Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

We list at other article the reformists Alexandre 1820's, Bird 1870's,
Lasker 1910's, Capablanca 1920's, Maura 1960's, and Fischer 1990's.
None of them can be said to have succeeded in their advocacy, but what did they do anyway? In particular, Lasker, why is second world champion on the
list? It is easy to locate Alexandre as forerunner of Fischer in
randomizing starting positions. With some conviction Bird and Capablanca
of course reinvent Carrera for their times. Maura's Modern reaches somewhat across
Latin America. What about Dr. Emanuel Lasker,
mathematician, friend of Einstein? When Capablanca defeated Lasker to become third Champion, Capablanca tossed around one of his first ideas for reform. It was simply to reverse Bishop and Knight. Lasker then and earlier advocated scoring wins differently by type. ''In order to prevent the decay of chess by the frequent occurrence of drawn games finer nuances of difference of execution must show themselves in the result, and stalemates should be considered and counted in the estimating of scores for tournament purposes, wins by themselves to count less than enforced mates.'' --Lasker's idea summarized by Reti (Source: Richard Reti, 'Modern Ideas in Chess') The ironies are that some GMs, but not variantists, might know of Lasker's scoring proposals, and that today that is the extent of  debate within OrthoChess circles, how to reward points differently -- the same topic Lasker brought up 90 years ago.

Okay, thanks that works, and should be able to substitute for Chessboard
Math in the code with Game Design or other one next time. 19.February.2008
here are the Falcon associations with Seven days, Seven Wonders, Falcon
being the Pyramid, and the other mnemonic 'sevens'. 19.April.2008 is
review of Mark Thompson's ''Defining the Abstract,'' the same author
of 2002 Tetrahedral Chess.

If you click on the 'Edit' button to the right of David's comment, you
can see and copy but not change what he actually typed.

George, the best approach to clicking on Next 25 item(s) that I have figured out is to create links like these: skipfirst=25, skipfirst=50, skipfirst=75. Sorry, but the posts displayed on these pages default to one-line descriptions, in spite of my attempts to tinker with the HTML code in the links.

As the newer posts pile up, a search for paulo will take you down to this indexing post. EDIT: expanding on Joe's follow-up comment, you can simply replace ChessboardMath in the link's A href='http:// expression with the name of any other thread.

[Maybe Paulowich could explain again how to read Comments 26+ in threads, which is readily done in articles.]  Mark Thompson's Tetrahedral Chess is on our recognized list at Chessboard Math. Here's a variant 3-D board also with 84 squares, now called Pyramid (another different 3d has name Pyramidal already). One block, or cell, sits centrally atop 3x3 cells, then 3x3 above 5x5, then 7x7. Four levels, or layers, each of 1, 9, 25, 49 cells respectively (=84). Connectivity is easier to visualize than Tetrahedral, and there are all the usual orthogonal, diagonal and triagonal directions of Raumschach
(125 cubes, 1907). At the one-cell top level, a Rook has only one
direction to move through, first 3x3, then 5x5, and in three steps to the
very center of the bottom 7x7. Raumschach King at any corner has 7 cells to which to move, whereas Pyramid King, also omnidirectional, would have only four from the lower corners.

Wikipedia: ''In May 2006 a record-shattering 517 move endgame was
announced. Mark Bourzutchky found it using a program written by Yakov
Konoval. Black's first move is 1 ...Rd7+ and White wins the Rook in 517 moves.''
Black R-b7; B-b3; K-f4; N-g5. White Kd2; Qh1; Nh2. They are still finding
these things after 512 years. What's the rush?

| Who would waste time on Centaur(BN) and Champion(RN) anymore? No one 
| is interested. Knight was not meant to be compounded but must always 
| stand alone. 

I am in total disagreement. The Archbishop (BN) is one of the most elegant
and agile pieces ever designed. It is simply marvelous to see it in action,
dazziling the opponent. To do justice to its play, this piece should be
renamed 'Dancer'.

Who would waste time on Centaur(BN) and Champion(RN) anymore? No one is
interested. Knight was not meant to be compounded but must always stand
alone. We will call attention to where we prove the inefficacy of those
two under this Chessboard Math and Game Design. Please check tomorrow, and
you will relieve addiction to Capablanca misadventures Chancellor and
Archbishop, whatever they may be called in this or that embodiment. We
announced solemnly and theatrically their demise and RIP in January, venerable Centaur and Champion, and sure enough the next day Bobby Fischer died --
after the fact. Check it out.

(3) How many pieces at most does Chameleon capture in one move within
Ultima? in Rococo instead? Why the difference?  (4) What is the minimum
Fool's Mate at Alice Chess? (5) Consider practical piece values the way
Betza does without particularly computer aid. First, here compare Rococo
Cannon Pawns and Centennial Quadra-Pawns, neither able to promote. Of
course, Cannon Pawn benefits from larger board in general, compared to
Quadra-Pawn. At 10x10 Cannon Ps. are superior, whilst 8x8 Quadra-Ps. Where
would be the cross-over point, 8x9, 8x10, 9x9, 9x10? Which of the two have
higher piece value and better winning chances on those intermediate sizes,
other things being equal? // Now the upcoming decade of the teens, after
these aughts, will probably not see us get so sophisticated as Barton's:
(Z) ''By how many seconds a year does proper time in Singapore drop
behind a hypothetical reference clock fixed relative to but far away from
the sun, (a) due to the orbital motion of the earth; (b) due to its
orbital motion jointly with its rotation? (Orbital speed is u = 3 x 10^4 m/s, and
the speed of rotation at equator is u' = 460 m/s. Pretend that the axis
of rotation is perpendicular to the orbital plane.)''

What is a chess piece but a vector anyway? We want CV problems of the
calibre of good Physics questions, like ''(W) A seagull sits on the
ground. Wind-velocity is v. How high can the gull rise without doing any
work? (X) A siren is fixed at the origin. Wind is blowing at w = 100 km/h
from north. Determine (i) the group speed and (ii) the phase speed of
sound going north, south, and east. (Y) Neutral pi-mesons (mass m) in
flight at speed cB (with respect to laboratory) decay into two photons.
Calculate the energy of the photons emitted at a given angle to the flight
path.'' --all from Gabriel Barton 'Relativity Principle' (1999). For
Chess we can devise rough counterparts. (1) A Falcon sits on the board
centrally. How many moves are possible without re-crossing any of its paths
on 8x8? 8x10? (2) A Springer(N) is fixed at an opening position. How many
moves are maximally possible without crossing any of its paths on 8x8?
8x10? 10x10? [N.b.: these are not classic Tours, which permit
route-crossing.] (3) more Problems in follow-up

There are 10^32 or so configurations of Chess pieces on 8x8. Tom Standage
writes ''Computers are unquestionably the modern descendants of
automata: they are 'self-moving machines' in the sense that they blindly
follow a preordained series of instructions, but rather than moving
physical parts, computers move information. Just like automata before
them, computers operate at intersection between science, commerce and
entertainment.'' We are comparing automata from 17th, 18th and 19th centuries --
''The Conflagration of Moscow,'' ''The Slack-Rope Dancers,'' Chess
player ''The Turk'' -- with modern computers. In 1937 Alan Turing
published ''On Computable Numbers.'' ''The chess machine is an
ideal one to start with for several reasons. The problem is sharply
defined, both in the allowed operations and ultimate goal. It is neither
so simple as to be trivial or too difficult for satisfactory solution. And
such a machine could be pitted against human opponent, giving clear measure
of the machine's ability in this kind of reasoning,'' writes Claude
Shannon in 1950 ''A Chess-playing Machine.''  All of Turing, John von
Neumann, and Oskar Morgenstein  were also thinking before, during, and
after World War II  about the possibility of programming computers to
play chess. [Source: Tom Standage 'The Turk' 2002]

One thing that makes chess easier to program for is the standard opening.
With a standard setup, there becomes the possibility of opening book,
which severely limits the search space of the computer. 

Go starts with the most options and the game simplifies as it approaches
the end. In fact computer can play near flawless Go, if starting from near
end of mid-games, yet starting from the first move, computers can only
reach low amature dan level.

Arimaa is hard bacause of high branching factor by employing multiple
moves and weak pieces.

Shogi is relatively hard because of the drop rule which increases
branching factor as well.

Machines beat human beings at things such as speed and power.  I don't see
it as a problem if an AI can beat humans at Ortho-Chess.  What DOES matter
in this area is that Chess doesn't get so optimized in its play that it
leads to excessive amounts of draws, and failure of players to creatively
beat their opponents, limiting the drama.  Also, if a game is feeling
overly played out, it begins to lose the community it is supposed to
serve.  If people raise up the game as some sort of infalliable god, and
refuse to look at how it can better serve, then the game has a problem.

Gary Kasparov in promotion for his 1990's Computer matches repeatedly
represents himself as ''mankind's last stand'' against Computer. Then
he lost to Deep Blue in 1996 and claimed there was at least one move that
was not recognizable ''computer move,'' whatever that means. I think
''Chess Variants'' biggest problems are twofold, one the same Computer
dominance problem of OrthoChess. There must be solution for it, or all
these games will continue obvious decline.  Problem Two, the other one
is the quality problem, how to determine good games. Who decides? I have
said within game conversations to different individuals over years, there
are ''prolificists'' (having more than 15 CVs) whose every CV I
personally would be ashamed to put my byline on, had they been my own idea
or ''invention.'' Yet these games keep pouring out and get published. And the
more self-promotion, or outspokenness, the more attention for many, many
atrocious CVs.  There is serious divide between two opposing camps, not
explainable away by debating points. Embarassingly, there is frequently not even common language for evaluation. One prolificist recently indicates complete ignorance of the difference between compound piece and multi-path piece -- concepts at opposite poles from each other. Same problem of prolificism blends into the sheer number of ''inventable'' creations possible, no one really addresses. The Betza Piece Values VI article, recently commented, suggests so many quadrillion -- get that 10^15 and more theoretically workable -- separate pieces, by commenter Levi Aho's
calculation, not to mention games-rules' sets. Somehow those without
stake in own inventions must start winnowing some categories, and
maybe some actual Rules-sets would emerge. Lately Hutnik indicates some intention of the sort, but on side touts Calvinball with ever-changing infinity of Rules-sets.

On [2008-06-04] Joe Joyce wrote:

I lose to Zillions because I tend to attempt to match its speed. While I am beginning to look at 2 possible initial moves, it's already 11 plies down. I'd like a game where a 2 minutes per move time limit was an equal handicap to both me and the computer.

According to the quote in my previous comment, the [Strength] bar in Zillions appears to tick off search depths from 1 ply to 11 ply. Setting this feature at, say, 5 ply should cut Zillions down a lot (5 ply = three moves for the computer and two moves for its opponent).

Back in the Big-board CV:s thread, I also had trouble when clicking on Next 25 item(s). I figured out how to make links like these: skipfirst=25, skipfirst=50. Here is a little known computer trick:

Zillions of Games Discussion Boards

Desired Features for Zillions of Games

Jeff Mallett (Jeffm) Posted on Tuesday, April 24, 2001 - 6:21 pm:

>...would it be simple to have an option to search 
>to a fixed depth (and then apply quiescence or 
>whatever search extensions ZoG usually uses) 
 
You can do this now. Go to the Computer Opponent dialog and... 
* Set the search time to infinite 
* Set the variety to none 
* Set the strength according to the fixed depth you want 
(the minimum setting is a depth of 1). 
 
This will allow you to compare as you want. 

Actually computers are far more sophisticated than merely 'adding
machines'. IN fact the computer algorithms that play chess are not brute
force. The brute force ones are the ones all GMs and Ims can easily
defeat.  
Computers see many strategical advantages such as doubled pawns, isolated
pawns etc _ these are all built in - Computers will choose moves based on
above IF there are no branches that will give them an even greater
advantage.
In fact computers make better decisions by valuing material over positions
 a bit more than humans . Humans tend to make more unsound sacrifices.
Computers don't do so (though they can be programmed to)

I think the problem with making a computer play these games is to develop
the algorithm which is a human endeavor. the computer is a machine that
can handle and process logic that we program. 
Once an algorithm is developed to prune the unnecessary branches for Go
and Arimaa then computers will easily dominate. Perhaps the problem with
these games is that there is not enough theory yet to develop a suitable
algorithm. 
What is been forgotten here are the brilliant programmers who contributed
to the current chess machines we see now. 
So no breakthrough in computer technology is needed at all, just more
human minds translating the strategy/tactics needed to win into
programming.  

Pattern recognition is not a problem for computers but this is a vague
notion at best. Humans tend to go with a 'feel' for something. This
'feel' cannot be translated logically. The computer needs something more
tangible.  

I think winning patterns  can be programmed into Go, but the Masters must
be willing to GIVE UP THEIR secrets! 
Exactly how much literature is out there for Go and especially Arimaa ? 

I think Go is the next challenge of computer programmers. 

Arimaa is simply not popular enough to be taken seriously by computer 
programmers.

Basically, the computer in front of you is a complex adding machine. It doesn't think nor recognize patterns the way a human does. Yes, we've made the adding machines complex enough that they can do things like play music and movies, and even play Chess well. But we haven't been able to have it so computers can, for example, translate from one language to another without the translation being so bad it's just about not readable.

Nor have we been able to get a computer to play a game with a high branching factor, like Go or Arimaa well. Computers play Chess very differently from humans; they just look at all of the possible moves, using 'alpha-beta' pruning to determine which moves are and are not looking at. They don't recognize patterns; they just see possible future moves and how much material they have.

A computer needs to evaluate millions of possible positions to play as well as a human who only looks at dozens of possible positions. Computers aren't able to really see a given position to evaluate how good it is; they only play as well as we do because they basically brute force through just about every possible chess move so many moves down.

Games like Go and Arimaa are good because brute force just doesn't work with these games. In order to have a computer play these games well, we will have to make a true AI breakthrough. Which will probably have consequences far beyond just having a computer playing some abstract game really well.

Actually games can make good contribution to computer science in pushing it
to create a good theory of practical complexity. Currently there's only a
good theory of worst case complexity and a passable theory of complexity
of approximating within certain percent of best or worst case. But
practical complexity has to be estimated without really necessarily
knowing the worst case. 

The practical significance is with such a theory computers can have a better feel for strategy, instead of either only planning for the worst case, or using more or less blind (actually guided) search.

P.S. - Arimaa has a nice web-site devoted to it (even has an animated tutorial with music); and has World Championships for humans, and another World Championship for computers (thus encouraging programmers to create a winner). I can see where this game would be difficult to program, after all, do the human programmers even know what is the best strategy/tactic in a given position?

Anyway, time is on the side of the computers.

So, lots of pieces, large board to give those subtle gradations of
positional value, multi-move turns with a mechanism to spread each turn's
moves across the gameboard, scalable... what games are examples of this
[besides Gas Hogs ;-) ]? 

Go is, I believe, still an example of a game that humans play better than
computers. The weak spot in the idea that computers can play any game
better than humans, with the right algorithm, is the algorithm. I would
guess that idea is not proved, and suspect it may not be able to be proved
[Godel is the mystic name I invoke here, for the obvious reason]. But that
is speculation. What is, to the best of my knowledge, true, is that
computers don't play all games equally well now. [Otherwise, we wouldn't
need generals or CEOs, except on gameboards.] So, by providing
'difficult' games for computers, we may encourage better AIs in the
future. :-D 'Gaming has always driven computer design' is to a
considerable extent, a truism. So let's maybe help it along in a slightly
different way, by providing games that need new algorithms.

[Edit] I see Ji is ahead of me. One point he made I only thought of is the amount of time a computer needs to come up with a good move. I lose to Zillions because I tend to attempt to match its speed. While I am beginning to look at 2 possible initial moves, it's already 11 plies down. I'd like a game where a 2 minutes per move time limit was an equal handicap to both me and the computer.

Given enough time a well programmed computer will at least draw humans on
any finite game, that I certainly agree, but there still much utility in
creating games that at this point computers are woefully bad at. At this
moment at least computers think in many ways very differently than humans.
By throwing widely varying situations for computers to master, we develop a
fuller theory of cognition. I think humans should always strive to beat the
computer so as to improve both us and the computer. 

It took over a decade to solve checkers completely, humans are not over at
abstract games yet.

Assuming a computer is in good working order and that it has a program for
the game in question, then if it cannot play the game well, it is only
because it is lacking something in its code.  With refined codes near
optimization - the programs will defeat the humans.  If a human cannot
accept that, then he (or she) can simply play other humans to have a fair
brain-to-brain playing field.