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Recognized Chess Variants. Index page listing the variants we feel are most significant. (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, Apr 6, 2020 11:35 AM UTC:

I was having that problem yesterday with Firefox on Windows 10, and I fixed it by changing the CSS. I just checked Safari on my iPad, and it's not having that problem. If you are still having that problem, the old CSS may still be cached in your browser.


J Andrew Lipscomb wrote on Mon, Apr 6, 2020 10:16 AM UTC:

Something is wrong in the Featured Games code. Using Safari on iPad, everything between the banner and the affiliate-link area is blank.


About Game Courier. Web-based system for playing many different variants by email or in real-time.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸💡📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Apr 5, 2020 11:03 PM UTC:

Since the last tournament took so long, I'm going to propose we follow it up with a tournament of games that are designed to end very quickly. I have in mind games like Extra Move Chess, Wormhole Chess, Avalanche Chess, Marseillais Chess, and other small or short games. Quick games were popular for postal correspondence, because it took days to mail moves back and forth. Many of us, including myself, are too young to have been involved with the postal correspondence groups of NOST or AISE, and a tournament like this would help us get in touch with the kinds of games that earlier generation of Chess variant hobbyists played.


Recognized Chess Variants. Index page listing the variants we feel are most significant. (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Apr 5, 2020 08:27 PM UTC:

I have added an automated notice to each Featured Game.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Apr 5, 2020 05:40 PM UTC:

I've removed the manual Recognized Variants banners from the tops of the Recognized Variants. In doing so, I learned that some of them never had the text identifying them as Recognized Variants.  So, it will be better to include automated text that shows up if the right column in the database is checked. I've also started doing grep searches to find and remove other links to rindex.html.


The Fairychess Include File Tutorial. How to use the fairychess include file to program games for Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Aurelian Florea wrote on Sun, Apr 5, 2020 02:35 PM UTC:

I'm changing the function to include flags, but for now I'm glad it works as far as it does. Trouble is that even with setconst I get that error. I had always written it correctly. I should double check though, maybe something else is wrong.


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Apr 5, 2020 02:03 PM UTC:

Sorry, I made a couple typos. The last two lines should be:

setconst k King;

setconst K King;

Also, you still haven't followed my advice about keeping track of the King's first move the same way this is already done for Chess. If you did, your Apothecary_King function would be much simpler to write.


Aurelian Florea wrote on Sun, Apr 5, 2020 01:18 PM UTC:

Initially you had proposed for the king first move that is found in my 2 apothecary games this :

def Apothecary_King blah blah blah;

def Apothecary_King-Range blah blah blah;

alias King Apothecary_King;

set k King;

set K King;

but this alone gave an error saying that king cannot move there when moving the first time like a camel or knight. But if I don't use this unpredictable things happen like having false positives in checkmate or the special moves apearing after the first move. Below are the links to the game courier presets in question. They are definetly not optimized or finished in any way yet but I think this particular problem should be done first. Thanks for your help!

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Apothecary+Chess+1&settings=Apothecary1working&submit=Edit

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Apothecary+Chess+2&settings=Apothecary2working&submit=Edit


Recognized Chess Variants. Index page listing the variants we feel are most significant. (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Apr 5, 2020 01:07 PM UTC:

I think the next step will be to dismantle the Recognized Chess Variants by removing the manual and menu links to it. I can then replace them with automated links to a list of the Featured Games. So pages would go from mentioning that a game is a Recognized Variant to mentioning that it is a Featured Game. On pages for games that are not featured, I could add a link to a random featured game with mention of the Featured Games or to something about Favorited Games, so that each gets some additional exposure.


Sac Chess. Game with 60 pieces. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Apr 5, 2020 01:35 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

I can't believe this game hasn't been reviewed yet. This is the best game I've played that includes an Amazon. I normally leave the Amazon out of my games, because it has the power to force checkmate by itself, and that has the potential to wreak a game. However, that hasn't been a problem with this game. This game includes several other weaker compound pieces that help make it unsafe to move the Amazons out too early. To get to the point where you could use an Amazon to force checkmate against a King, you have to do lots of maneuvering of other pieces. Furthermore, the potential of the Amazon getting a bead on the King means that position is sometimes more important than material advantage. You can't count on winning just because you are ahead materially. If you find that you can't stop your opponent's Amazon, you may lose even if you're materially ahead. This makes the game more dynamic and exciting.


Average Game Ratings. An ordered list of the ratings for the games on this site.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Apr 4, 2020 08:21 PM UTC:

This page was giving the wrong URLs. I just fixed that.


Recognized Chess Variants. Index page listing the variants we feel are most significant. (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Apr 4, 2020 07:46 PM UTC:

Seeing that Omega Chess wasn't listed in the Featured Games, I double checked that it was on the Recognized Variants page. When I looked it up in the database, the Link page was marked as Recognized and Primary. I switched these to the Game page, so that it shows up in the Featured Games listing.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Apr 4, 2020 06:12 PM UTC:

I'm now looking into omissions. I have searched the database for Recognized Variants that are not Primary Items. I am adding those that meet other criteria. Based on this, I have added Janggi.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Apr 4, 2020 05:50 PM UTC:

I have just changed the text in queryinc.php to Featured Pages or to Featured Games when the Game type is selected. I am weeding through the currently featured games. I am checking how many members have favorited a game, its average rating and how many ratings it has, how popular it is on Game Courier, and whether it has a chapter in Pritchard's Popular Chess Variants or Gollon's Chess Variations. For now, I'll continue to feature games that meet one of these criteria. But I will list below some games that just scrape by and might be worth dropping from being featured:

  • Avalanche Chess is mentioned in PCV, but it hasn't proven popular on the CVP.
  • Capablanca Random Chess has a few positive reviews, though most don't actually mention the game. It is favorited by one member.
  • Dragon Chess by Gary Gygax is favorited by four members.
  • Janus Chess is favorited by five people.
  • Los Alamos Chess is favorited by one member. It has some positive reviews, but two are anonymous. I know it is of historical interest.
  • Magnetic Chess is favorited by two people, and Pritchard has a chapter on it in PCV.
  • Minishogi is favorited by four people.
  • Odin's Rune Chess has six excellent reviews and a good one, but it is the favorite of only one person, and it is fairly unpopular on Game Courier.
  • Raumschach is favorited by three people, and I believe Dickins mentions it in A Guide to Fairy Chess
  • Star Trek Tridimensional Chess is favorited by one person and has only two reviews, but it is very well known, and expensive sets are sold for it.

The following games do not meet any of the criteria above and are being unfeatured for now:

  • Byzantine Chess
  • Chess with Batteries has one review and is favorited by one person. It is not played on Game Courier.
  • Countdown
  • Crazy 38's is favorited by one person and has two good reviews. The one person who favorited it says in his review that he has not played it.
  • Diamond Chess
  • Flip Chess and Flip Shogi are favorited by one person, have no reviews, and are unplayed on Game Courier.
  • Pocket Knight
  • TenCubed Chess is favorited by only two people and is fairly unpopular on Game Courier.

H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Apr 4, 2020 08:34 AM UTC:

OK, so we rename the 'primary items' to 'featured pages', and probably not much else will change. We have to update the list a bit, but we would have to do that anyway.

I suppose the featured pages serve two purposes:

  • Make it on average easier for visitors of the website to find what they are looking for.
  • Draw attention to pages 'we' think they should see, but which they never would look for.

I agree that all commercial variants deserve this status, so we should add Seirawan Chess, Musketeer Chess and Paco Shako. I also think that pages that provide 'infra-structural support' for this website, such as the Checkmating Applet or the Interactive Diagram wizzard should be mentioned there.


Kevin Pacey wrote on Sat, Apr 4, 2020 02:23 AM UTC:

Calling 'Primary Items' as 'Featured Pages' instead might allow for including a historic variant like (2 player) Chaturanga more smoothly (otherwise we worry about not being too sure of the rules to use, besides that it so closely resembles Shatranj). Unless, the limit on the 'Featured Pages' is set to a rigid unchanging number that may be regretted as being too low later on, and then some items might need to be axed as featured ones to make room for ones thought better included. I'm in favour of including the commercial variants, notably Seirawan Chess in particular (as I wrote in the past), though again a limit just might be reached very quickly. I'd point out that there are many 1- or 2-letter alphabetical sub-indicies in the Main Alphabetical Index, to liberally sprinkle a generously large number (or limit) of Featured Pages over.

I now would assume, that if this concept of Featured Pages goes ahead, only CVP editor(s) in future would be the ones to pick the Featured Pages, and CVP  (possibly by explicit statement) would not encourage nomination of any currently excluded items by non-editors, though at least people can still express by comments whether they agree with a chosen item being included. If so, a look now and then at the Favourites list, or the Top 50 Game Courier list, for example, might make for a couple of more resources editors can use when in future picking Featured Pages or even the Featured Games (the formerly Recognized Variants concept, which is declared discontinued).


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Apr 3, 2020 11:09 PM UTC:

The reason I want to use the word "Featured" is that it has a precise, concrete meaning. Something would be featured if we feature it, and it wouldn't be featured if we don't. In contrast, calling something "Recognized" or "Primary" suggests some external quality. The idea behind the Recognized Variants is to identify those that have won or merit some kind of recognition. This can lead to disagreement or uncertainty over which variants should be considered recognized. But the idea of Featured Games isn't tied to some nebulous external standard. We could feature or unfeature games for different reasons, permanently featuring some games, and temporarily featuring others. Since it's main purpose would be to draw attention to some pages in search results, I agree that it should not be broken into categories. This purpose would also put a practical limit on how many pages should be featured.


H. G. Muller wrote on Fri, Apr 3, 2020 09:15 PM UTC:

Well, I don't care whether items are called 'primary', 'featured' or 'highlights'. It is a very good idea that some of the more important items in the index for a certain 2-letter combination go in front, though, as sometimes the lists are quite long. I don't think it would be a good idea to split the items that are thus favored into several categories


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Apr 3, 2020 08:47 PM UTC:

That's something that David Howe instituted so that the most important pages would be at the top of the list when listing search results. I think he largely included the Recognized Variants, though some other things are also included. It might be a good idea to replace Recognized Variants and Primary Items with Featured Games and Featured Pages, the former being a subset of the latter. Featured pages would be ones that we want to draw greater attention to or that we expect users would be looking for more. These could include links to games that enough of us think highly of, links to well-known or popular games, and links to commercially available commercial games. These could be featured at the top of search results, as Primary Items are, but referred to as Featured Pages instead. Also, they could be a bit more dynamic than Recognized Variants, meaning we could drop something from the Featured Pages, such as a commercial game no longer being made, or a game that has been reevaluated.


Game Courier Developer's Guide. Learn how to design and program Chess variants for Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Apr 3, 2020 05:46 PM UTC:

I modified cond to work properly, and I updated the section on recursive functions. Since cond mimics the operation of ?: in PHP, I had written it using ?:. I rewrote it using if and else, and it is now able to work in recursive functions, because it no longer evaluates code that it shouldn't evaluate.


The Fairychess Include File Tutorial. How to use the fairychess include file to program games for Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Apr 3, 2020 02:28 PM UTC:

I have added a new section called "Actual vs Potential Moves".


Recognized Chess Variants. Index page listing the variants we feel are most significant. (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Kevin Pacey wrote on Fri, Apr 3, 2020 01:41 PM UTC:

I cannot seem to find a policy statement on what it takes for a chess variant or other item to be selected by editor(s) to be a 'Primary Item' in the CVP 'Main Alphabetical Index'. Usually, but not always, such Primary Items are also 'Recognized Variants'.

It would also be good to know if CVP editor(s) welcome feedback or nominations by non-editors for what might become a Primary Item. Something being a Primary Item certainly gives it a certain amount of extra attention and/or distinction.


Apothecary Chess-Modern. Large board variant obtained through tinkering with known games.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Aurelian Florea wrote on Fri, Apr 3, 2020 04:56 AM UTC:

In the paragraf above notes I had written :

"There is no castling in this game, but the king may jump once from the initial position to c1,d1,h1 or i1 for white or c10,d10,d10,h10 for black."

And the pawn description:

"Pawns - orthodox chess pawns on a 10x10 board from the point of view of movement and capture but that may promote starting the 8th rank according to the above mentioned piece categories provided that the reserve holds the piece required. Pawns may promote to any auxiliary piece on the players 8th rank, any auxiliary piece or average piece at the 9th rank, and any piece at rank 10. In the reserve there are initially 1 queen, 1 rook,1 champion and 1 knight and later on enter any of the player's lost pieces. "


The Fairychess Include File Tutorial. How to use the fairychess include file to program games for Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Apr 2, 2020 10:02 PM UTC:

You have a bunch of lines beginning with or and and. Each of these lines is checking for islower space #1 or for isupper space #1, and that's where your problem lies. In potential moves, space #1 will contain what is on the space prior to making the move, which won't be the King, but for actual moves, it will contain the piece that has moved there. I gather you mean to be making sure that only the King whose first move is contained in the variable on that line gets to move. This works for actual moves, but it is not working for potential moves, because in potential moves, space #1 contains the value of the piece on the space prior to making the move.

In Chess, the King is allowed to castle on the first move, and keeping track of whether the King has already moved is handled by flagging the space the King begins on, then unsetting the flag with every subsequent King move. This easily works for both Kings, because each King begins on a different space. So, I recommend flagging the King's initial spaces rather than keeping separate K1stmove and k1stmove variables.

 


Apothecary Chess-Modern. Large board variant obtained through tinkering with known games.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Apr 2, 2020 09:37 PM UTC:

Comparing this page to your Game Courier code, I see things in your code that I don't see on this page, such as rules concerning Pawn promotion and the King's first move.


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