AM EDT in reply to Aurelian Florea from 11:09 AM:A (non-capturing) move up to half-way the board is fmW* in the Diagram. You could make that an ifmW* if it is only from the initial position. A Pawn with such a move would also have been in stock, as 'omega pawn'. On such very deep boards the e.p. capture would not completely work, though, as the Diagram handles at most two e.p. squares. (The AI should do it correctly, though.)
Thanks, HG
Greg, The inventor of the game has patented I-Chess so he wants to stick with the name. What is there to be done?
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Oct 8, 2020 12:04 PM EDT in reply to Aurelian Florea from 11:49 AM:Patented with whom? Is there any way I can confirm this?
Greg, but the game you have showed is IChess and this one is I-Chess. Is not that different?
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Oct 8, 2020 12:37 PM EDT in reply to Aurelian Florea from 12:16 PM:I would have preferred a more unique name (IChess and I-Chess would be pronounced the same) but if it is true that "I-Chess" is patented under that name I guess we'll have to go with it.
Sounds fair to me!
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Oct 8, 2020 01:32 PM EDT:But that is a pretty big IF, I would say... And it might actually make it illegal to publish the game here at all.
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Oct 8, 2020 01:36 PM EDT in reply to H. G. Muller from 01:32 PM:But that is a pretty big IF, I would say...
Agreed. I must admit I am skeptical...
And it might actually make it illegal to publish the game here at all.
I think this could make it illegal to play the game here, but descriptions of patented inventions are generally public. And, just because a patent office has issued a patent, it does not mean that the patent would stand up in court. Personally, I very much doubt a patent of any chess variant would stand up to legal scrutiny.
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Oct 8, 2020 02:45 PM EDT in reply to Greg Strong from 01:36 PM:But the Interactive Diagram does allow one to play it here, against the AI...
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Oct 8, 2020 03:11 PM EDT in reply to H. G. Muller from 02:45 PM:Good point
Jumping Chess. Pieces capture by jumping. Board has extra edge squares making it 10x10. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Oct 8, 2020 07:38 PM EDT in reply to H. G. Muller from Sat Oct 3 12:19 PM:As far as I got it, the only unusual aspects of this variant is the piece confinement and the mandatory capture. So it should not be that difficult. The only special-purpose code that is needed would be for rejecting moves that end on an edge square and do not specify a locust victim (which could be added as the end of the Post-Move sections), and for apparently pseudo-legal moves with non-edge pieces or non-captures with edge pieces, a test whether any of the edge pieces has a capture.
Ok, perhaps I should have said it would be very difficult for me...
I have added full support to ChessV though. This required a couple of special rules, but I added support for basic capture-by-overtake to the internal move generator. My quandry now is what the pieces should be worth... The Rook, Bishop, and Queen are modified in the same way so I assume their relative value should be similar to Chess... The board is enlarged, but use of the outer ring is limited and landing on it hurts your options on the following move significantly, so I think the values should probably not change much from 8x8 values. The Knight is interesting - he has a choice of captures, so maybe his value is augmented. The Pawn, when capturing, moves forward two spaces instead of one, getting it to the other side faster, so maybe it should be worth more as well. But these are just guesses.
EDIT: Upon further consideration ... the Knight has a choice of captures, but no choice where he lands. The Bishop, Rook, and Queen, though, unlike in Chess, can capture and still choose which square to land on (if there is space.) So maybe the Knight is not more powerful.
Haynie's high power fairy chess 64. With orthodox chess set but different stronger movements for most pieces. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Oct 8, 2020 09:20 PM EDT:Poor ★The design of this game makes no sense to me. The Rook is upgraded to a Dragon King. The Knight is upgraded all the way to an Amazon. The Queen is upgraded to the most powerful piece I have ever heard of. But the poor Bishop is downgraded to a Wazir - a piece that moves only one step horizontally or vertically. One problem is that the board has so much power that it will be a tactical smash-fest. Another problem is that the Wazirs will never move. I cannot imagine any circumstance in which a player would waste a move on them, except possibly to get them out of the way to allow castling, and probably not even then. With all the nightriders, castling will likely be impossible anyway.
Apothecary Chess-Classic. Large board variant obtained through tinkering with known games.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I started using the AI in the Classic version's article as of last night, when I had the experience I wrote of in my last post.
It's quite possible I did what H.G. supposed I might have.
A frustrating part of using my Windows 10 laptop is that mouse-slips seem to happen fairly often for me - particularly increasing or decreasing the font size without intending to, when on websites, happens a lot (I use [cntr]+ or - to get it back to 100% (normal) font size). I also accidently moved a piece I didn't intend to, one time, when moving too quickly.
I-Chess. Large board variant that adds two more piece types: the wolf and the eagle.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
These are the documents that contain the patenting data. Unfortuneatly one is in Romanian. I personally am not sure about their applicance.
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Ok, I understand now. I should have time to edit this and get it published sometime this weekend.