Comments by jean-louiscazaux

The quality of the page has not been improved in more than one year. If everyone is happy with that, fine.

@ Fergus D, HG M, Kevin P, Zied H, Greg S, Daniel Z.

I have sent you an e-mail concerning my on-going project. Please check your e-mail box and warn me if you don't have it. I am not sure of your address. Thank you very much.

I think there are other mistakes:

"In the diagram on the right, the White Advancer can capture the Black Queen by moving along the path of red circles and ending its move on the large red circle on c5. If it stops on one of the smaller red circles on d6 or e7, the Advancer will not capture the Queen."

The large circle is on d5. The small red ones on e6 and f7.

Interesting paper. Errors in describing chess variants are not uncommon in literature (see Grant Acedrex for example). However, not everything are errors as this paper says. There are always obscure points in the old and original descriptions, and they are rendered with some interpretation by more modern authors. This is also what the authors of this paper are doing themselves. In my opinion their reconstruction is speculating as much as Murray or others have done, but their speculation make sense and I think their proposed reconstruction is the best for this game, indeed.

If Markov contacts me I will be glad to discuss that with him.

Is this variant a recent invention or is there an historical context? I don't understand. It is said "I dramatized Sin-yeon-sang-hui", but what is Sin-yeon-sang-hui?

Thank you

The "author" made 2 other pages of the same quality than this one. Looks like a troll is around.

I imagine the question has been asked in the past. Sorry to ask again, I don't know the answer:

Is there any way to propose a draw, null, to an opponent on Game Courier?

(Resigning is not really a solution because if a game is going to no end, it is unfair to give a "lost" at the player who resigns and "has won" to the other player.)

Thanks

I try this applet but it doesn't work for me, probably I'm doing wrong.

I use the white grid, in "Move definition aid". I tick some squares, they become orange. Then if I tick any of the 3 right-side buttons, for example "both", then the orange disappear, all squares on the diagram are white again and I see nothing where a Betza notation is supposed to appear.

I've tried on a Mac with Safari and Firefox.

Am I doing wrong ?

Thanks

The rule of castling is not correct as far as the Rook is concerned. When castling, the king moves three squares when castling short and four when castling long. The rook jumps to the immediate square on the other side of the king.

This will be corrected in future editions of A World of Chess, by JL.Cazaux and R.Knowlton.

The rule of castling is not correct as far as the Rook is concerned. When castling, the king move four squares toward one of the rooks, and the rook jumps to the other side of the king.

This will be corrected in future editions of A World of Chess, by JL.Cazaux and R.Knowlton.

In addition, the name Tressan has to be corrected to Tressau on this page.

The preset for Very Heavy Chess seems corrupted. It is not the one I designed, it is another one made by Greg Strong. I have a game going on with Kevin P. and I'm getting an absurd check, which is removed by another absurd move.

Would it be possible to put my preset instead?

Thanks

I'm impressed by this development. But it is complex for me to understand, despite of the very clear text, it is not intuitive for me. I'm particularly interested by bent riders. A Gryphon without W or R in the string is strange, I understand the explanation but it is too bad there is no a modifier to say "move outwards as X". I'm not at all a computer language expert, I confess.

I got the string for the Gryphon, I can derive the one for Manticore by replacing the F by W. I think this is right. But I failed in fiding the string for the Ship (an half-Gryphon, only sliding vertically, not horizontally) and the Snake(tongue) (an half-Manticore, 1 step v then sliding diag away, never 1 step h then diag). What is the solution?

Thanks a lot

@Greg or another editor.

I think I know where the bug comes from in the Very Heavy Chess preset.

The "Pre-Game" block doesn't have the right squares, it has been cut-and-paste from Heavy Chess.

Instead of

setflag b2 b9 i2 i9 f2 f9; set k f9; set K f2; set ep false; set bpr 8; set wpr 3; set wcastle d2 e2 g2 h2; set bcastle d9 e9 g9 h9;

it should be:

setflag c2 c9 j2 j9 g2 g9; set k g9; set K g2; set ep false; set bpr 8; set wpr 3; set wcastle e2 f2 h2 i2; set bcastle e9 f9 h9 i9;

Could you make the correction?

Also the "Rules URL" is wrong, pointing to Heavy Chess instead of Very Heavy Chess.

I could do the correction myself but I don't think it will be saved for everyone.

Thank you

Thank you HG and Bn for your answer, it's fascinating, although I can't understand everything.

I have tried the strings you said for the Ship. Not all of them work. Maybe I haven't caught what you meant.

flbryafrFfrblyaflF: doesn't work. It skips the F-square

smpyasW: it works, but I really don't have the skills to understand why (it looks like "sympa" a French equivalent of "cool" or "great" that you say when something is nice)

FvmpasyazW: doesn't work. Strange pattern: B+incomplete Manticore

I have written a preset to play Hannibal Chess, enforcing the rules, which is therefore better than the one available. We are playing it with Kevin P.

My preset is here:

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Hannibal+Chess&settings=default-v2

I don't know how to made it available for the Games menu. Maybe an editor can do it?

Thank you

A small detail: this article uses the word "heterdox" many times, except once it uses "heterodox". Is "heterdox" an English word valid in this context or just a typo here?

I have the feeling that this page is not the latest version. I was looking for an information that I'm almost sure was there and now I see this page which seems not updated. Same thing with the "editors" page. Am I wrong?

@HG: I'm embarrassed to answer you. I see Betza's notation as a convenient and intuitive way of describing the moves of a chess piece. I believe XBetza's notation has another goal, that of being able to be understood by an AI for the cases not covered by the basic notation. In that respect, what you have done works. I can't say which form is the best because I am very soon lost in the deciphering (even with strong effort, I'm lost in the explanations).

I would have said that a Ship should be something like F&$vR, I use other characters as examples, but they could be anything, & meaning "then" and $ meaning "away from the starting square in both x and y". A Gryphon would be F&$R, a Snake vW&$B, an Osprey D&$B. That would permit to differentiate a N&$B (Unicornio from Grant Acedrex) from a N&$R (used in some large CVs).

But this is just a "user's" point of view, ignorant of the constraint of programming and consistency with the rest of the XBetza language.

Hello.I fear nobody will answer my last posts here, so I renew in case I'll have more success:

• There is a bug in the GC preset of Very Heavy Chess available from the Alphabetical index. I have given the reason in my earlier message and suggest what has to be modified. Can someone make the correction?

• I have made a GC preset for Hannibal Chess. It is available under my own GC Setting Files. How to place it in the list of "Games to play" and/or the Alphabetical index?

Of course I will do that myself if someone explains me how to do.

Thank you

Excellent! Thank you very much

@Adam: thank you for the explanation.

I have then submitted the GC Preset for Hannibal Chess with moves displayed and enforced rules.

I was forced to mention this is the title because a short "Hannibal Chess" exists already, it is a preset with no rules enforced. I hope this doesn't cause any problem.

For what concerns Very Heavy Chess, any answer ? Again the available preset is bugged. Shall I update also a corrected version? If I do that someone will remove the bugged one?

I report here again the bug which is on the GC Preset of Very Heavy Chess. We found it on this log: https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Very+Heavy+Chess&log=panther-timurthelenk-2021-339-162 We had an absurd "check" which could be removed by another absurd move.

I think I know where the bug comes from in the Very Heavy Chess preset.

The "Pre-Game" block doesn't have the right squares, it has been cut-and-paste from Heavy Chess.

Instead of

setflag b2 b9 i2 i9 f2 f9; set k f9; set K f2; set ep false; set bpr 8; set wpr 3; set wcastle d2 e2 g2 h2; set bcastle d9 e9 g9 h9;

it should be:

setflag c2 c9 j2 j9 g2 g9; set k g9; set K g2; set ep false; set bpr 8; set wpr 3; set wcastle e2 f2 h2 i2; set bcastle e9 f9 h9 i9;

Could you make the correction?

Also the "Rules URL" is wrong, pointing to Heavy Chess instead of Very Heavy Chess.

Thanks you to fix it.

As a matter of fact, I had had only a minor contribution in support of Eric Silverman and I cannot be considered as a co-author. Just "inspirator" if I may say.

I have myself designed and published a similar CV which aim is indeed to complement Shako, it is Pemba, https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/pemba

In addition if you want to make the lineage with my games, it would be important to respect the choice of names and icons I've made for them and that I use in all my games. This matters a lot for me. Eric S has respected this in the Heavy Shako he made available on AI AI.

You could use the "alfaerie for Metamachy" set for that, it has them all.

Your Zebra (which plays AND and not Z) should be a Squirrel, Your Castle (WD) should be a (modern) War Machine, Your small queen (=Leo) should be a Sorceress, represented by a star, Your Lance should be a Crocodile (=Vao), Your Unicorn should be a Buffalo (NCZ).

Thank you

@Adam:I don't catch which game you are talking about. I was talking about Hannibal Chess for which I've made a preset. The castling there is correct according to the rules. (Castling is as in standard chess, except a king goes three squares sideways during the process (instead of two squares). )

I believe you are talking about something else. What is it? Thx

I use "Alfaerie for Metamachy" as a set for the GC presets of my CVs. Who could add 6 new pieces from Alfaerie , coded with 2 letters, to this set?

I would like to have added: the Snake (SN), the Ship (SH), the Bird (BI), the Tiger (TI), the Ram (RA), the Dragon (DR).

Thanks for the help.

I like very much the concept behind this game. I'm eager to play it to see how it goes.

@HG: why the "estimated piece values" are varying when I reload the page. Even relatively one piece to another, I see some changes.

Is the way it is estimated explained somewhere?

Thank you

I knew that Heavy Chess was far from being original, being strongly inspired by Sac Chess. But yesterday I realised that Kevin Pacey had even proposed exactly the same variant several years ago under the name of Royal Bevy Chess.

Therefore, I feel sorry and I have modified the text of this page to better credit him.

Thank you very much. It looks like a well though model. It makes a lot of sense.

I understand that the random positions are taken on the related board, so the result is indeed dependent of its dimensions (which is expected I guess).

That randomisation at the beginning explains why I get different results by re-doing the operation. For example with a Rook's value normalised at 5, on a regular 64-sq chessboard, I get Queen as 8.95; 9.2; 9.6; 9.8 on 4 consecutive trials.

I agree that this enough to what it is done for. I wonder if increasing the number of 10 positions would decrease the results' span.

Thank you again for this detailed explanation

It is me who says you many thanks!

Yes yes, excellentes fêtes à tous, tantissimi auguri a tutti, very happy season's feasts to all, muy buenas fiestas a todos, tre bonaj ferioj al cxiuj. You are a great community. Take care of you and your beloved ones.

@Adam: if it helps, look and edit the gc preset of Maasai chess. You will see this set

Happy new year to all chess variants enthusiasts all around the world, and their beloved ones. Keep safe and have a lot of happiness in your life.

The table with all pieces on this page is pretty useful to estimate values. I wish it could include more piece: Manticore, Buffalo (NCZ), Okapi (NZ), Bison (CZ), Duchess (KADGH), Cheetah (CZGH), Tiger (CZGHAND), Centaur (KN), Heroin (RFN), Templar (BWN), Lion KAND, Ship t(FvR), Snake t(vWB), Troll (mfWcfFGH), promoted XQ pawn, Mao (XQ N), Osprey t(DB), Ostrich t(AR). Well, that's a lot, too many maybe. Maybe just some of them...

I was looking to this Interactive Diagram (thanks HG). The Prince's move is not correct. It is not K. It should be KimfnD.

I wish I could edit this page to present it in a better manner, and consistently with my other variants. Is that possible?

Exact HG, I had not realized that. This is the consequence of the fact that I can't edit this page like I do with my other games. (I have the same problem with Shako).

This page on our site is not updated. The updated page is here http://history.chess.free.fr/tamerlane2.htm

If I could I would update the page on CVP too. I could then explain why this evolution.

I have an idea, but maybe it will not work. This is my idea: if I write a new page for Shako as a "member submissions". Then someone just removes all contents in the existing Shako page except a link directing to the new one. Will it work?

Yes indeed, if I update this page I wish to keep the diagram too, it's very nice to have it. Thanks

I beg some help, this is above my skills. I do cut and try, but I'm unable to get it. I want to code a Ship (t(FvR), vertical Gryphon) and a Snake (t(vWB), vertical Manticore). I was thinking to go from Gryphon and Manticore. How should I modify those:

def G fn (checkride #0 #1 1 0 and empty #0) where #0 sign - file #1 file #0 sign - rank #1 rank #0 #1

and != file #1 file #0 and != rank #1 rank #0 or checkleap #0 #1 1 1;

def GL mergeall leaps #0 1 1 rays where #0 1 1 1 0 rays where #0 1 -1 1 0 rays where #0 -1 -1 1 0 rays where #0 -1 1 1 0;

and :

def U fn (checkride #0 #1 1 1 and empty #0) where #0 0 sign - rank #1 rank #0 #1

or fn (checkride #0 #1 1 1 and empty #0) where #0 sign - file #1 file #0 0 #1

or checkleap #0 #1 1 0;

def UL mergeall leaps #0 1 0 rays where #0 0 1 1 1 rays where #0 0 -1 1 1 rays where #0 1 0 1 1 rays where #0 -1 0 1 1;

Thanks!!!

I believe the pages Fantastic XIII and the one for the GC preset can be published. Thank you

Hello Aurelian. I have no plan to use them. There are probably very special to put in a CV, but not without interest.

Great looking, nice thema. What I have not understood reading the rules, is how the pieces start? What is the initial setup?

Thank you BnEm. I don't understand all what you say. English is not my mother tongue and I don't get the meaning of "Idk","afaik","ofc", "iirc" which are probably shortcuts but I don't know for what.

Also, I don't get this sentence "Otherwise a pawn reaching the middle rank has an advantage over its counterpart that can't be trivially made up for." What do you mean "trivially made up for", I'm lost.

Concerning the Ship, I used it only in my Tamerlane II, not on my other variants. Actually, I adopted it long long time ago, in the very first CV I created (and fabricated, pictures exist in https://www.chessvariants.com/d.photo/tamerlane.html), in 1978, https://www.chessvariants.com/large.dir/tamerlane2-old.html Of course in that time we had not Internet, I had no computer, it was prehistory, I was not speaking English at all, and I didn't know Betza (smile).

I have a bizarre problem I can't solve with the GC preset. The Black ship on e13 can go on a12 and I don't know why. And while on a12 it can go on a11. These moves are not at all allowed. This doesn't happen with the White Ship. When the ship is every where but on the raw 13, that problem does not occur anymore.

The Ship is supposed to move as a vertical half-gryphon.

The code is:

def s fn (checkride #0 #1 0 1 and empty #0)
    where #0 1 1
    #1
    or fn (checkride #0 #1 0 1 and empty #0)
    where #0 -1 1
    #1
    or fn (checkride #0 #1 0 -1 and empty #0)
    where #0 1 -1
    #1
    or fn (checkride #0 #1 0 -1 and empty #0)
    where #0 -1 -1
    #1
    or checkleap #0 #1 1 1;

def sL mergeall
    leaps #0 1 1
    ray where #0 1 1 0 1
    ray where #0 1 -1 0 -1
    ray where #0 -1 1 0 1
    ray where #0 -1 -1 0 -1;

I don't understand what's going on. Thanks for any help

Ed.Note: formatted the code

This is a feedback not a critic. I'm not sure that anything can be done to improve.

Being based in France, I see ads from e-bay in French. But many are not related to chess. The reason is that "chess" is "échecs" in French, always at plural, with an "s" at the end. The word in singular, "échec" means "failure" in English. (It also means "check" which may complicate).

So, there several ads for books dealing with the failure of something, failure of education, failure of economy, whatever, but no relation at all with chess.

Hope this may help

No it is not that. I was looking for history information about the CVP, fresher than 2001. For example the successive editors in chief, who and from when to when, and any important fact that marked the history of the CVP.

I don't see what would be abnormal

I have noticed that several games of Gross Chess end up with some Marshalls and/or Archbishops unmoved. Maybe the presence of two Marshalls and two Archbishops is somewhat excessive. I wonder if a variant with a single Marshall on g1 and Archbishop on f1 with empty a1, b1, k1, l1 would be worth to be investigated.

Same observation than Daniel from my side

Ski-whatever is a bizarre name to my ears. Like if the piece was skiing. What's the meaning of ski- in English in this context?

I'm playing a game of Eurasian Chess with GC and I was expecting to get a promotion when I advanced my Pawn on the last 3 ranks. But nothing happened and the Pawn remained a Pawn.

Looks like it works. Thanks to you Ben and Fergus!

This game is played with many variants, and even the Chinese Wikipedia page indicates a variant where Dog > Wolf. And also with Tiger > Lion. I prefer too playing with Wolf > Dog, but we should agree that it does not matter so much, the situations where Wolf encounters Dog are very rare.

Why using a Ram to represent the Buffalo? Why not using a "Wildebeest" icon, https://www.chessvariants.com/graphics.dir/alfaerieSVG/wwildebeest.svg ?

I don't understand these rules.

The river and the fortresses are not shown on the diagram.

The fortress is said "(back 2 cells of middle 2 files)". I see 9 files. Which ones are the 2 middle?

The rule says "Wazirs and Ferzes cannot leave the Fortress". But they start on the 3rd rank, out of the Fortress if I well understood. How come they cannot leave it, they are not in it?

The page for Devingt Chess is OK.

But the preset GC for Devingt Chess is not OK. It should not be published as this. It is an unfinished work because I don't know how to code several rules:

• castling: the K may move 2 OR 3 sq towards the R

• en-passant: a pawn on 7 should be able to take en-passant an opposed pawn that had moved 3 sq.

• promotion: only for captured pieces, a pawn on 9 cannot step on 10 if no piece is available.