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Salmon P. Chess. Huge three-dimensional game celebrating 10 years chess variant pages. (10x(), Cells: 7500) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, May 7, 2005 02:36 PM UTC:Good ★★★★Wow is right. This game puts all other multi-dimentional games to shame! I have to admit I can't even wrap my mind around the rules, much less a game. But, what a game to admire, even if in a distant way. I reminds me of 'Magister Ludi'. What if someone created a musical instrument that played notes according to the moves made. One could then play by musical intuition rather than by brute calculation, which for this game proves completely inadequate -- at least for me.... The game is beautiful too in its sheer complexity, grandeur and geometry. As Greg says, I can't imagine AI that could play the game either, but someone might be able to program an instrument to play it. What a dream. The only reason I don't rate it excellent is because I can't imagine actually playing it, unless a dream came true.
I am atonished yet, my face has not recovered a natural expression, my mouth is still open and my eyes continue out of orbit, and I think I can´t give ratings. Makes some sense if I give a rating?.
Beautiful, complex geometries, notwithstanding, it is utterly unplayable even by modern supercomputers. Besides, only people can enjoy playing games.
I'm impressed! Definitely a mind-flip. And with ten players. Really cool. I'm looking forward to the first game. Let me know when.
My 'excellent' applies mostly to the presentation of this game. The illustrations, the writing, the very high intellectual look... all top rate. Unfortunately I presently do not understand enough about the game to comment on its specifics or on its playability. At first glance I thought that it was a work of sarcasm. And maybe it is... I just can't be sure. With a person's name like Salmon Chase I even thought perhaps we were being taken on a wild fish chase (up stream no less). But Salmon Portland Chase actually did exist. So, I find this work very intriging. Enough so that I imagine if Douglas Adams were still alive he may have been tempted to write, 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to Salmon P. Chess.'
Dale, May I suggest the following designation for a few of the un-named pieces. Hippogriff = 1,1,2 leaper Wyvern = 1,2,2 leaper These are the classic names for these two 3D Chess pieces. The first given by Kogbetliantz, although he eventually extended the leap of this piece in order to remove its being bound to a single diagonal pattern. The second was given by V. R. Parton.
Couldn't stop smiling. Reminds me of Archimedes cow puzzle. Quite brilliant. Even deserves to win!
Larger than Taikyoku Shogi!
This is /beyond/ excellent! Outstanding, incredible, and fun to contemplate. Ten stars!
I have a small observation. Shouldn't the diagonal(E) translation at the central rosette involve all the cells of similar color which touch edgewise on the level? This would correspond to the triagonal(C) translations to the next level. Which are indentical in a cubic field. The only restriction that I would give to diagonal(E) movement is that a piece must translate through opposing edges of the cell when crossing it.
Writing style makes very complex things clear & understandable!
Another observation: The orthogonal(F) translation around the central rosette involves passing through adjoining faces of the cells. Might slides only involve passing through the opposing faces of the cells? The orthogonal piece could still step around the center. It just might not be permitted to make such a continuous slide. Just as Fa1 is orthogonally(F) linked to Hh1, might not Fd1 be orthogonally to He1?
I don't know *what* I'm looking at! This is complicated! Coongratulations on a great Mind Bender.
This game is great! The number of piece types makes many interesting
maneuvers possible, a countless number of which just can not be reproduced
in
other games!
The honor of having this game named after me far exceeds having my picture on the ten-grand bill! My colleagues and I have been playing it, here in Heaven, and find it exhilarating in the extreme. Good show, Mr. Holmes!
I cannot help wondering how many of the 'excellent' ratings for this item by unregistered users are legitimate. Perhaps the open policy of this web site toward unregistered comments must regrettably change?
Derek, I'm not quite sure I see what you're getting at. Could you explain further what you mean by 'legitimate'?
I use the word 'legitimate' according to its standard dictionary definition and meaning.
I believe that what Mr. Nalls is getting at is that it almost seems that someone is trying to get SPC to do well in the contest by giving it lots of Excellents under different names. Admittedly, I had been wondering myself. I'm not pointing any fingers right now, but whoever it is seems to be getting a little silly. Dead men, after all, do not have internet access.
Greg Strong wrote on Fri, May 20, 2005 02:41 PM UTC:Yeah, I must reluctantly agree that it is probably a good idea to disallow unregistered users from making ratings. It probably does more harm than good to allow them to rate. Not only because of some occasionally spurious ratings (I actually think that this is extremely rare), but also because many ratings from unregistered users are just bad for the following reasons: (1) frequently they are from kids (or adults who can't write or explain themselves) and these opinions are generally not thought out at all. The members of this site all try to see the pros and cons in a game, and point out what is interesting and what is problematic. (2) A familiarity with (and an appreciation for) Chess Variants is critical when rating; a game is not 'poor' (at least by our description) because it is not Chess, or is not Shogi. (3) I have seen a couple of really, really rediculous reasons for rating games 'poor' although I can't think of an example off the top of my head. Such ratings are almost always from unregistered users. (4) Some ratings have nothing at all ... Just a 'poor' or an 'excellent' with no description, and sometimes they don't even bother to type in any name at all!
If someone is into games enough that they want to rate them, then in my opinion they should be a CV member anyway. P.S. Just for the record: I am one of many who finds Salmon P. Chess excellent, but I have previously submitted that comment.
I also agree with Smith's idea [recently unpublished] as an effective yet moderate solution. I wonder what the editors think of it?
Joe Joyce wrote on Fri, May 20, 2005 07:05 PM UTC:I think we're going a little overboard on the reactions to 'outsiders' ratings of this largest of variants. Mr/Ms Holmes is being, to be blunt, accused of cheating to get a good rating, by creating fictitious raters, or by enlisting family and friends to give excellent ratings. As to the first, I've seen some of the names before; one commented on a game of mine. As for the second, I admit I'm jealous; I can't get my family to even look at the site! Seriously, though, a number of members rated the game good or excellent, for an average member rating of excellent, so how much more can the rating be improved? Why should a contest judge who is effectively a professional chess variant designer be swayed by the opinions of people known or unknown to this site? Further, isn't it part of the purpose of this site to encourage more people to play chess in all its' variations? How is this accomplished by treating 'outsiders' as second-class citizens? Even accepting Mr. Smith's excellent and minimal change for the ratings promotes the concept of two tiers of people. I encourage the editors to leave this site fully open to all. Two final things: I sincerely hope D. Holmes is not padding the resume (someone this good should not have to); and I thought the 'Salmon P. Chase' comment was humorous.
Greg Strong wrote on Fri, May 20, 2005 07:12 PM UTC:Just for the record, although I think that it is probably better if non-members can't rate, I do not think that any of the comments on Salmon P. Chess are bogus except for the obvious one which was intended to be humorous (and was.) Any problem with voting fraud is either small or non-existant...
I don't think I've ever used the ratings on pages. When I see a game that sounds interesting to me I read it, otherwise I don't. Do other people search specifically for highly-rated games? If no one pays any more attention to ratings than I do, it doesn't seem worth getting upset over someone 'forging' a high rating for himself.
I would like like to ask, please, if we could move this discussion somewhere else? It is interesting, but we have gotten quite a ways away from the rules of Salmon P. Chess.
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That asked, I can say for the record that only one of the raters so far is known to me personally: my stepfather, Darrel. He is not easily moved to transports of enthusiasm and I was pleasantly surprised to hear from him here—wouldn't have known it was him, in fact, if he hadn't told me later. This is hardly a case of stuffing the ballot box.
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At least, not on my part. If there is in fact an organization of enthusiastic board-game/bent-humor/dead-presidents groupies out there tirelessly acting to promote this thing, I am just a little miffed that I haven't gotten any sort of personal e-mail from them. Hey girls! Let me tell you about Go ... ver Cleveland!
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The suggestion that all of those good ratings were me, acting under an alias, is just silly. We can dispense with that in one word: 'Logorrhea'. I have it; they don't. Issue settled. Try to imagine the writer behind SPC, in the grip of an ego frenzy so wild and raw that he would stoop to techno-cheating at a contest expressly <i>for</i> 'fun and honor'—imagine him, I say, praising himself in a few one- or two-line general remarks. If you can imagine that, you can do something I cannot.
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I do not, however, expect to convince anyone of my honesty merely by adding words to the pile. Since it seemed to be in question, I just wanted to add my bit. There is something I <i>can</i> do with words, though: I can apologize.
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To all the people who stopped by this site, and saw my little game, and got a laugh out of it or raised an eyebrow or thought it was kind of cool to stretch an idea that far; and especially all of you who took a minute out of your day to say so, to give the thing a rating or weigh in with a remark about what you liked: thank you very, very much ... I'm glad you liked what you saw. And I'm sorry.
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<i>I</i> know that you really exist, and <i>I</i> know that I didn't bully or beg you into voting, and <i>I</i> know that it's not very nice to hear that Steps Will Be Taken to prevent you from troubling the chess gods with your pathetic little opinions ever again. But none of these other people really know that, see. To them, your voice could be just the crazed imagination of a lonely, bored kid—so they talk about you like you're not even there and go on about how serious a problem you are and what would be the kindest way of fixing you. And that can really, really hurt when it's the price of a few minutes' honest enjoyment and innocent enthusiasm. I apologize. You're getting handled like a syphilitic old aunt in the attic just for liking my words and saying so. But you and me are the only ones who know that you're not me. What can I say? I'm very sorry for the way you've been treated here.
So, can it be said that we allowed ourselves to get in an uproar over something Derek Nalls said? We should know better.
I second Dale's sentiments. It's very unfortunate that the integrity of the author was questioned by what was originally a single, unwarranted insinuation. This one insinuation unfortunately resulted in a discussion about verified versus unverified ratings, giving some perhaps intended, perhaps unintended credence to the original insinuation. I have seen very few positive or negative comments made on this site under false pretenses. I would suggest that we drop this discussion of ratings on this page, as Dale asks.
My nephew asked me to look at this game. All I can say is: chess has certainly come a long way! What will these kids think of next.
Amy, it's not just kids here! Many of us are firmly middle-aged. (Is 'firmly middle-aged' an oxymoron?)
good,,but a bit confusing
me wrote on Mon, May 29, 2006 05:34 AM UTC:One word. Radical.
I want to play this game. I seriously want to build and play this with a bunch of friends. I also have some ideas to make the board a little more compact, though it still won't be the sort of game one could pack up and play in a hotel room somewhere. If anyone wants to try and play this, leave a comment and we can try to get in contact. I'll keep checking this, even though the last comment was added nearly 5 years ago. Seriously. If you're as crazy as I am, I want to hear from you.
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Mar 26, 2011 01:55 AM UTC:Perhaps you could start with something modest ... Like this :P
Constructing and playing a physical game of Salmon P. Chess is indeed possible, but would probably kill a lot of time, money, and sanity. Nevertheless, it sounds like the kind of thing I would do over a slow and uneventful summer. ('Hey, look at this mind-bogglingly huge chess variant! I think I'll go build a set so I'll actually have something to do for the next few months.')
Alternatively, I can spend my summer coding this game, although I have no idea how one would store the board information. I'll have to analyze this game a bit more...it seems pretty interesting.
fascinating to read about this chess variant. have you (or anyone) ever actually played (and completed!?) a game of salmon p. chess?? it is easy to make a game more complicated - but it takes real genius to make it simpler. best john p
Absurdly extravagant is the phrase that comes to mind!
Nothing else quite like this on the website; a true push-the-theoretical-envelope, but still playable, variant. It's amusingly written, too. Great job!
can you show me the movement (at least the notation (in betza))
WHAT ARE THE MOVEMENT OF THOSE PIECES?!
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Apr 24, 2021 01:03 AM UTC in reply to Vibra_nium from Fri Apr 23 11:19 PM:WHAT ARE THE MOVEMENT OF THOSE PIECES?!
This page describes the movements. They cannot be described in Betza because of the unusual board geometry. If you had read this page, and seen the images, it should be clear to you that this game is not actually playable - by design. It is purely an outrageous, humorous artistic expression.
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