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JorgKnappen wrote on Tue, Sep 23, 2003 04:49 PM UTC:
I am just designing a doucecimal chess variant (on a 12 times 12 board)
and wonder how many moves I should reserve for the modified 50 moves
rule. 

I think, there should be sufficient moves such that knight and bishop and
king still can mate a bare king. The number of moves theoretically needed
is surely known, has someone the numbers ready for different board sizes?

Robert Shimmin wrote on Wed, Sep 24, 2003 11:46 AM UTC:
Sometimes changing the board size can actually change to outcome.  In shogi
on a board of 10x10 or smaller, king and gold vs. king is usually a win. 
On boards of 11x11 or larger, it is almost never a win.  This phenomenon
usually rears its head where most of the mating power available is in
short-range pieces.

Michael Nelson wrote on Wed, Sep 24, 2003 03:33 PM UTC:
I believe that mate with King, Bishop and Knight vs lone King can take up
to 49 moves, which is the reason for the 50-move rule. IIRC, computer
studies of more complex positions have shown  mates requiring over 200
moves--which might or might not transgress the fifty move rule, as any
capture or pawn move resets the clock.  But in any case, the line has to
be drawn somewhere and some wins (if arbitrary length games are allowed)
will be draws under an x-move rule.

I believe the 50-move limit should be increased for a larger board, but
reduced for more powerful pieces (for the board size).  The technical way
would be to calculate the average crowded board mobitity of each piece
(using Betza's method), then add up these values to get an approximation
of the power on the board. Compare the ratio of this power to the number
of squares to the ratio of the FIDE army (about 64, depending on the magic
number) to 64 squares = about 1.  

The formula is movelimit = 50 times board size divided by total army
mobility.  For FIDE Chess this is 50 * 64 / 64 = 50.

To examples for your duodecimal game:

1. Total army mobility = 90   50 * 144 / 90 = 80
2. Total army mobility = 200  50 * 144 / 200 = 36

You can probably guesstimate accurately enough without actually doing the
calculations.

JorgKnappen wrote on Mon, Sep 29, 2003 08:38 AM UTC:
My question is rather specific, in the duodecimal variant I am just
designing there are standard knights and bishops, and I want the endgame
of
king & knight & bishop vs lone king to be a win.

I assume, that someone else has computed the numbers of moves necessary
with
a computer programme, and I hope someone here knows them (or knows where
they are published).

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