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Piece Values[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
Joe Joyce wrote on Sun, Apr 27, 2008 07:03 PM UTC:
Gentlemen, this is a fascinating topic, and has drawn the attention of a
large audience [for chess variants, anyhow ;-) ], and I'd hope to see
something concrete come out of it. Obviously, many of you gentlemen
participating in the conversation have made each other's acquaintance
before. And passions run high - I could say: 'but this is [only] chess',
however, I, too have had the rare word here or there, over chess, so I
would be most hypocritical, besides hitting by subtly [snort! - 'only'
is not subtle] putting down what we all love and hate to hear others say
is useless. 

What I and any number of others are hoping to get is an easy way to get
values for the rookalo we just invented. Assuming hope is futile, we look
for a reasonable way to get these values. Finally, we just pray that there
is any way at all to get them. So far, we don't have all that many probes
into the middle ground, much less the wilds of variant piece design. 

We use 3 methods to value pieces, more or less, I believe:
 The FIDE piece values are built up over centuries of experience, and
still not fully agreed-upon;
 The software engines [and to a certain extent, the hardware it runs on]
that rely on the same brute-force approach that the FIDE values are based
on, but using algorithms instead of people to play the games;
 Personal estimates of some experts in the field, who use various and
multiple ways to determine values for unusual pieces. 

The theoretical calculations that go into each of these at some stage or
other are of interest here. Why? Because the results are different. That
the results are different is a good thing, because it causes questioning,
and a re-examination of assumptions and methods of implementation. 

The questions you should be asking and seriously trying to answer are why
the differences exist and what effects they have on the final outcomes.
Example: 2 software engines, A and B - A plays the archbishop-type piece
better than the chancellor-type piece because there are unexpected
couplings between the software and hardware that lead to that outcome, and
B is the opposite. Farfetched? Well, it boils down to 3 elements: theory,
implementation, execution. Or: what is the designer trying to do [and
why?], what does the code actually say, and how does the computer actually
run it? Instead of name-calling, determine where the roots of the
difference lie [because I expect several differences]; they must lie in
theory, implementation and/or execution. 

Why shouldn't humans and computers value pieces differently? They have
different styles of play. 

Please, tone down the rhetoric, and give with some numbers and methods.
Work together to see what is really going on. Or use each other's methods
to see if results are duplicated. Numbers and methods, gentlemen, not names
and mayhem. I have clipped some words or sentences from rare posts, when
they clearly violated the site's policies. Please note that sticking to
the topic, chess, is a site policy, and wandering off topic is
discouraged. 

Play the High Priestess and Minister on SMIRF or one of the other 10x8
engines that exists, and see what values come up. Play the Falcon, the
Scout, the Hawklet... and give us the numbers, please. If they don't
match, show us why.