Ratings & Comments

There might not be much to show on an empty board, but xK does not show move highlights when actually moving pieces on the board.

I still have some doubts with regard to the application of this rule. In particular, when a (checking) position occurs from which it is possible to deliver perpetual checking, but instead of continuing the checking you play something else. And then later, that position occurs a second time. Now you do continue the checking, and the opponent has no way to escape it, so you get a 3rd and 4th repetition of the position.

Does this now count as perpetual checking? Not all moves since the first occurrence of the position were checks. But all moves since the 2nd and 3rd occurrence are. In my engines I would only consider the moves since the previous occurrence. (Especially because it already terminates the line at the 2nd occurrence; if it cannot break from the loop the first time it goes through it, nothing will change by trying it the second time, except that you have less search depth left, which will degrade the accuracy of the evaluation.)

I would think that only considering the moves since the previous occurrence would be more in line with the spirit of the rule; you try to force a repetition by perpetual checking, and this should not be allowed. It is just that you started the checking a bit late, but now that you are at it, and can keep it up perpetually, why should that matter? When I asked it to a Japanese in connection with mini-Shogi, however, he told me this would not be considered perpetual checking, and thus produce a sente loss. (Which is a special mini-Shogi rule; in regular Shogi that would be a draw.)

I should use redirect then on the old settings file toward the new one, isn't it?

I am running a test of a new script for editing comments. It is a single script that will handle comments on pages and subjects. It is intended to replace createcomment.php, previewcomment.php, addcomment.php, createsubject.php, previewsubject.php, addsubject.php, usereditcomment.php, userpreviewcomment.php, and usermodifycomment.php.

I have written a new function for database-funcs.php called insert_row(). This script uses it to insert new comments.

As a test, I am updating it with this third paragraph.

I prefer to keep the name  and maybe rename the settings files used for old games. Can it be done?

You can keep the name of the game, but the settings name will need to change.  I don't know how to change the settings name for existing logs.

Indeed, there is a rule against perpetual checking, as an extension of the repetition rule. The repetition rule states that if a position is reached for a 4th time, with same pieces in hand and same player to move, the game is no contest, whereafter colors are reversed and a new game is started. Players get to keep whatever remaining time they had, with a minimum time normally granted.

However, if such 4-fold repetition is a result of consecutive checks, with no single non-checking move, then that attacking player is at fault and loses. A player could potentially give dozens of consecutive checks, before the repetition becomes illegal.

Repetition is already rare enough, especially at the amateur level. Very few instances of perpetual check repetition occur. Most people who see it as a possibility deviate the 2nd or 3rd time around, or avoid it altogether. I found only a couple actually pertinent videos on Youtube under the search 連続王手の千日手

Set. Problem solved. Thank you very much for your help, Fergus.

Since it works for displaying legal moves, it's probably because the Pawn functions are only for potential moves, and the Joker is trying to use one of the Pawn functions when making an actual move. Specifically, I think it fails on the line "and empty #1" in the Pawn function, because that space is occupied for an actual move. Some options include changing your rules, rewriting the Pawn functions to handle both potential and actual moves, or using a Joker subroutine for actual moves, which would let you undo the Joker's move before testing it with a function, then redoing it if it is legal.

I was looking at data on Cloudflare, which is not available through here.

Interesting deduction, Ben. Let's see what Fergus thinks.

Ah, so I was wrong about the promotion zone!  Glad to have that clarified!

I'd guess it's seeing a 2-leap followed by a bishop move inward as legal?  And that doesn't matter for the Aanca because those same squares can be reached legitimately by a shorter path.

@ Greg,

I prefer to keep the name  and maybe rename the settings files used for old games. Can it be done?

@Fergus,

I have unfortunately uncovered another bug on the preset for this game.

The joker can't move when imitating a pawn, although the moves are properly displayed. Any idea why?

Fergus posted on 6-21-2020:

"Curiously, this site is getting much more traffic from Germany than from Canada. While Germany does have about twice the population, more than ten times as much traffic is coming from Germany. So, population doesn't explain it. This mystery is deepened by the fact that most of the content is in English, which is the language spoken in most of Canada, and very little of the content is in German."

My guess would be chess variants as a whole are more popular in Germany (or Europe) than Canada, besides which opponents for over-the-board CV games could have a harder time meeting in a geographically large and spread-out country like Canada (the USA at least has a huge population by comparison) - so that may keep interest in chess variants as a whole down here (i.e. Canada). Aside from that, afaik English is the most common language used globally in the modern era, and I wouldn't be surprised if many Germans learn at least enough to get by.

On another matter, I haven't been able to find a page on CVP showing traffic to the website (other than for years ago), let alone such a page organized by nations that the traffic comes from. If such a page can be shown to viewers, besides the webmaster and/or editor(s), it might be highly interesting - unless it's too much hard work to create.

With the following code I have made some progress because the piece already can make the desired legal moves:

def Osprey fn (checkride #0 #1 1 1 and empty #0) 
  where #0 0 * 2 sign - rank #1 rank #0 
  #1 
  or fn (checkride #0 #1 1 1 and empty #0) 
  where #0 * 2 sign - file #1 file #0 0 
  #1
or checkleap #0 #1 2 0;
 

def Osprey-Range mergeall 
  leaps #0 2 0 
  rays where #0 0 2 1 1 
  rays where #0 0 -2 1 1 
  rays where #0 2 0 1 1 
  rays where #0 -2 0 1 1;

However something must be wrong since the program allows the Osprey to be moved as ferz. What do you think is the cause?