Comments by MarkThompson

You mean a member other than me can post a page with my name in the byline?
 It seems unlikely I started this page less than a month ago and forgot
about it.

I don't see how to delete it, but that's what I'd do if I could.

Here's another suggestion, related to the new comment filtering idea: perhaps registered users could set a default filter on the What's New items we want to see, according to various qualities (creation date, game features, authorship, etc.) so we could focus on the pages we find interesting.

"The pie rule only works when both parties are highly adept at their
assigned tasks." 

But adeptness at their assigned tasks is simply the ability to evaluate the
quality of a board position as being likely to favor one side or another,
and that's the essence of playing skillfully: choosing moves that create
positions where you have the advantage. It isn't unfair if the pie rule
leaves an advantage with the better player. The better player naturally has
an advantage at every point in the game.

I do have David Li's book, which I bought years ago. I had read a favorable review of it that led me to expect that he had interesting new evidence on the origin of chess, but I was disappointed to find that the book merely piled up a tower of unsupported speculations. 

The closest thing to evidence was an anecdotal account of Xiang-Qi's being invented by a figure from ancient Chinese history, who as I recall lived a few centuries before Christ, the anecdote being attributed to a Chinese document only a few centuries old. This is valueless as evidence of such a theory: it means only that someone about the time of Newton or Voltaire wrote down a legend about something that had happened about the time of Alexander the Great. Without earlier documents, how could the late author know anything about events so far in his own past? Maybe the 18th century Chinese author got the story from an earlier period, but there were plenty of earlier periods between the supposed events and our document when such a legend could have been composed.

Besides this legend, everything I could find in Li's book was a seemingly endless parade of descriptions of how it MIGHT HAVE happened that way, and how it's really not so implausible that it COULD HAVE happened that way. Well, of course, it MIGHT have, as I didn't need Li's book to know. But that's what we call 'idle speculation', not evidence. Someone needs to find some much older documents, or dig up some very old equipment, or something, or this theory will remain negligible.

Flattery will get you somewhere ...

I believe it is possible to come up with betting schemes, for use in a
casino, that might give you a greater than 50% chance of ending with more
money than you began with. But that will necessarily mean that the
remaining possibilities, although they collectively have less than a 50%
chance, include losses that more than outweigh the likely winnings.
Probability theory defines a concept called 'expected value' which is the
sum, over all possible outcomes, of the product of that outcome's value,
times that outcome's probability. The expected value of the betting scheme
will not be positive, simply because it involves making a combination of
various bets that individually have negative expected values. The sum of
negative values can't be positive.

I feel pretty confident that the only reliable way to make money at casino
gambling is to get yourself a casino.

When it says, 'Whenever a piece is captured, it is held for dropping by the enemy,' does 'the enemy' mean the enemy of its original owner or the enemy of the capturer? When I first read this I assumed 'the enemy' meant the enemy of its original side, so that the captured piece changes sides.

If the piece changes sides, then it still need to be clarified whether the alternative winning condition is exactly-one or at-least-one piece per region, because there could be more than 15 allied pieces on the board at once.

I tried on Thursday to submit a new page for an original game, Trampoline
Chess, but the game hasn't appeared yet and I haven't heard anything
about it. Can any of the editors tell me whether the submission is in their
in-box, or whether I did it incorrectly?

This description doesn't specify the starting arrangement of the pieces. They start in the second row, but are they otherwise in the 'usual chess' arrangement? Or are they arranged from left-to-right in the order you mention them?

They might be in some other order, or perhaps they could be arranged ad lib by the players at the start of the game: i.e., White places a piece-and-its-pawn, Black places a piece-and-its-pawn, etc., until all are in place, whereupon they start moving.

Hey, lay off the early-20th century Indiana Legislature! The bill in
question wasn't their own idea and it wasn't worded as flagrantly as
'pi shall be 3.2', it was the work of a crank mathematician who produced
a long, turgid manuscript of bad results, some of them indeed implying that
pi would have a value other than the true one. He sent it to his local
state rep, describing it as a set of wonderful new discoveries, which he
would graciously allow Indiana to use -- for free! -- if only they passed
this bill. The legislators moved the bill along because it was appeared to
be more trouble than it would be worth to read it, which it doubtless would
have been. A visitor who knew something about math clued them in on it and
they spiked it. But even if the visitor hadn't done so and the thing had
been enacted, no harm would have been done, other than embarrassment to my
fair state's reputation -- which has evidently not been avoided in any
case.

I agree, Sam, about this 'replacing' talk. What I say is, if you want to
replace FIDE chess, why, go right ahead and replace it. There's no point
in just talking about it.

link

This is a real DEATHBLOW to computer-using German people, because it makes no distinction 'between, for example, a password cracker and a password recovery tool, or a utility designed to run denial of service attacks and one designed to stress-test a network.'

What may be worse, 'While making life more difficult for security consultants and sys admins, the new laws will, paradoxically, make it easier for police to use hacking tactics in gathering intelligence on suspects.'

link

Please try to avoid Germany's becoming a totalitarian country. Until this law is rescinded, I promise to drink no more Beck's--nothing but Heineken and Guinness. I hope you'll do the same.

I notice most of George Duke's criticisms of Omega Chess are the theoretical kind: weak pieces, low piece density, piece components have been done before, mathematical analysis... But no one understands game design well enough to be able to substitute theory for experiment. It doesn't matter if a game SHOULDN'T be fun according to the Duke Theory, what matters is whether it IS fun. I'm curious about how many games of Omega Chess George Duke has played, and I'd be more convinced by his review if he would cite particulars from those games that led him to consider Omega Chess uninteresting.

The game is long and builds slowly, no doubt about that, but whether that's good or bad is a matter of taste. Some people like movies starring Bruce Willis, others prefer novels by Charles Dickens.

I don't think symmetry really shows that both sides start out equal,
though it may give that visual impression. In most CV's one side still
moves first and has an advantage thereby, which may be large or small
depending on the whole set of rules. To compensate for this it might
actually be better to have a somewhat asymmetrical setup -- something
like, if you have a balance scale in which the fulcrum is a bit closer to
one of the pans, then you would NOT achieve balance by putting the same
weights on both sides, but by overloading the side closer to the fulcrum.

'Oswald Spengler writes ...'There is not, and cannot be, number as such. There are several number-worlds as there are several Cultures.... Consequently, there are more mathematics than just one.''

Then for Spengler, what would be the point of discussing mathematics, since what one mathematician says might be true for his culture but not for his audience's? Similarly, to the extent that his idea applies to chess variants, what is the point of having a forum on them? (The underlying philosophical issue, as I recall from my undergraduate days long ago, is expressed succinctly as 'whether truth is one or many.')

I believe Spengler's viewpoint is more popular among sociologists and certain modern philosophers than it is among mathematicians, who tend to be Platonists, at least with regard to mathematics.

I rather doubt that we're going to address the problem of the future of chess. It will either evolve into something new and worthy without anyone's planning it, or it will go softly into the night as checkers and bridge seem to be doing.

The chief problem chess faces, in my opinion, is Scrabblization. By this I mean that chess has become a game like Scrabble, in which an enormous amount of rote memorization has become almost as important, or perhaps even more important, as strategic and tactical intuition -- and this is especially so for one making the move from casual amateur to serious tournament player. Like lovers of checkers and bridge, experts who have invested that effort are emphatic that they're glad they did. But that doesn't attract others to follow after when there are plenty of other strategy games without so much 'book' where they can hope to excel just by having a knack. 

This is just my partly-informed opinion based on remarks I've heard from better players, so I readily admit I could be completely off-base -- I'm no expert at chess. But if I'm right, then chess has gone so far down the road  toward Scrabble that, at this point, I'm suspicious that those who are experts have acquired a distorted view of the game during their years of study. Reading whole books devoted to variations on a single line of play, memorizing openings out to twenty moves, is certainly not what the inventor of Chess had in mind.

This is why I think something like the random-array or (better still) the player-selected-army variants are the likeliest future for chess, if it's to have one at all.

Would it make sense to put a filter on the comments to disallow messages
with the subjects 'Bill', 'Hillary', and 'Bush'? If it's a robot
spamming us this way it might not be smart enough to adapt.

I'm not convinced that these tournaments really identify a 'best player
in the world' (most of the time), or even that there is such a thing
(most of the time). If you were to apply statistical theory to the results
and calculate a confidence level, I doubt that the hypothesis that
'Kramnik is better than Topolov' would get anywhere near the 95%
confidence that's considered standard for scientific purposes.

'Chess Master/Grand Masters will never accept a new game that takes away
their book opening knowledge advantage.'

No, I wouldn't expect them to; they have too much invested in their study
of openings. But if I'm optimistic about the future of Chesslike games,
it's from hoping that the next generation, who haven't become Chess
experts, might be attracted to CV's.

You mean 'patent'. Only a text can be copyrighted.

Another possible variation to address the overstrong knight problem would
be to use a standard board but replace the knights with other pieces, such
as Horses (like knights but without the ability to jump over an
orthogonally-adjacent piece), or Burmese Elephants (Shogi's Silver
General).

I like this idea, it seems like an ingredient that could enhance many
different chesses. Maybe there should be a regular page for this game.

Energy crystals, money, what's the difference. It's stuff you earn by
doing something and pay out to get privileges: by me that's money. And
while I agree that dratping isn't exactly the same as promoting, the
concept is close enough. A space elevator isn't exactly an elevator, but
calling it that makes the idea clearer than coining a new word that's
unrelated to anything in the language -- AND is either
almost-unpronouncable or has a silent letter, what's with that? Silent
letters are vestiges of pronunciations from earlier times, what's the
point of including one in a new coinage? 

My aesthetic preferences are admittedly my own, and though I feel I have
good reasons behind them, I don't expect everyone else to share them.
These things depend on individual judgment, sentiment, and taste. As I've
already said, it's a fine game.

'I also like the open-source approach (maybe make the raw data XML,
plain-text, or both), but there should also be one built-in to this site
as well, so if you don't have your own implementation you can view your
own.'

Sure, the site should have its own 'brand' of ratings. But I mean, it
would be good to make ratings from many user-defined systems available
here also. Just as the system allows users to design their own webpages
(subject to editorial review) and their own game implementations, there
could be a system whereby users could design their own ratings systems,
and any or all these systems could be available here at CVP to anyone who
wants to view them, study their predictive value, use them for tournament
matchings, etc.

Of course, it's much easier to suggest a system of multiple user-defined
rating schemes (hey, we could call it MUDRATS) than to do the work of
implementing it. But if enough people consider the idea and feel it has
merit, eventually someone will set it up someplace and it will catch on.

'And as far as piece names go, no need to justify your choices.  Piece
names are the prerogative of the inventor ...'

Not only that, but those of us who construct our own sets will ultimately
just call the pieces by the names we like, and switch to 'official'
names only for online discussions if needed. Just like players started
calling the elephant a bishop. For instance I always call a B+N a
Cardinal, regardless of anyone who wants me to call it an Archbishop.
And if I ever get around to making a Navia Dratp set, I'm gonna make a
LOT of changes ...

Like that poem, 'The Moon': 

'You say it's made of silver, 
I say it's made of cheese. 
For I am an American, 
And say what I d*** please.'

Strip off HP laserprinter headers? Sorry, no idea on that one--not even
sure I understand the question. Maybe someone else knows.

The 'drowning rule' in Congo is original and interesting, but it seems to
me that it makes it awfully difficult to get an attack going. If you push a
piece into the River, your opponent has the option of immediately making a
counterattacking move that needs an immediate defensive response, which
forces you to lose the piece in the River. It almost seems as though
you're better off waiting for the other player to attack and let him be
the one whose pieces drown. Does anyone know just how the good players
avoid this problem?

Someone once observed that one of the general problems in designing a good
strategy game is figuring out how to force the players to be aggressive,
since many games tend to favor passive play unless a mechanism is
introduced to force conflict. This makes me suspect that Congo might be a
better game if the drowning rule, which seems to discourage conflict, were
revised somehow: perhaps, a piece (or at least a Pawn) should be allowed to
stay in the River one turn without drowning? Any suggestions?

Hmm. Some of these rules will probably need to be spelled out more. For
instance, it's illegal to make a move that results in insufficient mating
material. Does that mean that when either player gets down to a set of
pieces that can't be reduced further and still be able to force mate, his
remaining pieces become uncapturable? But won't the conventional ideas of
how much material is sufficient to force mating have to be revised, in
light of this invulnerability rule? And the fact that no move is allowed
that would result in stalemate might also affect the issue, I think.

More fundamentally, is it allowed for one player to be reduced below the
level where he could force mate, as long as the other one is not?

Another question would be whether people with high IQs are smarter than
other people. 

Chess and other mentally taxing games are said to ward off Alzheimer's,
which is somewhat related to your topic. I would guess, though, that if
there is anyone who doesn't enjoy playing chess, but plays it anyway in
hope of becoming smarter, then it won't work for that person.

'I think in this instance and only in this instance should you add all the
points of pieces captured in order to determine the winner.' John, you
could make a case that the chess variant played that way would be better
than Chess, and certainly you and your opponent have the right to play
that way if you like. The only caution I would advise is that, since those
are not the standard rules of Chess, you'd better make sure you and your
opponent both agree to those rules before you start, or else someone might
end up with hard feelings after the game is over. (This reminds me of the
aftermath of the 2000 election ...)

What would be wrong with putting a length-limit on user ID's to prevent
this problem from recurring? Perhaps characters like at and slash should
be prohibited as well.

If the players are cooperating, why do you need two of them?

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 think you could implement something in Zillions that would work like this
game. My plan would be, program 3 players: the computer has to play first,
then the user, then a 'neutral' player. The computer's moves would take
place on an invisible 'side' board, then the human player would make a
move (not having been able to see the computer's move: you'd have to
close the panel that shows the move notations), and then the 'neutral'
player would make his move, which would always be to transfer the
computer's moves from the invisible board to the visible one. If the
transfer caused conflicts the neutral player would have to do something
complicated to resolve them. 

You could never have the computer move second, or zillions would use the
information about the human player's move.

I've read that the USA has an extradition treaty with Iceland also.

One possible drawback to playing any CV with a wagering system based on
putting a price on each piece is that it seems it would make the game more
materialistic. One of the endearing features of Chess is that its focus on
the Kings makes spectacular sacrifices for the sake of achieving checkmate
worthwhile. But if the point of the game is to end with the greatest value
of pieces still on the board, I think this aspect will be lost. A player
who hopes to win would play conservatively, trying to keep his own pieces
on the board rather than let their value fall into the hands of his
opponent, while a player who fears losing would try to make exchanges,
thereby reducing the value of the ultimate prize for the winner.

For whatever it's worth, I proposed a variant called 'Contract Jetan'
in a letter to a 2001 issue of Abstract Games magazine, which went about
like this: In Contract Jetan, a player could propose in mid-game some rule
change that would make it more difficult for his opponent to win,
accompanied by a 'proffer' of some tokens that would be added to the
ante if the opponent accepts the dare. Such a proposal would probably be
made by the player in a weaker position. For example, 'You must win in
the next 15 moves or forfeit,' or 'My Thoat can only be captured by your
Warrior', etc. If the opponent accepts the rule change, the proffer is
added to the ante and the rule change is in effect. If the opponent
refuses, then the player who offered it has the option of 'buying out the
contract' as follows: from the proffer he removes a number of tokens equal
to the excess of value of the other player's army over his own, plus his
own Chief's value, and gives that to his opponent; then he adds the rest
of the proffer to the ante, and rotates the board half a turn. Then they
play on, but having reversed their roles, and with the proposed rule
change in effect.

This variant is played in an unpublished work that ERB left unfinished,
'Corporate Lawyers of Mars.'

Greg Strong wrote: 'When exact refutations to every single opening can be
calculated, and are published, then professional Chess will no longer be a
game of Chess skill, but rather just a game of memorization. Ok, you could
still try to substitute Chess skill, but a person with a fantastic memory
will probalby clean your clock.'

Indeed, I feel we have already witnessed the Scrabble-ization of Chess:
the step from amateur to tournament player already requires loads of rote
memorization. However, if we switch to Grand Chess the number of openings
will be far greater and hence harder to learn, for any human being
(without cyborg cortical implants); if we switch to any variant with a
large number of variable opening setups, I think it will be impossible. 

The objection someone made to Mercenary Chess that whatever makes the
'best' army and opening setup would be soon discovered misses one of the
points: the best army and opening setup for White would depend on the army
and opening setup Black is using, and vice versa; hence if they choose
them one piece at a time it would be unlikely that the same one would
always be used. Also, remember that there's a 'catalog' of pieces with
prices: I should have stipulated that the catalog offerings and prices
would continually be reviewed by the World Mercenary Chess Federation,
which would periodically raise the prices of pieces in the greatest demand
and lower the prices of pieces no one wants to hire. Also the WMCF might
introduce new pieces from time to time. Hence, I don't believe exhaustion
could ever happen.

Computers may play better than humans. But we're still a long way from
building a machine that can enjoy the game as much as we can.

Does anyone have any quantitative information about the advantage White has
over Black? The kind of thing I'd like to know is: supposing two
experienced, average rated players, with equal ratings, play many games
against each other until 100 games have ended decisively (not in draws),
how many should we expect to have been won by White? Is it 55-45, or
60-40, or what? Supposing our pair of equal players were more skilled than
average, does that make it closer or farther to 50-50?

Another thing that would be of interest: supposing we experiment with
matching many pairs of unequally-rated players, with the stronger player
playing Black, until we find pairs in which the White-win, Black-win ratio
is 50-50: will we find any consistency in the number of rating points that
separate the two players? Does playing White worth 20 points to your
rating? 40 points? 100 points??

If you really want to go for the ultimate in symmetry, I would suggest we
need to do away with the notion of a square board. A square has only eight
symmetries: reflection NS or EW, 180 degree rotation, or any (or no)
combination of these. Indeed, the ultimate in symmetry would be to do away
with the board's edges: the board should be infinite, hence giving it
translational as well as reflectional symmetry. And we should do away with
the notion of cells within the board: the most symmetrical 2-dimensional
object being the entire Euclidean plane, in which any point is equivalent
to any other. Then we have complete rotational symmetry, about any point,
as well as translations and reflections.

But since we're pursuing symmetry as the ultimate goal here, we need to
embolden ourselves to take the next vital step as well. To do away with
the last vestiges of ugly asymmetry, we must also abolish the pieces: for
once pieces are introduced into our pristine continuum, they render the
game asymmetrical again, by causing some points and directions to have
more importance than others: in particular, the points pieces occupy, and
the directions they would need to move to attack other pieces, would have
special importance. Our ultimate, perfectly symmetrical chess must
therefore consist of an infinite plane with NO PIECES AT ALL.

It might be objected that without pieces it will be difficult to state
rules of movement, capture, initial setup, and object. But clearly, since
we desire a perfectly symmetrical game, we must abolish these notions as
well: because the perfectly symmetrical chess game must be symmetrical in
time as well as in space, and therefore it must have no beginning, no end,
and no change: the state of the game at any point must be the same as its
state at any other point. 

And so, at last, we have our perfectly symmetrical game: no cells, no
pieces, no goal, no players: is not its perfect, chaste serenity a thing
of beauty? Have we not achieved true theoretical perfection? And can we
not get back to discussing real chess games now?

Touche! :-)

I wrote that years ago and have forgotten the wording enough that when I
reread it nowadays I keep thinking, criminy, what pompous a$$ wrote this
stuff?

Here's that page I couldn't find before, that describes how to make fairy
chessmen out of regular Staunton pieces:

http://www.chessvariants.org/crafts.dir/fairy-chess-pieces.html

It's listed in the alphabetical index under 'How to make ...', but I think 
it would be better to list it in the index page of the Crafts section:

http://www.chessvariants.org/crafts.dir/index.html

As I say, I've used the technique described to make a Marshall and
Cardinal, though I haven't followed the full instructions for
dismembering a whole chess set to make the full range of pieces the author
shows. But I have enough to make an attractive set for Grotesque Chess.

I hope Mr. and Mrs. Fischer are very happy in their marriage. But this
business of the Japanese holding him prisoner on false charges is
disturbing. Surely the Japanese do not customarily hold people on false
charges? Are we quite certain that the charges are not in fact true? I
hope no one would assume automatically that anything alleged against a man
admired for his chess expertise is false.

Robert Abbott now has a set of Ultima puzzles on his website!

http://www.logicmazes.com/games/puz1to4.html

I've suggested in the forum that the Games Courier might implement a 'The
World Against ...' system, whereby a champion at some variant would play
White and everyone else plays Black. 'The World' can use a public forum
to discus possible lines of play and could vote (in a strict time-span) on
which move to make. 

Grand Chess would be a good game to investigate this way, because
Mindsports Arena has held tournaments some years back, so it has
recognized champions: Wayne Schmittberger and John Vehre. Either 'The
World Against Vehre' or 'The World Against Schmittberger' would be
great fun, I think, if either party could be enlisted for it.

Tony, that sounds like a good idea. Something like 'the World against
Kasparov.' Maybe the winner of the CV tournament could play one side and
'the world' could play the other? Or, just 'the world against the
world.'

If this is the square you're proposing the white King to move to, I don't
see how the move puts him in check.

[ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
[ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][p][ ]
[ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]     Caps are black, lowercase are white
[ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][P]
[ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
[p][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
[k][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
[ ][ ][K][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]

The basic idea of the game is that, as there are two simple sliders (B, R)
and one combination slider (B+R=Q), so in Wildebeest Chess there are also
two simple jumpers (Knight = (1,2) jumper and Camel = (1,3) jumper), and
one combined jumper (Wildebeest = N+C). I wonder how well the idea would
work instead with Knights and Zebras ((2,3) jumpers), and a combination
N+Z piece?

There is the idea that, as one of the sliders is color-bound, so perhaps
one of the jumpers ought to be also, hence the Camel. But it's not
obvious to me that rule makes for the best game. I'd be interesting in
knowing whether Wayne Schmittberger or anyone else has tried it. 

Actually, since the preset to enforce the rules has not been written for
this game yet, it would be possible to try playing this way, simply
entering Zebra moves for Camels and Knight/Zebra moves for the Wildebeest.

I like the way this game addresses the problem of the too-powerful royal
piece (which can make it hard to win the game) by the rule that the queen
cannot slide through check. That seems original and yet chesslike, and
sounds likely to do the trick. The explanation on this page was a little
hard for me to decipher, however: I'd suggest rephrasing somehow to
remove the reference to queens capturing other queens. Is 'cover' as you
use it here a standard chess term? I hadn't run across it yet.

I wish the board had a fourth color, so that each dragon would be
restricted to squares of one color. 

Shouldn't there be a piece for Ireland? A Harp, perhaps? No idea what it
would do, though.

'There must be dozens of possible names that would suit it better and
have the advantage of being offensive.' Surely Charles simply forgot to
type the word 'not' in this sentence.

'the three heraldic-based pieces could be considered 'brutish'.' I
imagine Charles G's use of 'brutish' harks back to the use of 'brute'
to mean 'beast,' which is comprehensible enough. The idea that a CV
inventor's choice of a name should be second-guessed at length is
certainly odd, though.

I've been thinking of a variant expanding on the Bughouse concept that I
call Team Chess (or Team Shogi). I'm envisioning six players on a team,
and games taking place between two opposing teams. Two team members play a
small variant, two play usual chess, and one plays a large variant; the
sixth team member is the captain. All three chess variants being played
should use similar armies and rules, so that it won't cause confusion if
a piece gets transferred to another board -- perhaps Quickchess, usual
chess, and Grand Chess. The winner of the large variant game determines
the winning team. When a piece is captured, the capturing team's captain
takes it in hand (it changes color) and delivers it to one of his team's
five players (captain's choice) to drop at will. The captain can watch
all five of the games, but no other communication takes place between the
team members once play has begun. 

I haven't decided what should happen when one of the smaller games ends;
should the captain receive all the pieces of the conquered army? None of
them? Perhaps just a Prince (non-royal King)?