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Poll number Approval Poll for Game Courier Tournament #3. Vote for which games you want in the third Game Courier tournament.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]In setting up this page, I have noticed that several of the new presets do not have descriptions. It would be good for whoever has made these new presets to add descriptions to them, so that people voting on games will have a better idea of what kinds of games are available.
Well, this is exciting. So the first poll is meant to narrow the number of games down for the second poll which will finalize the results. So how many will be culled from the first and how many from the second? I presume you can vote for as many as you want? But if I know the final numbers, it will better allow me to prioritize. I see you voted for app. 21.
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 will be culled from the first poll. It will depend on how many tie for 20th place and how many are in the next place above 20th. It will also depend on how many people vote. A large turnout could increase these figures. The number of games played in the tournament will mainly be a function of how many people enter. More participants will mean more games.
Okay, I added a dozen descriptions. I'll do the rest over the weekend.
[Update: I have now attempted to add descriptions to all indexed games in Game Courier that previously lacked them. If I've overlooked one or two, please let me know. - JGG]
Some of the links on this page to not go directly to the presets but to the index.
Hi, Fergus. I have a request. Gary Gifford has a few presets for his games that haven't been formally indexed because the presets haven't been formally submitted even though they've been around, most recently his Three Elephant Chess which he has been playing through Courier with Joe Joyce. I've obtained Gary's permission to submit them but haven't gotten around to it yet. I'd like to ask if I could submit them tomorrow and they could be added to this poll.
This would seem to be for preset pages that members have made through the new system David Howe set up. This page reads the URL field to get the URL to the preset page, but this does not appear to be the field that the URL is stored in for the member-created pages. David, how can I find the URL for a member-created page from the database?
Jeremy, Since this page just reads the database, any presets added to the site before it's over will be automatically added to the poll. I don't have to do anything extra to make this happen.
Okay, I figured out how to get the URL for member-created pages, and I fixed the problem with linking to them.
I don't understand why Amazon Grand Chess is still indexed as Grand Chess 2.
That's now fixed. I changed its name in the database.
I have a special proposal for this tournament.
I propose that Gary Gifford, since he won the last one, should be allowed to sit out as the 'reigning Chess Variants Champion' so to speak, and that this tournament be a qualifying tournament for the chance to play a 'Chess Variants Championship' match against Gary.
I suggest that the challenger (winner of this tournament) and the current champion (Gary Gifford) each select one variant and they play eight games of each, 4 with white and 4 with black. Of course, the compensatory point system shouldn't be used if one of them chooses a game like Balanced Marseillais which takes away the theoretical first move advantage of white. Most variants do not.
The 'Compensatory Point System'discussed here awards 4 points to a win for Black, 3 points for a win with White, 2 points for a draw with black and 1 point for a draw with white. Or perhaps a different point system for the drawing aspect than the one I mention here, such as zero points for a draw.
So what do people think about my idea?
No, this tournament will proceed as the previous two have. I doubt that Gary would want to sit out of this tournament, and if he does and wishes to play several rounds of the same game with the winner, that is their business. I will not structure the tournament around this idea.
Just want to generate a little bit of discussion on this. Looks like we've got some pretty good games with 4 votes or more. What games would you - anyone - like to see in a tournament the most? What would be your first choice? What would be your top three? Top five? Top ten? Just curious. Which game that currently has only 2 votes or less would you like to see the most? I'd like to see 'Sky' played.
Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Jun 15, 2006 12:32 AM UTC:Just a mention of a game I wanted to vote for but didn't see: Shatranj of Troy by Gary Gifford. I think it's worthy of being in a tournament. Any idea why it was left out? Were any more left out, deliberately or conceivably accidentally?
You don't mean Catapults of Troy with five votes so far? I voted for it. Add yours.
There is both a 'Shatranj of Troy' and a 'Catapults of Troy.'
'Shatranj of Troy' is not listed in the poll list, but has been around for a while. Joe is pretty darn good at it.
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Jun 15, 2006 01:36 AM UTC:Eric Greenwood's Archabbott Chess has just been added to the list of available games, so if you have already voted, please consider adding this one. I think it is a very good game. Since there are no rules listed, the arch-abbott is a Bishop + Wazir + Dababbah. And the Arrow-looking piece is a Cavalier, a pretty interesting peice. The Cavalier moves one square diagonally, and then slides orthogonally outward (like a Griffon in Grand Accatrix) OR slides orthogonally and then one square diagonally outward. It can never move to an adjacent square, and it has exactly two different paths to any square to which it can move. I will post more about other games later, but I am very pleased at the top vote-getters so far.
'Dimension X' was recently added to the poll. For players who wonder whether or not this game would be of interest to them, there is a chess problem (Dimension X problem) in the rules page [just before the 'Notes' Section]. I have not heard of anyone having solved the problem yet, and a co-worker told me 'It can not be solved!' Upon which I showed him the solution. There is one Dimension X log game in progress as well, should anyone want to see an opening in progress. Of interest is that each player can make 4 moves per turn. I hope you will give it a look and give the problem a try. Thanks. - gkg
Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Jun 15, 2006 04:58 AM UTC:Found Shatranj of Troy. It is mislabeled as Shatranj, and has 2 votes currently, as does the historic Shatranj. Please correct this; thanks. [I'd also like to point out that 'pretty darn good' means that Gary and I are 1 & 1 in our 2 games. ;-) Actually, against the reigning variants champion, that is pretty darn good.]
I've fixed the label for Shatranj of Troy. The game I would most like to see make it into this tournament is Storm the Ivory Tower. This is my synthesis of Smess and Chinese Chess. It borrows the board, pieces, and setup of Chinese Chess, adding arrows to each space of the board, and modifying the powers of the pieces to be affected by the arrows. It's an improvement on Smess, because it includes more types of pieces. And it is at least an interesting twist on Chinese Chess with much of the same appeal.
Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Jun 15, 2006 08:09 PM UTC:Thank you, Fergus, for fixing the label on Shatranj of Troy. I hope more will vote for it now. I admit to prejudice; I think this is a Gary Gifford gem. It takes the concept of openings to a whole new level. That overstuffed Trojan Horse piece feels like having a full candy dispenser in your pocket when you were a kid. [Now, for Jared. ;-) ] The tactical and strategic possibilities are immense. It's a definite chess-player's game. Another game I would like to see in the tournament is Jeremy Good's Royal Pawn Chess. That single change does amazing things to the game, and to my chess instincts at least. The Royal Pawn can literally eat itself to death: a series of sacrifices can force the RP across the board into the opposing army. Opening strategy is turned on its head; what you need is more of a Closing strategy, to wall off and protect the RP. Armies are very self-blocked, and players have to work through the flanks rather than coming up the middle. As for STIT, I didn't originally vote for it, but you convinced me to vote to include it [even though if given a choice I will avoid it, as I am not very good at Chinese Chess]. It's hard to argue with a good, established designer who says: 'This is good'. And I've enjoyed your games before, so... As for the 2 designs of mine that are currently [I think] in, they're the 2 best choices in my opinion. I lean toward the Dabbabah versions over the Rook versions as the games were always intended to be short range, but there are obviously people who prefer the rooks. [And saying this for real is a fantasy come true. Thanks to all the voters.] I assume the specific setup will be similar to last time, in that we will have a choice of games to play within the finalists; the goal being that all players have at least half their games in common. I thought that was excellent last time. Whatever, it's beginning to look interesting.
Storm the Ivory Tower has a pretty amuzing first paragraph description. A fun alternate second poll would be to select from those games that got zero votes. I would like to see a list of the zero vote games after this poll is over.
In regard to games with zero votes, there are still some out there that cannot get any votes because they aren't listed. I am aware of two of my own, which have presets. These are: Hexagonal Hole Chess - A bit complicated and tricky. Shatranj Darwinian - Pieces start out as Wazir, Ferz, and Nymph Horse (half Wazir/Half Ferz) and evolve at different points. For example Ferz to Elephant then later to Bishop. Wazir to War Machine (Dabbadah sp?)then later to Rook or Cannon; Nymph Horse to Horse. I only mention these games because of the comment about 'zero votes' ... and I imagine there are other games besides these two that simply cannot be voted on.
Shatranj of Troy and Dimension X look interesting. So I have added them to my votes. I have also added Grand Shogi. I would like to see the rules for ArchAbbott Chess posted before I consider it further.
If you want your presets to show up in the poll, make sure they are published as web pages and indexed as pbm pages. The presets listed in the poll are what's indexed in the database as pbm pages.
How do we make sure game presets are published as web pages? How do we index them as as pbm pages?
At the moment I am writing this, there are a slew of games caught at the five vote mark, just below what would appear to be a qualifying threshold (of course that threshold could change if many more games get six votes). Among those with five votes, one of the games I would most like to see added is Gifford's Time Travel Chess. It is a very fascinating game that I have heretofore played hideously, losing fairly quickly. This is a game that deserves to be played a lot more. I have a feeling that it has some exciting hidden dynamics that have yet to be exploited by anyone. I hope it will garner some more votes.
Another I'd like to see played is Voidrider Chess, a game I've always wanted to play. (I once sent out an invitation to play it but nobody accepted.) It seems like another very ingenious Fergus Duniho game.
Greg Strong wrote on Wed, Jun 21, 2006 04:24 PM UTC:I second the desire to see Voidrider included. It looks like a very interesting game.
Chess with Promoters is a game with five votes (at the time of this writing) that I enjoyed playing.
Two simple but interesting games that do not have presets are Blackjack Chess and Rotation Chess.
Adrian, do you have the ones you created for them? If so, please submit them and I'll polish them up a tad. I'd appreciate it. Since you already created them, I can't really re-create them with the same name (since the name shall already have been taken; unless you didn't 'save' them but only used the 'test' function.)
I would like to draw attention to Shatranji, which I just made a preset for. This is like Chessgi but played with Shatranj pieces. Some of you may remember the live Shatranji tournament we once conducted with Zillions of Games.
Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Jun 23, 2006 02:03 AM UTC:Yes, this looks like an interesting game. I don't like Chessgi because the pieces are too powerful and it leads to chaos far beyond my ability to tackle. This, however, looks far more reasonable. I have voted for its inclusion.
Thanks for voting for it. I created the game for the same considerations you mentioned. The Chess army is too powerful for a game with Shogi-style drops. It especially wreaks havok when a player can drop a Queen. I thought a game with Chessgi rules would work better with weaker pieces. I hope this game will appeal to fans of Chessgi and to people who have been dissatisfied with Chessgi.
Adrian, thank you.
I added the preset for Blackjack Chess with an illustration of a won game.Also added: The preset for Rotation Chess. People curious about how this works may look to the Logs for Rotation Chess to see how Adrian skilfully outmastered me during our brief game. I have suggested that Rotation Chess might be an example, a rather radical example of a game in which Black may have a way of offsetting White's presumed first move advantage.
We need a Preset for Connected Chess, and I encourage W.D.Troyka to add a Page for this excellent game. And for the votes, I´m a bit surprised by the fact that Omega Chess is ahead of Grand Chess, but it can happen. Some new games have merits for a higher votation, like Christine´s SKY, actually with 5 votes. Aaah, Christine: Congrats, In the FIFA World Cup Australia is in the last 16, the game against Croatia is one of the best I have seen in the cup, regardless the arbiter (with his help the result was 2-2, but Australia could win 4-2 with a correct arbitrage). Australia is a good team, much better than I have had suppose. The next time Australia is going to face...ITALY!. Cherry, I can´t say to you 'good luck' this time, sorry.
When last I checked, Sky had just three votes. Glad to see it moving up; I hope it continues.
It looks like 'Two Pipe Chess' is so nice, it's listed twice.
Well, I am rather fond of Two Pipe Chess. It is quite nice. But mea culpa, I created a second preset for it forgetting there already was one. I've deleted it now. Whooops!
Here are the modified results of this poll. I subtracted two votes for each previous email tournament a game has been in that was sponsored by this site. This only includes multivariant tournaments run by myself, Antoine Fourriere, or Glenn Overby. Since games with seven votes still numbered fewer than the voters, I also included games with six votes in the final results. Not counting Chaturanga, which as far as anyone knows is the same as Shatranj, there will be 35 games to rank in the upcoming poll. Since Falcon Chess and Falcon Chess 100 are both protected by the Falcon Chess patent, I will leave them out unless I receive permission from George Duke to include them in the tournament. That would leave 33 games to rank.
Crazyhouse 14 Omega Chess 15 - 2 Grand Shatranj 11 Dimension X 10 Time Travel Chess 10 Switching Chess 9 Falcon Chess 9 Templar Chess 9 Anti-King Chess II 11 - 2 Voidrider Chess 8 Great Shatranj 8 Sky 8 Cannons of Chesstonia 8 Catapults of Troy 8 Alice Chess 12 - 4 Janus Chess 7 Yáng Qí 7 Avalanche Chess 7 Storm the Ivory Tower 7 Mir Chess 7 Korean Chess 7 Shatranj of Troy 7 Pocket Mutation Chess 11 - 4 Capablanca's Chess 6 Capablanca Random Chess 6 Fusion Chess 6 Moderate Progressive Chess 6 Neutral King Chess 6 Falcon Chess 100 6 Shako 6 Shatranji 6 Modern Shatranj 6 Berolina Chess 6 Glinski's Hexagonal Chess 8 - 2 Rococo 10 - 4
The following games didn't make it, because they lost votes from being in previous tournaments.
Caïssa Britannia 7 - 2 Fischer Random Chess 7 - 2 Hostage Chess 7 - 2 Chess 7 - 2 Extinction Chess 9 - 4 Shogi 11 - 6 Ultima 6 - 2 Shatranj 6 - 2 Eurasian Chess 6 - 2 Chess with Different Armies 6 - 2 Marseillais Chess 6 - 2 Maxima 8 - 4 Grand Chess 9 - 6 Chinese Chess 8 - 6 Kamikaze Mortal Shogi 6 - 4
A lot more games made it into the second poll than you had suggested. Is that because more people voted than you had thought would? How many games do you anticipate being selected for the final set?
As I said in an earlier post, 'The number of games played in the tournament will mainly be a function of how many people enter. More participants will mean more games.' Since 26 people voted in the first poll, I'm anticipating the possibility that there will be around 26 participants.
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