Single Comment

Gess. A Chess variant played on a Go board where pieces are collections of go stones. (18x18, Cells: 324) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Larry Smith wrote on Sun, Apr 13, 2008 10:57 AM UTC:

I recently did a re-write of the Zillions implementation, taking advantage of some of the features which have been developed since the first coding of this game. It is currently posted at the Zillions site. But this is not the best.

This first one got me to thinking, so I went back to the drawing board and did a radical re-write. I instituted the 'classic' form of movement of the 3x3 pattern; selecting the center then moving the pattern.

This has greatly improved the performance of the implementation. Whereas, before, the engine would declare 'too many moves generated' after about two hundred thousand examined moves, I've run this new re-write over twenty-one million and haven't received this notice.

I sent off this current update to Zillions and it should be available by the end of the week.

And all this tinkering got me to thinking about a GESS variant. What if the player was not allowed to move a 3x3 pattern onto friendly Stones? Only enemy Stones would be eligible for capture, all other moves would be to vacant cells.

Is there an advantage to being able to capture friendly Stones? Is there a disadvantage to only capturing enemy Stones?