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ChessVA computer program
. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Aurelian Florea wrote on Thu, Dec 29, 2022 06:58 AM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from Sun Dec 25 03:09 PM:

Hello Greg,

Have you an idea about when you will release the next ChessV version?


Aurelian Florea wrote on Mon, Dec 26, 2022 10:15 AM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from Sat Dec 17 03:58 PM:

@Greg, If you allow customizable low material evaluation like KMK (M is the CW), may you make it with lists like in KWWK(W is the CF)? I'm sure you though about that, too, and it is a bit late to raise this problem, but it could turn helpfull!


Aurelian Florea wrote on Tue, Dec 20, 2022 02:47 PM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from 02:30 PM:

The only game I'd like to invent of this size would be an 16x16 Chu Shogi variant, named apothecary of course. But for this it is way more important to see chu shogi in ChessV which is in itself stretchy!


Aurelian Florea wrote on Tue, Dec 20, 2022 07:18 AM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from Mon Dec 19 11:17 PM:

Both.  You are limited to a maximum of 16 files and 16 ranks.  But there is also a limit of 192 squares, so you can't really get 16x16.  The largest size is essentially 16x12 or 12x16.  Someday this might be increased, but not any time soon.  Going to 16x16 would not be too large a code change, but it would have a performance cost for every game, even small ones.

Isn't there a more sensitive choice to have a ChessVBig build separatly? This would not cut the performance for chessV small and allow users to have speed in the smaller boards case and also allow to implement 16x16 games.! 


Aurelian Florea wrote on Mon, Dec 19, 2022 06:46 PM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from 06:45 PM:

Those sound great!


Aurelian Florea wrote on Mon, Dec 19, 2022 04:29 PM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from 04:05 PM:

If you add a Joker to Xinagqi, how does it imitate the King?  Is it restricted to the palace?  If it is not currently in the palace, can it move?  Does it "check" the opponent king across an open file?  Only in the palace?

I was thinking just that, too! 


Aurelian Florea wrote on Mon, Dec 19, 2022 03:17 PM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from 02:44 PM:

Option 2: The Joker retains the move capabilities of the last piece moved by the opponent.  Therefore, both Jokers always have moves (except on the very first move of the game), and the two Jokers will not necessarily have the same moves.  This is consistent with the description on the Apothecary Chess Modern page.  But I don't think the description on Wikipedia is sufficient to distinguish between this and:

I think this is the implementation I want for my games! 


Aurelian Florea wrote on Mon, Dec 19, 2022 02:08 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 02:03 PM:

Well,HG, Even the rarest of situations have to be taken into consideration.I'll wait to see what Greg has out of all of that!


Aurelian Florea wrote on Mon, Dec 19, 2022 01:19 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 12:40 PM:
  • "Check threat": after making one's move, an opponent's fool becomes the same piece for one move; if the fool would thus give immediate check, the move would have been illegal, thereby preventing the piece moving ("neutralizing" it) unless it moves to block the check or take the fool.

That is from the wikipedia article about Omega chess.And the following is from my article on Apothecary Chess Modern:

The joker (jester,fool) imitates the power movement and capture of the last piece moved by the opponent.

In both cases the joker's move is update at the begining of one's move replacing the old move that has been inherited two plies ago.

So HG, I think we are talking about differnet pieces. 


Aurelian Florea wrote on Mon, Dec 19, 2022 12:21 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 09:29 AM:

I think I had not understood this earlier. Now I see the conundrum.

This is a checkmate because the joker still has black queen's powers. Only after black moves the power is changed. In this case it cannot. So it is at least a stalemate. But for the reason stated above the black king is also in check.

Isn't this the same situation with having the king and joker unobstructed on the same orthogonal? This pins all rooks, queens, chancellors and so on.

@Greg,

I see why you hate the joker! And probably for similar reasons I love it!


Aurelian Florea wrote on Mon, Dec 19, 2022 07:19 AM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from Sun Dec 18 10:45 PM:

@Greg,

The way I see the situation at hand (the actual situation that has started this discussion), the black king will be captured at the next move and this counts as a check to me, even if we are very technical about it, it is not. I'm afraid I have no further understanding on the matter


Aurelian Florea wrote on Mon, Dec 19, 2022 07:13 AM UTC in reply to Daniel Zacharias from 02:39 AM:

@Daniel,

This is not my piece either. I'm just using it. The joker has no movement at the beginning of the game.


Aurelian Florea wrote on Sun, Dec 18, 2022 09:16 PM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from 09:00 PM:

Oh, now I understand. After white has moved the white joker has no move as it is it's default. Check should be checked only immediately after the enemy moved. I think I had this discussion with Fergus a while ago.At least this is how I see it. But I'm quite sure that then you cannot have the same move for both jokers!


Aurelian Florea wrote on Sun, Dec 18, 2022 08:53 PM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from 08:41 PM:

Well, I don't see any trouble with both joker having the same movement powers both players don't have their turns at the same time, but honestly I don't understand the details of what you two guys are talking about. It is just that I'm very grateful that you are basically helping me design my own games!


Aurelian Florea wrote on Sun, Dec 18, 2022 08:37 PM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from 07:20 PM:

The Joker has to imitate the last piece moved by the opponent so if white has moved a queen then it's black's turn and the black joker has queen powers for the purpose of checking. So in KJK the joker should unambiguously move as a king. I'm not sure why the rest isn't just an implementation problem.

Thanks a lot guys for taking the time to do this for me, as I am the main beneficiary of this code!


Aurelian Florea wrote on Sun, Dec 18, 2022 03:02 PM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from 02:54 PM:

Oh, ok!


Aurelian Florea wrote on Sun, Dec 18, 2022 02:11 PM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from 01:48 PM:

I don't understand the null move usage here either. The way I have made the rules, the joker has a null move only at the beginning of the game!


Aurelian Florea wrote on Sun, Dec 18, 2022 10:58 AM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 07:06 AM:

I don't think this is the most natural interpretation of the Joker. I would opt for rules where the Joker keeps mimicking the previously moved piece after null move (just as it would after opponent Joker move).

I agree with HG. It makes sense that a joker imitating a king to be a man so KJK is exactly like KMK. 


Aurelian Florea wrote on Sun, Dec 18, 2022 06:17 AM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from 12:34 AM:

From what I understand a stalemated king passes nothing to the joker. Am I correct?


Aurelian Florea wrote on Sat, Dec 17, 2022 05:59 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 05:48 PM:

There is also the reverse case where a heavy minor manticore can't mate!


@ Mirko Mirko[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Aurelian Florea wrote on Sat, Dec 17, 2022 05:47 PM UTC in reply to Mirko Mirko from 04:39 PM:

So, hello again Mirko! Thank Kevin for the explanations. I just wanted to point out that a nicer game is one where the two armies are balanced!


Aurelian Florea wrote on Sat, Dec 17, 2022 04:43 PM UTC in reply to Mirko Mirko from 04:39 PM:

Those are Betza notations!


ChessVA computer program
. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Aurelian Florea wrote on Sat, Dec 17, 2022 04:18 PM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from 03:58 PM:

I do not think I have expressed myself well about the joker. The K and J do manage to force the enemy king to the corner, but then it is not doing the obvious checkmating move.


Aurelian Florea wrote on Sat, Dec 17, 2022 04:15 PM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from 03:58 PM:

Can't major or minor be a user defined property of a piece?


@ Mirko Mirko[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Aurelian Florea wrote on Sat, Dec 17, 2022 03:02 PM UTC in reply to Aurelian Florea from 02:58 PM:

You may try to play against the RFA & BWD!


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