Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Well, this is all speculation, so a bit pointless to argue about it. Fairy-Max is a weak engine, and in the mean time engines have emerged that beat it in Spartan Chess more than 95%. Fairy-Max would never discover what is the best opening line, as it has no memory of what it played in previous games, and its first few moves are drastically randomized, so it sometimes playes very poor moves (like 1.h2h4 in Mad Queen).

But that is not enough to neutralize the white advantage. In self-play Fairy-Max clearly favors white with about 53%. Apparently this is a very robust advantage, that is not really dependent on accurate play, provided black plays equally inaccurately. This is remarkable in itself. But there is no reason to assume that this would be completely different in an asymmetric game.

It could be that strategic insight on how to best build and attack Hoplite strictures could swing the advantage in either way, and that computers never would discover such things unless they are programmed in their evaluation. (Which requires them to become known first.) This is why I would like to see Spartan Chess be played seriously by Humans, for some time. But it is not easy to arrange that, and for now we will have to settle by having it played by 7 independently developed engines.

Anyway, it was not designed using human+computer analysis. 1300 games can establish that it is materially balanced, but Fairy Max won't be able to find the line that refutes the variant positionally or strategically. Imagine if Fairy Max would play standard chess without opening book. Would it find the lines that come close to refuting black? Will it play the strongest lines positionally and strategically, e.g., the long lines in Ruy Lopez, where Black's position is really challenged? The answer is *no*, not even after 100.000 games. So, those 1300 games lack theoretical value. The  analysis must be done by a human expert with the aid of a computer. 

It would be equally bad if either party could easily neutralize the other party's attempt to gain an initiative. Then it's strategically dead. If the variant holds up to scrutiny, i.e., if it's neither strategically dead, nor favours either partly clearly, then I will be truly surprised. 
/Mats

Concerning Spartan Chess
From the Author / Inventor

A computer was used. Over 1300 games were played on the version 1.09 and changes to the pieces were made between 1.08 and 1.09 to balance the game. H.G. Muller's modified his fairy chess engine to play Spartan Chess which has unusual rules with perhaps the most unusual the Spartan's having 2 Kings.

You might check his and other comments on the Spartan page and the Spartan thread in the general comments section concerning testing and balance.

We play it every week here in San Diego. If you can proved it not balanced please do. So I have a barrel of manure waiting :)

I downloaded your implementation of Spartan Chess, and it looks like great fun. But it is very unlikely that its author has actually managed to find an asymmetric variant that would hold up to the scrutiny of an opening theorist. I am willing to bet a full barrel of manure that either party can force a clear advantage from the opening position (probably Black). Obviously, the author didn't use a computer when creating this variant. It is hard enough to make it work in symmetric variants, but asymmetric variants demand much analysis before one can declare that it is a balanced game. I think asymmetric variants could work if the pieces are decidedly weaker, but with such powers on the board, either party is likely to get the upper hand, either in terms of strategical initiative, or a clear positional advantage. (On the other hand, chess variants don't need to be scientifically sound.)
/Mats

This is one of the reasons I liked Spartan Chess so much: the Spartan army implements this orthogonal / diagonal symmetry to a very large extent:

* There are both orthogonal and diagonal step 1 + jump 2 pieces (2 of each).
* There is a single orthogonal and a single diagonal slider, with some extra leaper moves.
* The King does both orthogonal and diagonal single steps.

In the original design the extra moves on the sliders were always Knight moves. The better-balanced version changed that to having R+K in stead of R+N, which reduces the symmetry a little. But I think it improves the game, as the R+N actually is a bit of an awkward piece.

In the post by Antoine Fourrière that George linked to, Antoine talks about the legitimacy of pieces, an issue I have not addressed on this page. There are two issues here. One is that some pieces seem strange and awkward. He complains in particular about Gold and Silver Generals, saying that they 'seem to have originated out of the blue from the brain of a drunk goblin.' The other issue is about including some pieces without including other pieces that seem equally legitimate, such as including the Cannon but not the Vao.

One of my principles is related to the first idea here: 'Favor pieces whose moves are easy to visualize, such as Knights and line riders.' Perhaps the Gold and Silver Generals seem less legitimate to Antoine because their moves are harder to visualize than a Rook or Bishop. Having adapted these two pieces to a hexagonal board, I understand these two pieces in a way that reveals them to be legitimate pieces. I understand the Gold General to be an enhanced Wazir and the Silver General to be an enhanced Ferz. Each is enhanced in the same way by gaining the ability to move in any forward direction. So, the Gold General can move one space orthogonally or one space forward, and the Silver General can move one space diagonally or one space forward. The enhancement to these pieces makes them more useful for attack than for defense, which follows my principle 'Make offense stronger than defense.'

The other idea is one I have followed in some of my games, and Antoine mentions one of them, Eurasian Chess, as an example. I think Eurasian Chess is an excellent game, and it benefits from including Vaos with Cannons. But I don't think as much of its predecessor, Yang Qi, which tried to improve on Xiang Qi by, among other things, including Vaos with Cannons. At the time I made Yang Qi, I didn't fully understand what made Xiang Qi a good game. Also, I have used Cannons in Grand Cavalier Chess without also using Vaos, and I haven't missed them. So I don't think it is always essential to include both the orthogonal and diagonal versions of a piece when you include one. Still, I can understand the intuition behind this idea. It makes a game easier to learn if the pieces come in orthogonal/diagonal pairs. I think this is one of the features that makes Gross Chess easier to learn despite its addition of six new pieces. It also makes a game appear more symmetrical and hence more beautiful. But despite having Rooks but no Bishops, Cannons but no Vaos, Ferzes but no Wazirs, and Elephants but no Dabbabahs, Xiang Qi remains a good game. But this could be because, as Antoine explains, 'Chinese Chess features an interesting opposition between (mainly) orthogonal attackers and diagonal defenders.' He then complains that 'Shako feels strange with its orthogonal Cannons and diagonal (Firz+Alfil)s known as Elephants but not the corresponding Vaos and (Wazir+Dabbabah)s.' I came to this site during the CV design contest that Shako was entered in, and in its favor I will say that it was my favorite game entered into that contest. But I will agree that Eurasian Chess is a better game for pairing Cannons with Vaos instead of Elephants. So, I won't say that pairing pieces in this way is a requirement of good game design, but I will agree that it can improve a game.

Is Chieftain Chess actually a chess variant?

Points against: Chief has no pawns, and no promotion. It is a multi-royal multi-move game, with a leadership rule, something that has never [almost never?] appeared in chess. In a sense, the game trades space for time. Modern chess is a game where one attacks a single position deep into time, planning several moves in advance. Chief is a game where attacks occur across space, not time. One cannot plan 4, 5, 6 moves into the future; this is impossible in Chief. The play of the game is such that people have called it a wargame, and not a chess game. Is it? Gerhard Josten would say no.
http://www.wishop.com/games/Chess/Chess%20a%20Living%20Fossil.pdf

Points for: Chief is an abstract strategy game, played entirely with chesspieces and chess rules. It was designed as a shatranj variant, being a [premature - posted 2 weeks before] Lemurian Shatranj variant. Differences from standard chess are minor. Movement is somewhat restricted, but movement restrictions are a common feature of many variants. Victory is by capture, not checkmate - again, minor, and sensible with multiple royal pieces. The key argument against, I think, is that it has no pawns. This does not happen in historic variants. They all have pawns, of some sort, although Eastern pawns and Western pawns are different animals. I would offer two things: first, that on such a large board, promotion is unlikely, and losing the opportunity is not really detrimental. Actually, if a player could get a guard to the last enemy rank for a possible promotion, that player would very likely already have a won game. 

But the basis of my argument here is that pawns are not necessary for an ahistorical chess variant. To bolster this position, let me reference the CVwiki: 
http://chessvariants.wikidot.com/chess-variants
As this post is long enough, I'll end here.

My original reason for this post was not to talk about George, but rather pawns, and their place in chess. However, as junior man, I ask that we, the editors, reconsider a permanent ban on George in 6 months. Heaven knows [and the comments show] that in my 6 years here, George has gone after me more than anyone else. Clearly, though, the long history between George and Fergus has been worse. The reason for the decision is obvious. And the reason for reconsidering it is not. To explain my position, I'll have to sidetrack a little. 

In the past several months, I've been posting on Yahoo!Answers, in the global warming section. I have seen trolls. George is a puppy. Fergus has characterized him correctly as a troll, but he is a very minor one compared to what you run into outside this website. And he has a deep and abiding interest in chess, variants, and history. He has made contributions in the past, and is capable of making them in the future. For these  [and other] reasons, I ask that we reconsider in 6 months. And now to chess.

I've been reading almost every post on this site for about eight years now except for a couple of brief gaps. While I must say that while George Duke has never angered me, nor have I found him particularly disruptive, I must agree 100% that many, many of his posts are completely without meaning. In the beginning, I figured that, given their complexity, they had some valuable insight if only I could untangle the riddle. So I read, reread, and re-re-read, and eventually was forced to conclude that there was, in fact, no real meaning at all.

I appologize if I'm butting in, but since I did put a significant amount of effort into interpreting his posts once upon a time, I feel like it's worthwhile to mention that I came up dry...

While there is no detailed policy governing the editorial standards of this discussion board / commenting system, I'd like to remind everyone that we should try to be respectful and polite, even when disagreeing. It is easy to take criticism the wrong way, especially if it is couched in a somewhat condescending tone. We should also avoid the use of derogatory terms in our postings.

We have a lot of great postings and discussions. Let's try keep it polite and respectful.

Thanks!

George Duke blathered:

Typically Fergus has a difficulty with literalism, common to programmer or too much programming. 'This' means Antoine has his own very different design philosophy in the old comment. The point is to read and really get into Fourriere's comment first, ''to compare and contrast'' with the quite different nice original, idiosyncratic take of the Duniho article. Arguably polar opposites, one should say instead.

Typically George has a difficulty with expressing himself, common to untalented posers who like to fancy themselves as poets, because there is no objective standard by which to judge whether someone is a good poet, allowing them to hide behind the notion that others just don't understand them. I don't have a problem with literal expressions, something George Duke seems rather averse to. Not only does he try to reverse the meaning of what he originally said here, but most of his posts are incoherent rambling. Since you clearly don't understand the meaning of the word literal, George, here is a little tutorial on What it means when you say 'literally'.

Antoine Fourriere had this design philosophy one year before Duniho's article here in 2005, to compare and contrast: http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=5623.
/// Later, obviously ''this'' refers only to the long Fourriere comment.

90-space Xiangqi versus/and 64-space regular f.i.d.e.: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3492. Rene Gralla writes in Chess Variant Page about Kramnik at Makruk, Kasparov at Shogi, and generally Thai Chess.

Shi Ji, I question your judgment. Former women Fide-chess World Champion Xie Jun says that she prefers Xiang Qi before Fide-chess. It is more fun and not at all as tedious.
/Mats

Mats,
I don't know which is more drawish, chess or Xiang Qi. But Xiang Qi is
really too drawish for professional players. For inexperienced players it
often comes to a checkmate. The situation like Kasparov v.s. Anand 1995 PCA
also occurs in Chinese Professional League of Xiang Qi. Professional
players are making rules to punish negtive draws.
I've read the article you mentioned. Too much imagination there.

In fact Xiang Qi is too drawish. A Chinese professional player can easily
force a draw playing Red (White). A few years ago The Chinese Xiang Qi
Assosiation (I don't know what exactly the name is in English, just that
kind of organization) even made a controversial rule that a draw equals to
a win of Black. Xiang Qi has too many defending pieces and too much
restrictions on offencing pieces, that's why too many draws.
When I was a child, my grandpa told me that the purpose of Xiang Qi is to
checkmate the opponent not maintain valued pieces. Sacrifices are very
common in Xiang Qi for two reasons:
a)Though the board is larger, it's hard to develop valued pieces in Xiang
Qi. So sacrifices happen to exchange for partial advantages on one side
(left or right) of the board.
b)Players of Xiang Qi like to achieve winning of continuos mates (as VCFs
in Renju). Sacrifices happen when a player can see clearly a win after many
continuos mates.

In the Mad Queen variant, the player is able to gain or recover pieces through promotion of the Pawn.

In Shogi, not only do many of the pieces promote but the player also gains an opponent's material through capture.

In XiangQi, except for the increase in power of the Soldier there are no promotions. What you see is what you get.

Like most Westerns I was first introduced to the Mad Queen variant. During military service, I came into contact with and played Shogi and XiangQi. There was always other players of the Mad Queen but those of Shogi and XiangQi were rare. That was until common access to the internet(I actually played a text-based game of Mad Queen across the fledgling internet at a technology exposition in Houston when I was a Boy Scout).

I enjoy all three games very much, and have real-world sets of each.

OK, so you mean it is a more tactical game.

I remember now the posting about NeuChess was actually on the Rybka forum. 
( http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?pid=64961 )


The game tree of Xiangqi is supposed to be larger than that of Chess.