Comments/Ratings for a Single Item
As I commented before, I like the idea of a variant that has many different possible permutations.
It is the lack of rules not their addition that increases the variety of opening positions. A quick look at sit-tu-yin would suffice. Other than pawns, the other pieces has no fixed starting points and can be placed anywhere. I generally like chess variants that has free placements at the start. Anything that obliterate openings while at the same time decrease number of rules is alright by me. This page seems to address something different entirely, that of number of variants given a set of mutators, a term explicated and promoted by João Pedro Neto. Each of the 'rules' is actually a mutator. It is no surprise the number of variants one can create by stacking mutators together. What is missing here is an over-riding theme. By theme I mean a organizing principal, not the story that the variant tell. Without a theme to guide the relationship of the mutators, we just have the mutators themselves, which though interesting seem haphazardly grouped together.
This system makes possible game of: 10x10 Charging Rook, Reflecting Bishop, Ultima Pawn, Restricted Queen, Double Move, Knight Immobilizer, Falcon Promoter, Strict Triangulation, Bishop Warp Point, Cylindrical Knight, Switching, Double Black Hole, Alfil Jack, Bishop and Knight Altair Jumping, Falcon, Bishop and Knight Dropping Falcon Chess
'1a2a3e4a5b6a7a8a9a10a11a12a12a13a14a15a16a17a18a19a20a' represents in our system on size 8x10, out of *91.5 Trillion* possible chess variates of Falcon, the one Gary Gifford is calling this week under his Preset 'Latrunculi duo milia et septum' on 8x8. On 8x8 it works without any extra Falcon piece, but the same enhanced Bishop and Rook. I.e., we use here the Crowned Rook (R+Ferz) and Crowned Bishop(Bishop+Wazir) with Falcon, so there is that difference. Yet Gifford says self-righteously in Comment below respecting some conceit of 'quantity and quality' that 'I am not impressed about out ability to greatly increase the number just for the sake of doing so'. We imagine then that Gifford has some technique to single out R-Ferz and B-Wazir on 8x8 as particularly of high quality, suitably screened for display separately. Instead, we represent that one single CV along with the other 91,499,999,999,999 without discrimination. On 8x8 board, what about the other trillion that can easily be derived the same way as here in '91.5 Trillion'? Just prefix [88] to represent that size, eliminate Rule Number 6 about Falcon alternatives, and somewhere on the order of 1 to 10 Trillion easily remain systematically described unambiguously with little effort. Well, clearly 100, or even as many as 500, of them are already enunciated by others within CVPage, DPritchard's ECV or elsewhere, so how easy to add one, two, three (uncreatively or self-servingly) from such still-very-extensive available sample.
It's true that it's easy to offer a write-up of a game or games that can easily be permuted to produce 'zillions' of games. My 4th post, Two Large Shatranj Variants, is the biggest lie I've ever told. There are 2 board sizes, an 8x10 and a 10x10, and I offer a range of possibilities that extends into the zillions, with alternate pieces for each type of piece, alternate placements of pieces in the standard setups, a number of different promotion rules, and, with Atlantean Barroom, a new approach to 10x10 board setups that produced a new setup for Paulovit's 10x10 game. From that I've drawn 3 games, Great, Grand, and Barroom Shatranj. I think most of the other games would be poor, with an inappropriate mix of pieces. I consider 'Too Large' a game system, not a game, with a total of 3 current games [+ 2 variants using rooks] as its representatives. Only 3. Not zillions. As far as Gary's game, with the RF and the BW, well, even though I am not a fan of the approach of making FIDE more powerful by adding shortrange moves to infinite sliders, it is obvious that I am in a very small minority. The chess world obviously prefers augmenting the current power pieces somewhat to actually replacing any of the current pieces. That being the case, there are only 3 good solutions currently that I've seen: Gary's, adding the 'sidestep' to the B&R; yours, adding the moa and mao to the B&R; and Carrera's, adding the N to the B&R. Only 3. [And not excellent, but that's me.] [EDIT] When I posted this, I saw George had made another comment. Okay, I'd like more of a write-up from Gary, too, but it's been my experience that people don't like all that written stuff getting in the way of the game. I got complaints about my verbosity, and suggestions were made that any little stories I might want to add could be put in the back where they're very easily ignored. After Too Large and Atlantean Barroom, what do you think I'd wanted to write for Lemurian Shatranj? Look at the page: it's a bare-bones minimal piece and rules description with no background or flavor aside from the name, which is effectively meaningless without the background.
Hi, George. While I'm not up on my math, I think the numbers of chess variants are limited. Instead of building up from the bottom, taking games like Falcon Chess and showing how each variant can be modified in all sorts of ways, giving zillions of games, let's look at it the other way, from the outside rather than the inside, so to speak. What are the hard limits of chess? There are 3 components to a game, the board, the pieces, and the rules. Board size: it can't get much smaller than 1 or 2 squares, nor can a game of chess go much larger than a 100x100 2D board. Even the 'infinite board' variants really don't need more than maybe 1000x1000, and realistically, can be pretty much played out on 100x100 without too much trouble. Let's take 100x100 as our top size, then, for a board; 10,000 squares should be enough room for most games of chess. And we can deal with the rest later, should that be necessary. Numbers of pieces: If you assume 50% board coverage, then 5000 pieces is about the maximum number you'd want on the board. That seems a bit much for me. Without some tricky movement rules, I've found that 100 pieces per side is a bit much. And without some tricky piece design, 25 different pieces per side is also a bit much. Even if you go with 1000 pieces per side, and 100 different pieces [a team chess game if I ever saw one], that's still a number we're familiar with. And running all the permutations through just gives you a very big number. And only potential, not actual, games. Rules: here's where we get crazy. This is where we think all the infinities come in. And we all too often design game systems instead of games, adding to the mess. And what else we often do is mistake the potentialities of the system for the actualities of games. The map is not the territory. Further, while we're into the gadjillions of potential games through permutations, all these games still, in principle, are countable - we're doing it ourselves as we go along. So let's say that the total number of permutations to any starting game is [on the order of] one bazillion, with the specific value of bazillion to be determined [by actual count] in the future. Number of chess variants: Currently, there's about 1000 - 10,000 CVs, giving somewhere between 1 and 10,000 bazillion known total potential CVs. Since they're made by people, one way to look at it is that unless there are people and chess forever, the number of variants cannot be infinite. Current theories of the universe favor the less than infinite position. How many ways can a piece move? On a board of 1 - 10,000 squares, how many different ways can a piece move? ... ... ... Now, dump the really stupid ways. Does that add up to infinite? [Even putting the really stupid ways back in doesn't; heck, people with computers'll play and do darn near anything. And, judging by the spam I get, they think I will, too!] How many different boards are there? Well, this has gotta be a very big number, but it has to contain between 1 and 10,000 or so squares that have to be connected in some sorts of ways for the pieces to interact. If you dump the turkeys, it becomes a somewhat manageable number, at least conceptually. Each new game is going to add either a new bazillion to the total number of CVs, or is going to increase the size of a bazillion for all the other games [at least; truly innovative games may do both, more than once]; in either case, it's countable. Chess occupies a limited area in 'game space', that conceptual area where all games are found and [somehow] categorized. And it is a game of discrete parts, digital in nature rather than analog. Pieces and board positions come in units: in chess, the number of squares on the board is set in the rules [even if the rules allow changes, these are determined by the rules] and the number of pieces on the board is there for all to see [and count]. Changes in this number of pieces are again determined by the rules and the actions of the players as allowed by the rules. But all changes are in discrete units, going up or down some whole number, of the limited number of pieces or squares we can have in a game that can be called 'chess'. Given that humans play these games, either on boards or on computers, I think a case has been made for a very large but countable number of realizeable games. And even playable games. And given the limitations of humans [and you can interpret that broadly to include until-now hypothetical intelligences if you wish], I think it's more reasonable to assume there is a limit to the number of decent chess variants, and, by extension, all chess variants. And while the former number may well be a question of taste, the latter number is easily seen even without calculation to be a number far huger than the total number of chess games ever played or, most likely, to be played. So, the number of variants is effectively, if far from actually, infinite, but most of the best pickings are near the top. While many weird and complex games may gain great stature in the future, I think that the percentage of 'hits' will be higher in the smaller and simpler games, and spread out in the larger number of more complex games in a pattern much like that of prime numbers. Enjoy, Joe
George, I've been enjoying your leg-pulling for quite a while now. Enjoy, Joe ;-)
George Duke, who is 'we'? Why do you repeatedly refer to yourself in the first person plural?? Delusions of grandeur???
Hi, George. Might I point out that Avogadro's Number, currently measured at 6.022 141 99 x 10^23 per mol, is the gram molecular/atomic weight of a substance; for hydrogen gas, 2 atoms of hydrogen, each containing 1 proton and 1 electron, combine to form a molecule with a molecular weight of 2, so Avogadro's Number [A] of hydrogen atoms weighs 1 gram, and of hydrogen molecules weighs 2 grams. Flesh is mostly water, molecular weight 18. The number A [6.02x10^23] is almost 3 orders of magnitude larger than the current total number of your games, 'approaching 10^21', or, to consider this another way, it would represent about 30 milligrams of actual flesh. I won't be crass and point out this ain't exactly an elephant, but it is true you have about 5 orders of magnitude to go before your 'game mass' is visible at ranges longer than 'up close'. You're going to need more mutators; have you used 'fluid' and 'facing' yet? ;-) There are, however, some serious questions raised here, at least by implication. By the use of the numbers 'bazillion' and 'gadjillion', I was trying to indicate 2 very huge numbers that were noticeably different sizes. And I would like to examine the concept behind the bazillion number. Bazillion is the total number of games you will get, starting with Falcon, and ending with however many games that one game multiplies out to when *all* the mutators are applied. Does the number 'One Bazillion [derived from Falcon]' games include every other possible CV, some but not all CVs, or few to no other CVs? Are there games that fall outside the 'permutatability' of any, or some, or every other game, or do mutators rule supreme? What *are* mutators? Are they a specific class of things, limited in their applications, or are they another name for 'rules'? Enjoy, Joe
See this page for a description of what a 'mutator' is.
RN30 Reduction, similarity to Lavieri's Reducer in Altair etc. 9.82473769 x 10^22 CVs (approx. 98 sextillion). (a) no effect (b) Pawns 'reduce', so that any piece adjacent to enemy Pawn can move/capture one square only. 'Reduced' B, R, Q go one square only along their regular paths, whereas Knight thus reduced becomes Wazir + Ferz and Falcon becomes Squirrel(N+Dabbabah+Alfil) all leaping components with no two-path necessary. (c) 30b Pawn reduction does not extend to Falcons. (d) 30b Pawn's reducing ability covers only Knights and Falcons. (e) 30b Pawns reduce only if on dark-square half of board. (f) 30b Pawns reduce (all enemy others adjacent) only once having crossed the center line. (g) 30b Pawns reduce only by lateral or forward one-square adjacencies. (h) 30b Pawns reducing (not isolated) next to last rank, one step from promotion, are themselves immune to capture at all. In tribute to the size range we pass through currently> Elephants and Sunflowers: long stems; Camels and Peanuts: humps.
http://jupiterscientific.org/review/shnecal.html
It seems that each of us here likely have atoms that were once in each other. Adios
RN219 Northern Exposure [after 'Northern Exposure *TM*, see Disclaimer] (a) no effect (b) Joel Fleischman is misfit M.D., transplant from Flushing and Columbia, so Bishops move is normal, except last step requires one final step orthogonal 45 degrees right or left, as in half of Rennaissance Chess Cavalier pattern. (c) Maggie O'Connor the flyer is Falcon, altered to jump one only at option along pattern, not capturing the one jumped. (d) Ed Chigliak is Pawn (see also 'n') and Native Pawns mimic at option the nearest same-side piece's method, provided no friendly Pawn as close or closer. (e) Knight Chris Stevens at options retracts last move and moves from either square-location as bona fide present move. (f) Maurice Minnifield astranaut-King may jettison any check by 'invoking authority', meaning any friendly Pawn, protected by Pawn, may upon any check, interpose to any square thwarting said Check, in lieu of other move. (g) Holling Vincoeur Rook, being French, operates from a pedestal. Rook cannot reach adjacent squares, but starts at Dabbabah square and moves onward. Additionally no castling, but anytime once-per-game switch(exchange of places) of King and Rook, provided King unchecked, regardless other disposition of pieces or prior movements. (h) Shelly Tambo Queen Northern Lights goes as Queen only up to 4 squares, jumping one permitted, as Falcon in 'c', with no permitted capturing the (first) unit overtaken. (i) b,c,d,e,f,g,h (j) 'i' with 'f' any protected piece also (k) 'j' with 'h' 5 squares (l) 'j' with 'c' up to two (m) 'k','l' (n) 'i' except 'e' has right-side Pawns(Marilyn Whirlwind) empowered with all-orthogonal-direction capture (no diagonal at all) only (o) j,n (p) k,n. Cumulative 2.64856 x 10^49 CVs crosswise allowing up to 32 Mutators activated. [The above one-paragraph chess quasi-parody, and self-parody, in yet serious untheatrical exposition, respecting copyright of USA television series 1990-1995, intends no commercial use or other publication whatsoever.]
The next challenge, get this up to be infinite. You could also go with drops and gating that even add more pieces to it, and change when they come in, and create a reserve. One could also go with the idea of mutators that enter the game at different times. Did we even begin to discuss the board that it could be played on? We could even vary the boards here. So, he idea is mutators, shuffle, drops and gating, different pieces, etc... to end up with a different game. So, what else can be added to make it infinite? I believe to have this, is that ONE element that is infinite get added to the mix. This should be a practical element that can be implemented. May I suggest people also take this discussion to the Chess of Tomorrow project Wiki discussion to discuss going infinite? http://chessvariants.wikidot.com/forum/t-51667/chess-of-tomorrow-project-who-is-interested This would fit under the Calvinball/Hericlitian Chess idea that it is possible for humanity, given endless time, to never play chess with the same rules twice.
Hey, let's also go with an 8x8 board, a 8x9 and an 8x10 board. Shoot, you could also go all the way up to 8x14 or 8x16, giving the starting positions a larger back row space (as is seen in Skirmish Chess and Near Chess). You could also push the pieces forward or back more.
We have made our serious whack at proliferation, and one legitimate CV, in combination, per atom within the inner Solar System has been no small task. Moreover, we are doing it with respect by not taxing people in over-length or every separate write-up per humble idea. They are all right here. This is purely organizational reference for upcoming Mutators, ours so far having been: 11> Immobilizer 12> Promoter 13> Triangular Transference 14> Warp Points 15> Cylindrical 16> Switching 17> Black Hole 18> Jack 19> Altair ranks 20> Selective Drop 21> Arrays 22> Capture & Drop 23> WandI 24> WandII 25> Selective Inverse Capture 26> Selective Immobilization 27> Philosopher's 28> Coordination 29> Hegemony 30> Reduction 31> Acid-Base 32> Strong Acid-Base; RN201> Fixed Pawns 202> Passed Pawns; RN301> Sizing; 203> Flying Dutchman 204> Relinquishment 205> Kick the Can 206> Pawn Islands 207> Hobbler 208> Blue Queen 209> Green Light 210> Hard-Boiled Eggs 211> Localization 212> Wolf & Shepherd 213> The Sea Is Rough 214> Hot Potato 215> British Bulldog 216> Sinkhole 217> Dual Capture 218> Mutual Annihilation 219> Northern Exposure[TM] 220> Northern Exposure(Pawns) /// Intended Mutators are more Northern Exposures and ''Nuclear Particle Physics'' as ongoing theme.
For track 1, I lean toward the 10x10. Hadn't considered the 9x10 size; it could give some interesting games. Again, here I'd be inclined to put the pawns on the 3rd rank, and make them only 1-steppers. But then the pawns could not meet in the middle on turn 1. This alone may disqualify any such game from serious consideration. So we're left with 8x10 and 10x10, both of which can easily and naturally give 4 squares between pawn rows, maintaining a key aspect of western pawn formations, as well as the little wrinkles of the double first step and en passant. This should keep the orthodox players happy. For a serious first pass at 'the next chess', I strongly suggest grabbing an old idea, and dropping the standard 8x8 setup in the middle of a 10x10 board. By the way, understand I don't believe there is such a thing as the next chess, but the concept of a game sufficiently like chess to grab the attention, and playing time, of FIDE players is a truly excellent design challenge. Back to the 8x8 setup on the 10x10 board. Here we have the basic design of chess and Christian Freeling's Grand Chess. Now the important question becomes: what minimalist changes can we do to this setup to create a game that appeals to a wide range of chessplayers? Break the question into steps. Do we add 2 pawns to cover the front? What pieces might we slide back to the last row? Then maybe we might look at new pieces, as it doesn't feel right to increase the number of any particular piece, unlike with pawns, where adding 2 is not only natural but obvious. What sorts of piece[s]? Since there are no more simple infinite sliders, it's going to be either a complex infinite slider, or shortrange pieces. Here, my personal preference says shortrange.
For track 2, since it is for fun, and not for serious chess replacement games, I'd like to add another board size/shape, the 16x12, 16 squares wide, and 12 deep. At 176 squares, this is 3 standard boards in area. I've found that reducing the starting piece density [from FIDE's 50%] helps manageability and playability. A 33% density to start gives 32 pieces & pawns/side, noticeably easier to deal with than 50%'s 48 pieces/side. At this size, I also advocate multi-move turns to speed things up. This combination of larger board and several moves/turn allows a whole range of new games - just where they'd fit in the 91.5 trillion, I don't know. ;-) But it's a convenient size to try out new effects. And now, I bid you good night [and probably should have before I wrote this]. Enjoy.
Joe, In Pick the Piece Big Chess, I started out with this premise. And taking it one step forward - Chess players will probably like a 'natural' start position, not one with the pieces in the middle of the board. Thus you have two empty slots in the wings after you fill in the holes with pawns. Further design considerations: Bigger board weakens the knights and the pawns. Stepping knights seem an interesting solution. Dropping extra pawns (stronger pawns) help with the pawns as well. Net result - similar to chess but still different. The lesson from 80 square chess variants applies - change one parameter and the game is radically different. The only possible 'next' chess is something like Fischer Random or perhaps just an alternate setup - something like Displacement Chess, and even these are doubtful - we are talking the next 100+ years or so. Trying to 'convert' chess players to this new variant reminds me of Communism -- it will only work under a dictatorship in the end ...LOL. I mean, come on, we will all be long dead before Chess 'dies' - lets not get too obsessed with the 'next' chess since there is a good chance that this next chess never happens!
Charles, you're absolutely right about chess outlasting us, but the *concept* of a 'next chess' is fascinating, precisely because it cannot/will not occur. Is there a game sufficiently close to FIDE that chessplayers will play it? FRC/960, bughouse, blitz, shogi, Xiang Qi, all these get played by serious chessplayers. Is there a game that we could add to those? More than one game? Note that what you've got for 'different' games are: chess; chess; chess; Japanese chess; Chinese chess. There is one noticeable trend here. The first 3 games are the same game. The next 2 pose hope that 'the next chess' won't be something like this: Set up all pieces except queens. The black player gets his choice of queen, chancellor[minister], or archbishop. White then picks one of the remaining two. I believe this would give black a slight edge in games won. It's practically chess, only 1 piece different, and allows a bit of handicapping, too. [Heh, my guess is Betza did this already.] But what else is there that is chess, but different? That's the question I'm playing with, Charles. The 'next chess' bit is just an extreme way of asking the question. A related question: what is the 'half-life' of a chess game? In other words, how long before half of the various forms of chess played in the world get a significant rules change, new piece, different board... ?
Ten years ago this month went up 91.5 Trillion. Similar development could apply to any great CV: Great Shatranj, Mastodon, Eurasian, Schoolbook, Unicorn Great. That is, taking an original CV and multiplying the possible subvariants to billions and trillions by innocent changes rules and pieces.
Just using the first page of this article, let's get some of the 91 trillion from word association -- a new twist not tried before.
(1) Barack Obama Falcon Chess translates to 21313152131. The method is to lop the letters back to 1 to 5 sequence each time they reach five, so for example k equals 1(one) cyclically. The stoppage at five is because most of the first twelve rule numbers list five alternatives. One learns it makes better CV to have several 'A' that is '1', if possible, since that is the default, meaning no rule change the given category. In sum, Barack Obama Chess is common Falcon Chess on 9 deep 10 wide with fixed Castling, Rook as Betza's Short Rook up to 4, and Bishop as Bede (Bishop plus Dabbabah), and the rest of the pieces unchanged. However, RN10 as '3' makes this Progressive with White one move, then Black two, White three and so on.
(2) How about Aanca? That is 11431, and Aanca Falcon Chess is 8x10 Chess with Knight having added Wazir and Rook as Half-Duck. (No Aanca at all, think of it as 11431 only.)
(3) Arimaa Falcon Chess among these 91.5 trillion possibilities is 134311, and that is the regular game on 8x10 with Rook Half-Duck again and fixed Castling and Queen promotion (the standard when A/1 is designated is promotion to only rnbf).
(4) Syzygy? 412121, and that adds to standard Chess two things, Charging Rook having backwards as King and Bishop plus Wazir in place of the Bishops. All other rules the same.
Three errors have been corrected in games (1) to (4) of last comment.
(5) VLADIMIR PUTIN Falcon Chess? That is 22149393-11544, same as 22144343-11544. Vladimir Putin Chess is on 10x10 therefore, following each RN (Rule Number) of first two pages of article. Pawns move like Chaturanga one-step Pawns, but promote to any piece including Queen. Knight adds Wazir option, Falcon adds Ferz option. Bishop is Crooked Bishop or "Boy Scout," and Queen is medium up to five spaces only. The above is pretty clear game, but RNs 11, 12 and 13 add two new pieces and a board effect. King-one-stepping Immobilizer sits on Queen-front e2 with Pawn on e3. Promoter (see namesake CV) moves like Falcon and starts on King-front f2 with Pawn on f3. Finally any Pawn has triangular effect where own two pieces/pawn forming right angle at the Pawn transfer strictly their moves powers one to the other (the hypotenuse pair where 90 angle exists).
Well, Russia is complicated.
All other rules the same.
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