Ratings & Comments
Turnover. Three ring sizes fit into each other, combining and splitting into different pieces, sometimes taking over your opponent's.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Jun 19, 2019 02:10 PM UTC:Indeed, the particular combinations of rings that you have at any moment is not really preserved for a long time, nor hard to improve when sub-optimal. Piece values only have meaning in more conventional chess games because you typically will be stuck with a piece for a very long time, possibly to the end of the game, and if you have a weaker piece there is not much you can do to trade it for something more valuable. Here the actual combination is more like a positional advantage. Temporarily having the Bishop lose its moves by combining it with a Pawn is similar to blocking a good diagonal for a Bishop with a Pawn in orthodox Chess. (The Bishop might keep some of its other moves in that case, but here the 'Pawn' will temporarily acquire Knight ability, which should provide even better compensation.)
Yet you probably would not strive for combining your own Bishops with a Pawn. But remember that you can also 'turnover' an enemy Bishop by merging it with your Pawn, and that would be extremely advantageous, as now it is the opponent that loses the Bishop, and won't get it back when you split them up again. It would in fact be pretty hard for him to get it back at all. So it is really the value of the individual rings that play the role of piece values here.
I'm intrigued and it looks cool, but confused by the knight being a bishop + pawn. I suppose so many things are breaking apart and coming back together that its value doesn't have to always match the sum of its parts. Maybe the knights are used at opportunistic times only? Shout out to Furgus Duniho for the very similar Fusion Chess, but I'll grant that this adds pawns into the mix (and I love how the openings play out), and I also like the visual simplicity of literally adding the rings together.
H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Jun 19, 2019 08:48 AM UTC:Looks like an interesting game, although I am not sure it qualifies as a chess variant. Could you explain the rules? They are not on a pubicly accessible website, in so far I could find.
[Edit] Oh, I found a description in a PDF file on Google Drive. Some things are not yet clear to me, though:
- It says the Pawn only moves one step. But is this only forward, or can it also move backward, when going to an empty square?
- It says the win is by taking or turning all enemy Castles. But Castles can also be destroyed by their owner, through splitting them up. Which is neither taking nor turning.) Is it illegal to split up your last Castle?
- What if I capture my opponent's last Castle by splitting up my own last Castle? Is this allowed? And if not, who would be at fault? Is it more forbidden to split up the last Castle, or more forbidden to move into its capture range?
- Does a promotion reset the 50-move counter?
- Does combining friendly pieces count as a turnover, for resetting the 50-move count?
Check it up and add Turnover Chess Variant on your site:
Tai Shogi pictures. Photos of a commercially available Tai Shogi set.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Jun 19, 2019 05:37 AM UTC:George sadly passed away many years ago, but his widow Angela Hodges is still selling the stuff at that e-mail address. Not sure if they also did Taikyoku Shogi, though.
What, in your opinion, makes it fun to play Tai Shogi? I have never actually played it, but it has always struck me as an extremely tedious variant. it has a royal that is so powerful there is really no hope to catch it short of completely exterminating its army first. And that contains hundreds of pieces. You can ask for a price list.
Very good stuff. I have seen one of these before in person while in Japan and was amazed. Beautiful and fun to play variant. I really like the Taikyoku shogi. I wonder if that george guy makes those too, or even makes these still.
Game Courier Ratings. Calculates ratings for players from Game Courier logs. Experimental.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I can get the Ratings for just standard Chess now. I was using the wildcard (%) before when using the filter on the GC Ratings Page itself, and that caused the problem of too many games & players showing up. Before now I had no idea of the significance of the (%) symbol, fwiw.
Ben Reiniger wrote on Tue, Jun 18, 2019 04:19 PM UTC:I've fixed the header menu to point Ratings and Logs of a game to the correct locations.
The script here used `gamewcp` ("wild-card pattern", I assume), but at least some links are using `game` as request variables. For now, rather than track down all usages, I've just allowed `game` to override `gamewcp`.
I've also changed the default Status Filter to Only Rated Games.
(This is in response to a few messages here.)
Also, @Kevin, I still can't recreate the problem with including all logs. Using the game filter Chess shows only a few games per person, with Carlos at the high 40 and a few others in the teens. Are you removing the wildcard (`%`)?
Game Courier. PHP script for playing Chess variants online.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Hi Ben
Well, when I enter 'Chess' into the form, I get almost/all the names of people on the complete Ratings Page for Public Ratings, including some people having played well over 100 games (as would be also expected for the complete Ratings Page for Public Ratings). Presumably 'Chess' includes results for not just for standard Chess, but also e.g. Alice Chess (or any CV name with the word Chess in it).
Ben Reiniger wrote on Mon, Jun 17, 2019 02:16 PM UTC:The menu-generated links to Ratings should be updated to include `/play/`, but inserting that myself still doesn't seem to pass the game parameter to the rating script. I can try to fix this later if no one else gets to it.
On the other hand, directly entering 'Chess' in the form produces what seem to be reasonable numbers...?
Somehow I get an error message when I try to look up Ratings for [the standard game of] Chess, e.g. when I look on 'Related Pages' when looking at the GC preset page for chess (with rules enforced by the preset). If I alternatively use the filter on the general Game Courier Ratings page and type in 'Chess', I get a result with far too many games for just the games of the standard game of Chess to having been searched for by the filter. Is there a trick to get ratings for (just) games played of the standard game of Chess that I'm missing?
8-Piece Chess. (Queen's Army chess, all 8 Back Rank Pieces different).[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]erik I'll look into creating one. I'm admittedly not too familiar with Game Courier. At the moment, for online playing I've been using a "sandbox" environment without rule enforcement. I'd be happy to work something out so we can play a game (or if necessary, even using a video stream of the board, with moves entered in the chat box or something). If you find anyone on your end interested in playing over the board, I'd love to know how the game went (try to record it!)
This game looks interesting. It would be good if it had a Game Courier preset.
Rules have been updated to include revised abilities on the sentry piece. It will add a more unique feel to the game than the original sentry (which was too ineffective in closed positions- even moreso than a bishop).
@Aurelian
Please note that the pair of personal invitations you gave me recently
Modern+Chess&log=-Vernon+Parton-2019-159-445
Symmetric+Chess&log=-Vernon+Parton-2019-159-446
were wrongly addressed to a Game Courier user that does not exist: carlos cetina (with lowercase initial letters).
I am registered as Carlos Cetina (with uppercase initial letters) and userID: sissa.
Such logs are not listed in my "Your Games on Game Courier" page.
Now then, regardless of this random fact, I'm sorry to tell you that I'm currently focused on promoting the Symmetric Chess only; and, for reasons of time and energy savings both physical and mental, I have decided not to play other variants except those included in the current tournament.
So my dear friend, send me all the invitations you want as long as they be of Symmetric Chess!!!
Tandem Chess. 4 player variant where pieces taken from your opponent are given to your partner. (2x(8x8), Cells: 128) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Bughouse tournaments seem to be happening all the time now, at least in North America (especially at scholastic level) - anyone who might want to organize chess variant(s) events over-the-board could start with having bughouse games/events; here's a link that shows what happened when I Googled 2019 Bughouse tournaments USA:
Chess. The rules of chess. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]For what it's worth, here's the (very detailed) wikipedia entry on Computer chess:
Tenjiku Shogi. Fire Demons burn surrounding enemies, Generals capture jumping many pieces. (16x16, Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I see your point about priorities HG. I was not picking on you. Good job. I was only pointing it out!
In the link you had posed, 2d was not kanji. And even if it were, I'd at least be able to memorise pieces easier.
📝H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Jun 8, 2019 05:34 PM UTC:Yeah, the Jocly 3d graphics run quite slow when you don't have a GPU (as is apparently the case on the virtual machine where I run Linux). I was a bit in a hurry to at least get the AI working, because I had entered it in the yearly Modern Tenjiku correspondence championship, and its clock was already running, and had ticked away 96 of the available 120 days. So I didn't pay any attention to non-essential details, as I normally would.
BTW, 2d would not solve the kanji problem...
To me the trouble is that the 2d display is more feasable. The 3d one consumes a lot of resources.
Also I don't reconnize all the required kanji!
📝H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Jun 8, 2019 06:42 AM UTC:Ah yes, I only payed attention to the 3d display. Yet the 2d display is always important, as the images for that are also used in 3d for the promotion popup, which asks you whether you want to promoe or defer.
When I have more time I will make a file with images of all Shogi pieces.
Same in chu shogi!...
Hope I don't trouble you too much HG!...
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I share the concern of Joseph DiMuro: this game should not be winnable except against the most incompetent of players. It would need some rule that you cannot move a royal slider through check, like in Caissa Brittannia, to make it a serious game.