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A 3d version of the Falcon that would make sense, would also incorporate root-3 diagonal “Unicorn” moves. A combination of Duke’s Falcon with Gilman’s Vulture, Kite, and a piece Gilman surprisingly didn’t name (I think it would be a “Multipath Stepping Fortnight”, if my Gilmanese is correct). Gilman calls the leaping version of this piece a “Trison”.
The Falcon is a generalization of the Korean Elephant.
Thanks Greg!
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Jan 1, 2022 03:53 PM UTC in reply to Aurelian Florea from 07:26 AM:So, if I want to use the falcon in a commercial game, can I do it or should I pay money for it.
It's ok, the patent has expired: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5690334A/en?oq=5690334
So, if I want to use the falcon in a commercial game, can I do it or should I pay money for it.
H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, Oct 2, 2016 09:23 AM UTC:The problem is that 'lame' is an ill-defined concept for 'oblique' moves (i.e. not strictly orthogonal or diagonal). E.g. look at the Xiangqi Horse (Mao). It is a lame Knight. But that in itself doesn't tell you that it can be blocked on the W; squares, rather than the F squares, like the 'Moa'. Or whether it is multi-path, and can only blocked by occupying both squares. So one has to specify the path, square by square.
This can be done by describing the move as a sequence of steps. The Mao takes one orthogonal step, followed by an outward diagonal one. This can be described by afsW: 'a' (= 'again') for indicating there are two steps, and 'fs' behind it to indicate how it bends. So the Mao is described as a two-step Wazir that bends 45 degrees after the first step. The default modality for the first step is 'm', (because another step follows), so it does not have to be written. The Moa would be afsF, and the Moo would be afsK, so it can start in any of the 8 directions.
The notation for the Falcon used here is an extension of that to 3 steps (so there are two 'a', each followe by two descriptions of how the trajectory bends). There are 3 path types: bend early, bend late and bend twice. E.g. bend early can be written as afsafK: the second step forward-sideway compared to the first, and the third 'forward' compared to the second. Unfortunately the twice-bent path has to be written as one left+right and one right+left path, as there is no way to indicate in the third step "now bend in the opposite direction". This is how I finally arrive at afsafKafafsKaflafrKafraflK.
The additional 'm' written in the diagram are really redundant, and act as a reminder only. For non-final leg 'm' is the default, like for a final (or only) leg 'mc' is the default modality. That makes the XBetza system tuned to representing lame leapers. Pieces that capture or hop on their way do need extra modifiers to indicate that.
Hello,
H.G.,
Could you explain the betza notation for falcon for us the more lazy ones.
I was thinking of something more like lame Z or C (L in older version) rather than what you posted which is something I don't understand, and why your choice for the used version , as I'm sure more people could think at more solution to writting the falcon move.
H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Sep 27, 2016 09:42 PM UTC:Well, Falcons make forks, but Rooks make those to a lesser extent too (e.g. when they enter the 7th rank and attack Pawns on both wings). And in addition they can make skewers. All of which also benefits from long-range planning (to open files, make batteries...). To a human the bent motion of Falcons (and even Knights) might seem less obvious than the straight path of Rooks, but to a computer they are just sequences of moves,and it calculates them with precision no matter how far it has to think ahead. So I don't expect specific knowledge on the pieces to make much difference. Also note that even when the Falcon is only marginally more valuable than a Rook, there would be awfully little to fork that would make a juicy bite when protected.
Values -- there H. G. Muller had the values Rook and Falcon worked out 9 years ago. Not much progress has been made, but ultimately I bet texts will show Falcon 5.5 or even 5.75 to Rook 5.0, because of forks Falcon makes with longer term planning the only few programs yet are not told about. But Muller right away was closer than the 5.0 R and 7.0 F I used in the nineties. Now I consider myself player and have lost about 2 to 14 wins at Game Courier.
H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Sep 27, 2016 02:13 PM UTC:Well, computer programs usually do not rank pieces, the programmers usually do that for them. The quality of play also turns out to have surprisingly little effect on piece values.
Fairy-Max self-play showed the Falcon value to be slightly above that of a Rook, perhaps equal. (Pieces close in value tend to pull their values towards each other, complicating the measurement.)
The falcon is an interesting piece! Arriving at the same square in different ways is a clever concept. I would be curious to know how a top computer would rank them compared to a knight.
Humphrey Bogart was Chess player with games recorded now at ChessGames, http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=65398. The Maltese Falcon of 1941 movie has just sold November 2013: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/maltese-falcon-figurine-fetches-4-million-article-1.1529179, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/11/maltese-falcon-bird-statuette-up-for-auction.html. Bill Wall's Chess and Movies http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lab/7378/movies.htm has Bogart playing Chess in all of 'Casablanca'(1942), 'Knock on Any Door'(1949), and 'Left Hand of God'(1955) films. For Chess Variant, see 217 The Blood of Heroes. http://www.chessdryad.com/articles/wall/art_01.htm -- his Bogart and Chess has shot of Peter Lorre and Humphrey Bogart at Chess in 'Casablanca'.
That last section the commenter (Frolov) is right referring to, ''More Variants,'' as really for another article. It was to be lead to further expansion on Falcon combined with Shogi and also Xiangqi never completed. Immediately, proliferation in CVs occurred, and the last section on other variants is overtaken and substituted instead by the general reference article 6 years later in 2006 ''91.5 Trillion Falcon Chess Variants.'' Korean Chess Elephant is non-leaping Zebra. In CVs there are also a few non-leaping Camels used. Two of those are Cardinal Super-Chess, and Camblam. There may be no other non-jumping Camels, except as incorporated in partial destinations of all-range hook movers like the magisterial 13th-century Gryphon and recently of course such as Winther's bifurcators having multiple target squares, not just (1,3) or (2,3). However, a type that leaps like Knight and then slides to Camel gets used historically, but that would not be non-jumping. The same for piece-type of Knight leap, then slide to Zebra. Both those are in 1994 Pritchard occasionally, and for some reason not in CVPage CVs, although CVPage has by now two or three times more the attributed CVs than 'ECV'.
I like falcon. It's interesting stronger version of Korean elephant. By the way, have anybody thought about using moo in Korean chess instead normal horse (mao) and falcon with only zebra's moves (without all camel moves) instead normal elephant? But, i think that section 'Other variants' should be removed from this page, and each variant, described here (shogi generals instead pawns, for example), should have separate page, they are not logical continuation of falcon, they may be used for FIDE chess to (as Betza says, 'for progressive earthquake trapdoor alice shogi'), this page takes many space without it, but these variants are interesting to.
[Incomplete description corrected. The reason I had 8x7x5 around was to see if certain natural pathways of 8x7x7 and 8x7x5 balanced out. It's better to get them all 8x7x6 as below.] The following is abstract summary about Chieftain, not Falcon. I filed the 2x2x2 comparison at Gilman's M&B04. The 48/336 is going to come up again within M&Bxx. Of course 336/48=7. The full Rule to get 8x7x6=336 requires logical Chieftain of Jetan restriction between loose and strict, and these three subrules are convenient to gamesters. Chess in motion is not only math. 8 steps to choose, then 7 to choose, the first two are obvious, then 6 the third step we have to be careful, all three one-steps for the full three-steps, numbering the 336 pathways. (1) In the three-step there is no return to same square already passed over. (2) 0-degree, 45-degree, and 90-degree changes of direction are all permitted. (3) If there are two 135 changes to choose to get the total 6 choices for the final one-step, use clockwise preference. The full rule makes always 8x7x6=336 three-steps (without subrule 3 there are cases of 8->7->7); and Falcon uses 48 movements from among them. Falcon's movement rule is far simpler, and the foregoing is for Chieftain of Jetan, out of which Falcon is carved. Falcon can be stated as simply as: ''three-steps outward both of at least one straight and one diagonal.''
Joe Joyce wrote on Wed, Feb 4, 2009 12:31 AM UTC:There are elements of interest found in higher-dimensional chess that are not found in 2D variants. But many think the 2D surface is the best to play upon. Even if the game is 3 or 4 dimensions, playing on a 2D surface is generally easier. For an interesting take on this topic, let me recommend Mapped Chess, by S. Burkhart, found here: http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSmappedchess
> 3-Ds are just 2 or more layers of 2-Ds, unnecessary contrivance, when you could just lay the whole smear end to end in nice flat canvas. Strictly speaking, of course, 2-dimensional games can also be represented as 1-dimensional games. A 1-dimensional layout is simpler mathematically (and game-playing software often stores a game's positions in a 1-dimensional array), but the human visual system generally does better with 2 dimensions than with either 3 or 1. Exactly what this says about the relationship between mathematical tidiness and playability, I'm not sure.
In famous comment this thread here 17.July.2007, Editor Good, if I may call him editor, calls Falcon ''the greatest chess innovation to come along in 500 years (scroll back).'' He is right because Falcon-Bison complement Rook, Knight, Bishop mathematically, as nothing else conceivably could, not in 100 years ahead. Guaranteed. Specific Falcon in question is just more precise Bison to achieve that full sought-for-a-millennium complementarity. The theorem does not address actual Falcon games per se; for all I know they may be mediocre by consensus, just the piece. Gilman should not waste time with 3-D. By and large that has been one very limited success in CVPage -- having few successes in 15 years. Namely, to reject 3-D forms is credit to CVPage. Give them up is the message out of CVPage. No one plays them at Game Courier and whenever new ''3-D'' pops up it is not complimented much here. 3-Ds are just 2 or more layers of 2-Ds, unnecessary contrivance, when you could just lay the whole smear end to end in nice flat canvas. John Smith has 100 CVs in couple of months, and none of them are 3-D, so that proves it. So, given 3-D as probable lost cause, and nothwithstanding there are 91.5 Trillion Falcon CVs at article ''91.5 Trillion...,'' Gilman may well have some good idea for 2-D not yet presented. I suggest Gilman collaborate, if wanting to make FCV #91,500,000,000,020. The ''twenty'' (20) is because there are Bifocal Chess and couple of others. Charles, please find some best use on 8x10, 10x10, 8x12, flat and 2-D, and I'll add equal material to round it out, by Charles G. and George D. Precedents in collaboration include everybody else: Duniho & Lavieri, Duke & Aronson, Brown & Havel... Gilman has 200 Lone Ranger CVs only. Out of right field don't play left out: too sinistre.
I am further inspired to write in defence of the Falcon piece, at least, by comments on some variants of mine that do not use it. Yes, the Falcon is weaker than the Bison, but too much of a strong piece is not always a good thing. Comments on variants using compounds of two oblique leapers have made me reluctant to use them further unless a theme calls for them. They can just about get by on a board of squares, or more sparingly on a hex-prism board, but on a cubic board they can be overpowering. A Gnu, Gazelle, or Bison in the centre of an 8x8x8 board can reach 48 cells, and a Buffalo 72. The same could of course be said of the Churchwarden, Samurai, Overon, and Canoe but at least that lot are confined to the second preimeter. ` Being blockable a Falcon does not dominate even the cubic board to the same extent, and suggests a logical set of fellow pieces. Where, by mixing Wazir and Ferz steps, it complements the Knight corresponding 3rd-perimeter steppers can be devised mixing Wazir and Viceroy steps to complement the Sexton - call it the Vulture - and mixing Ferz and Viceroy steps to complement the Ninja - call it the Kite. Even their own compounds are not unthinkable with sufficient blocking pieces - say Merlin for Falcon+Vulture, Kestrel for Falcon+Kite, Osprey for Vulture+Kite, and Eagle for the triple compound. In fact I might try out a cubic variant with the compound pieces, if George Duke does not object.
Let's say you are patenting a Micrometer. It has some unique, novel, inventive inner mechanism. Within the calipers, or connected to them, are some special gear(s), or spring, or device, it does not matter what, that the group thinks will benefit precision measurement conditionally and sufficiently to bother patenting; and researches show it to be untried or thought of before. You know some spacing, or gap, or aperture within, has to be over 3 centimetres for it to work. The specifics are not important. It would be poor to state some exact spacing, like ''4 centimetres.'' Then someone else could make one 4 1/2 centimetres that works just as well and basically the same. So, this patent would be worded minimally concretely as ''at least 3 centimetres'' at that juncture for its particular inventive mechanism to function -- presumably the inventive step. It means there could be untold thousands, millions of very specific embodiments, if anyone gets ''technical,'' i.e. 3.1, 3.2, 3.8, 3.85... Similar reasoning is why, for example, the moves of Rook, Knight, or Bishop are not specified, and instead called or indicated as ''rook-like.'' Cannon for Rook would still be USP5690334 if 8x10 and up, because Cannon then becomes the added element, departing from the norm and making a superset. Elements ABC and D just have become elements ABCD and E: also patented by age-old practice. And so on. It is not a very interesting subject. CV strategy and tactics would be more interesting, but TCVP has never even advanced to that stage, instead being never-ending compilers of so-called ''new'' rules-sets. Hey, with an Author for each and every one, fully to his or her credit. That is except perhaps for Sam Trenholme (in Schoolbook having built some depth), who started it all around 1995, posting assorted CVs from the historical record. See few comments back Trenholme's article ''List of CVs'' from the 1990s at his membership for some great CVs culturally-accepted.
USP5690334 covers all 453,600 initial arrays. This repetition is to clear up mis-statements last fall over a month ago, not current comments I have not read. I had all arrays in mind during 1994-1996 and used the wording and technique, of many prior patents going back to 1970s to extend the coverage correctly that way, in legal consultation. There is no going one by one by one, but all of them together in the Claims wording ''all at predetermined locations.'' Also covered is Bison and any other piece going to squares (2,4) plus (3,4), such as exclusively orthogonally multi-path, or two-path, instead of three-path, Falcon. Also, whimsically are the 91.5 Trillion ''supersets'' now extended, in mirroring CVPage purely artistic over-proliferation, turning it to humour, to some 10^50 CVs. ''Superset'' is not legal term, but makes it understandable to math-types. Anticipating proliferation, I did not at all patent the piece, as I could have. So, for example, anyone can slot Falcon into 8x8 (as Antoine Fourriere does with Bifocal Chess). Also, if there are some important pieces you want to combine with Bison-Falcon on 8x10 and larger, inform me and we can set up co-authorship. That works with Complete Permutation Chess of Aronson. Sorry, to Peter Aronson, Tony Quintanilla, Jeremy Good, who have understood realm of intellectual property involved all along, for repetition to parties that shall not be named not getting it the first time, and to newcomers. What field of endeavor has no patenting for several hundred years? Virtually none. Patenting, and formal copyrighting are far and away the norm (put your money where your mouth is); and CVPage, to the extent increasingly ignoring prior invention/discovery, becomes the aberration to dispassionate informed viewers. For eventual contact with the outside world, how many CVs will be welcome, or tolerated, by the world's billion chess players? Who wants to see a thousand rejects or how the process was arrived at? The scrap paper and uncompiling programs? That is the purpose of NextChess threads, to get the right 100 or so CVs -- an interesting project, if it can be completed, and counterpoint trumping proliferation.
Think of Falcon as having all the Pawn's moves, 1 or 2 straight, 1 or 2 diagonal, the very last of those concatenated over two moves, for example, two Pawn captures in back-to-back moves, as e3xd4 then d4xc5 by the same Pawn capturing twice. That could happen also in dual-move CVs in only one turn. Falcon was ''two-way'' multi-path from January 1988 until December 1992. Then Vera Cole and I were talking about what expansion to 8x10 would mean, and all of the sudden it was realized there was middle path, S-D-S and D-S-D, to the same never-used squares of very old Camel and more-recent 19th-Century Zebra. So, the standards became D-D-S, D-S-S, S-S-D, and S-D-D with then the newest ones called split block and split diagonal, the above DSD and SDS, making all attainable squares three-way, the three-fold way established. Now actual claims USP5690334 numbering 20 retain, by the way they are worded, the (incomplete) two-way Falcon along with three-way Falcon. Lengthy claims have never appeared in CVPage, and are immediately accessible through USPTO site. The discovered first of the 4 fundamental Chess pieces, the mathematical template from which Bishop, Knight and Rook derive, has characteristics of each of those three she makes possible, and moreover traits of Western Pawn embedded in Falcon's very logic and unfolding. Incidentally, it takes all three pathways for accurate mathematical complementarity, but that would be for longer demonstration than room here allows. In this way over-all, Falcon interfaces and links Pawn and Piece, tying all the normal units together.
H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Oct 6, 2008 09:44 PM UTC:You keep stressing how many variants are covered by your patent. More relevant would be: how many of those are actually played? How many of these variants have regional or national championships for them? On how many internet servers can people play these variants? How many people World-wide have equipment to play any of thee variants? It seems to me that all this is a lot more important than wether you cover a billion or a trillion variants...
Anticipating, ''91.5 Trillion...'', and copyright by formal number in year 1996 and unrevised, this article is early super-multi-variant form -- comprising millions CVs -- well before proliferation. There is no one Rules-set described, anyone reading it sees immediately. Under Figure 1 in the beginning ten sentences, what does it say? ''It is also possible to position the Pawns initially in the third rank rather than the second. It is possible to play with fewer Pawns, even just the five of the Chinese game. If a game board of size 10x10 is used, one variation positions the Pawns in the third rank initially, allowing for from 2 to 5 additional game pieces to be positioned within the second rank. These additional pieces may be weak pawn-like ones, that is one- and two-step movers. Alternately, the additional pieces may include a novel major fairy piece or two, such as the Giraffe of Timur's Chess.'' Use Michael Howe's Optima or Novo and Betza's Chess Augmented Knights, plug in pieces and there are billions of CVs in combination; or just put in second rank any piece-type in CVPage. Sub-section ''Other Embodiments'' has play with no Queen and switched arrays. Last section ''More Variants'' incorporates Xiangqi and Shogi pawn-like pieces. Also there are Mutators for Falcon Chess with Progressive and Fischer Random. Sub-section ''Changing Games'': ''It is possible to position only some of the Pawns in the third rank in the 10x10 board size.'' More millions. Any variant thought of specifically has framework here, except 8x8 (like Joyce's Royal Falcon). Preferred 8x10 with no Queen promotion and Castling 2 or more over exists in comments and the first few mutators of ''91.5 Trillion,'' not here.
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Aug 7, 2008 06:11 PM UTC:George: I am close to releasing a new version of the WinBoard Chess GUI, which I expect to become widely distributed amongst Windows and Linux users. Most of the people no doubt will only be interested in playing 'normal' Chess, but I planned to include Fairy-Max with the distribution, as it can both play normal and many variants. The distribution package would look a lot like the experimental version that can be downloaded from the link I gave in the post below. In this new WinBoard I included some support for Falcon Chess in the menus: people can click 'Falcon' as one of the options in the variant menu, and will then be able to use WinBoard as Graphical User Interface for an engine that could actually play it, provided they use one of the wildcard pieces supplied by WinBoard to represent the Falcons. I suppose you have no objection against this, and as WinBoard itself does not play the game, but only acts as a display, it probably does not fall under the patent anyway. As it would only be useful to use WinBoard this way if you did have a Falcon-Chess-playing engine, and the user can communicate with such an engine only through WinBoard, I make WinBoard pop up a licensing message, mentioning your name and the patent number. (Similar to what I make WinBoard do in Gothic Chess.) Fairy-Max, in the download below, does include Falcon Chess as a pre-defined variant, in its fmax.ini file, and when programmed by this preset, actually does play the game (as you could watch in the broadcast). Can I leave this in, or would you prefer me to take out the Falcon-Chess game definition? Please let me know ASAP, I hope to be able to releas this weekend.
True, this is not a Rules-set, instead as it says an essay. It adds to official 1990's copyrights variance-material to suit CVPage in 2000. Right away under the first picture, it refers to having five Pawns as alternative, as Chinese Chess. (Later Overby in Beautiful Sun adopts similar starting array.) Of course, five Pawns would be just ridiculous artwork of no playability. Still in Chapter I, under ''other embodiments'' I mention replacing Queen on 8x8 with Falcon -- something close to what 2008 Seirawan-Chess derivatives might envision in back-rank piece substitutions. Also speculated are 9x9 set-ups. We like to think that preliminarily we are anticipating in 1996-1999 the 10^50 or so CVs (one for each atom between Sun and Mars) using Falcon developed later in 2005 ''91.5 Trillion...'' article including under Comments. What's one hard and fast Rules-set in early going of inevitable widespread experimentation? Figure 23 establishes Free Castling, invented in 1992-1993 along with Falcon, now becoming more prevalent on large boards, whether King goes 1 or 2 over, and always going more at option. Chapter IV ''Symmetrical Expansion'' lays the groundwork for Scorpion, actually described here and publicized fully-definitionally in 2003 ''Passed Pawns, Scorpions and Dragons.'' Elsewhere copyrights show Scorpion, Dragon really invented 1996. Only one of several rationales within Chapter Five ''More Variants'' is illegal infringement of USP5690334 and accompanying copyrights. For example, Rook is still Rook if going 1-, 2-, and 3 steps only, but we would probably not object if someone implements new Falcon along with all fully-short-range movers like Squirrel, Dabbabah, Ferz. That raises the 20 claims of this patent that have never actually appeared in any website, other than USPTO itself online.
H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Jul 21, 2008 08:55 AM UTC:I put up the zip-file with Fairy-Max, a confiuration file including Falcon Chess, and the WinBoard_F GUI, all packed together as a ready-to play combination on my website. For those who want to try it out, the download link is: http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/WinBoard_F.zip (Beside Falcon Chess it also contains definitions for normal Chess, Capablanca Chess, the unspeakable variant, Knightmate, Shatranj, Courier Chess, Cylinder Chess.)
In response to recent inquiries> Falcon is interpolated from Rook Knight, and Bishop, not extrapolated. Falcon (including special case Bison--Bison being first implemented in patented Falcon 8x10,9x10,10x10) is of the implicate order, out of which RNB emerge, their template, vernacular cookie-cutter if one will. From another standpoint, RNB and F can be said to intersect at common origin, having further mutually-exclusive cells for destination. Knight can be awkward when children first learn Chess lessons at age 6. Knight is potentially confusing until broadening horizon and starting to see entire board(s). Bishop is awkward without using checkered bi-colour board begun in 12th Century. Actually, undoubtedly the King came first. Knight, King and Rook are of course unchanged since 6th-Century Indian Chaturanga. But everyone knows (think Jungian archetypes) the first tiled patterns took tentative one-steps King-like through either triangles or squares. The plain checkered board came from fishing nets tens of thousands of years ago. Non-technological civilisations, more sustainable than ours, and their tiles and nets and fields and stone patterns of geometrical shapes. Adjacent triangles have diagonals, like squares do, sides and vertices, so the Knight was not far behind, going through line and corner one each.
In the standard model, the symmetry of the six quarks was established at CERN, Geneva, with finding of the top quark in 1998. Table of Quarks(Joyce, Finnegan's Wake 1929). The glue that holds Bishop, Knight, and Rook together, beyond mnemonics the reason why section two is so long, most skimming it still do not move Falcon correctly in application. The article itself thoroughly panned by the now-conventional free-expression artistic community here, but in the long run thoroughly necessary rudiments, even upon taking any act overseas. SYMBOL NAME CHARGE FALCON MOVE O = Orthogonal U Up 2/3 Orth-Orth-Diagonal D Down -1/3 Diag-Diag-Orthogonal C Charm 2/3 Diag-Orth-Orthogonal S Strange -1/3 Orth-Diag-Diagonal T Top 2/3 Orth-Diag-Orthogonal B Bottom -1/3 Diag-Orth-Diagonal Top and bottom, the more charming ones called split block and split diagonal. The point would be that these are the movements, period, not ''Camel away'' or ''Zebra away.'' Pawn 1 e4 d5 2 e4xd5 is common enough opening (imagine FRC), but we do not say Pawn moves to Camel square in two moves, or Pawn Camel away. Knight reaches Camel square in two, or Zebra square in three, but talking that way is secondary. (to be continued) [For WB_F and F-M, my usual provider has chosen this week for major upgrade, so will contact easily next week conveniently the implementations. However, please have Scharnagl or other circles try it before I do right away, no problem.]
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Jul 10, 2008 04:08 PM UTC:I prepared a 500KB ZIP file with WinBoard_F and Fairy-Max, rigged for playing Falcon Chess. Perhaps George wants to have a look at it. And if he allows it, I can also sent it to others for testing. Contact me at h.g.muller MAGIC_CHAR hccnet PERIOD nl, and I can mail the file to you.
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Jul 10, 2008 08:34 AM UTC:The first 100 games (at 40/1 min Time Control), with Falcons replacing the Rooks on a1/a8 and j1/j8 in the Capablanca setup (RNABQKBCNR) of one player, ended in a 56.5% victory for the Falcons. This is about half as much advantage as a full Pawn would give (so 1/4 Pawn per Falcon). Overnight I ran another match at 40/2 min TC, starting from the array RNBFQKFBNR, deleting Falcons of one side and Rooks for the other. So no A or C on the board here, just two empty squares on the back rank. (The setup with RNFB seemed unplayable, due to the undefended b- and i-Pawns, which where too easy targets for the side with the Falcons.) This ended in 54.5% (102 games) for the Falcons. From watching some of the games I got the impression that d1/g1 are much better starting positions for the Falcons than a1/j1; the Falcons were involved in play quite early, and very active. Starting on a1/j1 they were often not touched until the late middle-game. There was no castling with Falcons, and they usually came into play only after evacuating the back rank, and playing Fa1-d2 or Fj1-g2. From seeing the Falcon in action I have to retract my earlier coined names for it: the way it moves creates the overwhelming impression of a snake! It slithers in between the other pieces to its destination, where it bites with deadly precision. Best name for it would be something like Cobra or Viper. As the WinBoard_F GUI currently does not support the Falcon piece, and has no bird-like piece symbols, I use its feature of the 'wildcard piece' (which is allowed to make any move) for representing the Falcon. The standard bitmap symbol for this in WinBoard is the Lance (but of course WinBoard offers the possibility for the user to define its own piece symbols through font-based rendering). On second thought I was not too unhappy with this symbolism either; it also recalls the image of a weapon that is difficult to use in dense crowds, but which can be dangerous at a substantial range if you manage to poke it through holes in the crowd. I also ran some tests where I played K+F vs K+R, each behind a closed rank of 10 Pawns. I played those at somewhat longer time control, so I don't have enough games to get reliable statistics. But from watching these end-games, I got the impression that the Falcon and Rook are also well matched here. It seemed to me the Rook was more dangerous for developed Pawn structures, especially with Pawns on both wings, by attacking them from the 7th rank, while the Falcon was more dangerous to undeveloped Pawn chains (as I started out with). So often the Falcon managed to win one or two Pawns before a secure Pawn chain could be constructed, and before the Rook could launch a counter attack through the resulting openings, but then the latter often had no difficulty to recoup the damage.
Communicating e-mails to Greg Strong fall 2006, I had Falcon declining in value already then, based on how many pieces on board to 5.0, equality with Rook, only by 15 pieces/Pawns remaining(the programming criterion I suggested), more or less evenly between both sides. So Mueller and I would be in some agreement from our heuristics. I'll get the exact table soon that I sent to Strong, no longer considered trade secret, since Muller or others no doubt will eventually refine them further, the slight gradual decline in value of Falcon from all 40 pieces on board. Thanks for presentations on Falcon-Bison. Rightly M/ points out Falcon-Bison equivalence once 3, or usually 4 and 5 in most positions, units remain. Think of irony that ancient games like Timur's, Courier, Gala, will have their endgames solved by 2020, 500 or 700 years later, while new ones Centennial, Jacks & Witches, Falcon, and a hundred others, we can have full set of end-game tables way before any understanding of openings. The exact reverse of cases.
H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Jul 9, 2008 08:08 PM UTC:Because I am still struggling to implement the Falcon in Joker80, where efficiency is a hallmark, I decided to add a few lines of code to Fairy-Max to implement support for multi-path moves. Fairy-Max is inefficient anyway, and does not know about pins and check tests; it simply plays on until the King is captured. So it is possible now to define pieces like Falcon in Fairy-Max (in this as yet unreleased version), so that I could already start running some games for asymmetric play testing. The initial results suggest that a Falcon is not worth nearly as much as mensioned somewhere below. As the Falcon seems a piece similar to the Rook, initially hard to use on a crowded board, but reaching its full potential as the board gets empty, I decided to test it against Rooks. So I took a Capablanca setup, and replaced both Rooks of one side by Falcons. If the Falcon would be really worth 6.5, against a Rook 5, this would mean the Falcon player is leading by 3 Pawns from the outset. Such 'piece odds' games normally produce 80-90% scores. (Simple Pawn odds results in 62% for Capablanca Chess with Fairy-Max.) The setup seem to be completely balanced, however. Currently it is at 39.5-37.5 for the Falcons, far below the level of significance for determining which piece is better (Rook or Falcon), but almost ruling out completely that the Falcons convey a +3 advantage. I would currently be inclined to value the Falcon a quarter Pawn above the Rook.
H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, Jul 6, 2008 11:37 PM UTC:After converting my tablebase generator to bigger boards, I can now confirm that the Bison (and thus Falcon) + King can always mate a bare King even on 14x14 (takes 82 moves, worst case). But not on 16x16. I can only do even boards, so 15x15 remains uncertain.
H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Jul 5, 2008 11:21 PM UTC:This Falcon is a very nasy piece to program. The multi-path character of its moves subverts all properties of pinned pieces on which my engine Joker relies for efficient legal-move generation. There is no longer a well-defined pin line: pieces pinned by a Falcon can often move in multiple directions without exposing the King. Also it is no longer sure that a pinned slider cannot move along its pin line to block a check by another piece (if this other piece is a Falcon). A check by a Falcon can have the character of a contact check (for interposing is not an option if the King is checked through multiple paths) despite being inflicted from a distance. I guess I will simply generate moves as if the enemy Falcons have no moves, (so generating pseudo-legal moves with pieces pinned by a Falcon, and with other pieces when in check by a Falcon), and then test for their legality afterwards (by testinng if an enemy Falcon happened to be aligned with our King, and then testing all the generated moves for leading to a position where this Falcon is sufficiently blocked). Cumbersome, but I don't see an efficient alternative.
The third section of article will not be used at all as is, of course, having served as attention-getter. Muller is first to find force of Falcon to corner to win, that Paulowitz and I questioned. Glad you find the Paulowitz example and my response. That's good, that Falcon wins, like Rook. No one programmed play of Falcon yet, so great, that we keep Falcon on par with Rook to the end, about which I was uncertain. //The first over-the-board play of Falcon was between Vera Cole and myself December 1992, and the same month another lady and gentleman became players. By 1994 still only two dozen had tried the Falcon move on 8x10, each signing non-disclosure agreement. I doubt whether more than 200 games were played in 1990's, but I experimented with board positions for the Mates in Two here. About 2000-2003 we played a lot in coffee shops, still no computer play. Games were usually decisive well before endgames. Once the board was deliberately angrily forcily overturned and all the pieces struck and strewn around a Denver, Colorado, cafe by Mladen, born at Yugoslavia, I believe Slovenia, when I checkmated with Falcon. The only ''computer play'' is human-human at Game Courier 2003-2008.
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Jul 3, 2008 10:44 AM UTC:Oh, and since there is no e-mail address in my profile on this discussion board, for people that want to contact me privately: I can be reached with user name h.g.muller, with provider hccnet. nl
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Jul 3, 2008 10:25 AM UTC:George Duke: | Right, that paragraph could be improved, let's see. That was written | in late 1996, when copyright mailed in USA, and not revised for the | CVP 2000 article. If one King and Falcon stand on own back rank, | and other King at its bank rank, with no other pieces on board, no | checkmate is possible with good play. I did some more tests using a converted Joker80 engine, and it seems that on a 10x8 board this statement is plain wrong. Joker has no difficulty at all in checkmating a bare King with King + Falcon, even if they all start from their own backrank (or even if the bare King can start in the center). Even if I let the defending side search 100x longer, making it search ~10 ply deeper, so that it sees the mate coming long before the winning side does, and would avoid it if possible. David Paulowich: | Falcon Chess has the opposite problem: I have not seen anyone state | that King and Falcon can force a lone King into a corner. OK, so I am the first then. ;-) Even an engine with a comparatively shallow search has no problems driving a bare King into a corner with King + Falcon, as long as it knows that it is bad for a bare King to be closer to a corner. Even if the defending side enormously outsearches it. This applies to 8x8 boards (where there is ironclad proof through an end-game tablebase) as well as 10x8 (where it is based on time-odds play testing). This page really need thorough revision. Apart from poor presentation, some of the statements in it are just plain false, or very unlikely to be true at least...
Suppose Rook is just unlimited-range orthogonal piece that can be blocked. What is most important is that there is one complement to RNB, dictating them, from which Rook, Knight, and Bishop derive, not vice versa. Coincidentally, ''Octopus'' is already-used and mentioned acceptable alternate name for the three-way three-path piece and is still okay too. Also Phoenix, Horus, Scorpion or other names. Muller's name for Centaur(BN) of Dancer would also aptly fit Falcon. The game is not so much ''Falcon Chess'' as ''Chess.'' Falcon and Octopus both look like Figure 19. Poetic reasons, Falcon now prevails, because of Sun(F) Falcon, Moon(P) Sheep, Mars (N) Horse, Mercury(B) Elephant, Jupiter(K) Lion, Venus (Queen) Hawk, Saturn(R) Serpent. See the tables at ChessboardMath that extend in from 2x7 or 3x7 to as many as 7x7 natural and cultural associations, the star cluster Pleiades seven, days of Week, Birds, Animals, Metals -- all lists of seven items matched with the seven natural Chess pieces. Mythological associations often resonate dually, so imagination connects easily Falcon and Octopus, as in Figure 19, movement patterns showing either tentacles or wings spread. [My 19.February,2008 Comment at Chessboard Math has many natural sevens(7's) including ''Falcon.'' ]
H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Jul 2, 2008 03:39 PM UTC:Why do you call this piece a Falcon, btw? A falcon is a flying creature, which makes it a very illogical name for a piece that can be blocked from reaching its destination by ground-based troops! Octopus would have been a more apt name, as the piece seems to have distinct tentacles that can slither through openings in the crowd, to attack what is at the other side. With a bit of imagination (considering neighboring (3,1) and (3,2) as one waving tentacle tip) there are even eight!
H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Jun 30, 2008 06:12 PM UTC:| Just as Greg Strong was about to finish Falcon Chess for ChessV, | it is fine to put Falcon in engine free of charge throughout years | 2008, 2009 and 2010 to play, so long as strictly not commercial | (unlike standards-degrading Zillions). Please inform what is going on, | and put the patent #5690334 two or more times about the Rules or | Board, since ultimately we would like to market Falcon material too. OK, I will see what I can do. I will let you know as soon as I made something, and send it to you privately, so that you can judge if it meats your standards.
I also need to talk to Muller privately. - Sam
Thanks again for interest. We'll find a way to contact privately. I recommend to get on Game Courier, Muller, the Play system here. Nothing to it. You may be just the candidate to develop this worldwide. Let's discuss it privately anytime after you study it some weeks, and get your understanding up. You would not expect to learn a programming language in one sit-down. Take your time for something more important than Fortran or C++. (Only half-kidding, but I cannot spell out policy in rough atmosphere.) And at Game Courier, Muller, you can get the upper hand among prospective programmers. Thanks again. -- Barring that, Muller, let me look at Joker or whatever engine and respond later.
H. G. Muller wrote on Fri, Jun 27, 2008 10:57 PM UTC:You talk a lot, but you say very little. I have no idea what Game Courier is, and I see no reason why anything that should be said between us cannot be said here. If you see this CV-page as advertizement for your patented game, you would do well to declare your licensing policy here. That would be much more useful than describing the excruciating detail, and boasting how many variants the patent covers. The latter just scares people away from the variant. But you made it clear you don't want me to make an engine to play your game. Well, so be it. There are plenty of other variants that are not patented. Even the patented UNSPEAKABLE variant does allow me to implement the game in an engine. But if you want to use your patent to prevent anyone can play the game, it is up to you... I am not sure what better place there could be to discuss the KFaK end-game than here, or why the mating potential of a piece that (due to the patent) can only occur in this variant would be 'of lesser interest'. What do you think the CV pages are for, really? To talk about Chess, or to talk about patents????
Hopefully, Falcon topic will be talked out for rest of summer soon. I told Jeremy Good 1 1/2 years ago Falcon in CVPage is ''a lost cause,'' because of differing values, or CVPage refusal to evaluate at all objectively. It is interesting Charles Daniel dislikes Falcon. Fine. It grows on you. Gradually you realize Falcon is correct, and your piece is incorrect. It takes a while. Stephen Stockman, as excellent a player as Daniel, dislikes Falcon too. They do not ruffle any feathers, and you will see no effect on our(my) ongoing topics. Compare qualities of Comments and Rating evaluations sometime, or get an impartial outsider to do so. I think we do a good job. Stockman calls, in keeping with CVPage-inspired etiquette, vehemently Falcon ''a stupid piece,'' when I beat him. That is his thank you for the game played. Hey, it was already becoming competitive ambiance. See completed log of Duke-Stockman. Now ask Fourrier or Carlos or Good about Falcon play. Their expected public silence is understandable, in face of perennial Internet problem of lowering standards and belligerence when a Comment system is open to all, but WE happen to know what THEY think.
Nah. I am not answering these fully in atmospheres of hostility. Of course there are grey areas. Please do not use Falcon at Joker or anywhere else without talking to us. All you have to do is enter Game Courier, get emails and start conversation. There are individuals, friends and associates there I email five years running, such as Lavieri. (In those days there were no Ratings. Ratings have become another farce, because one person might play in 30 seconds, whilst Fourriere says sometimes he takes 30 minutes a move.) Falcon's ''91.5 Trillion...'' has on the order of 10^50 different Rules sets, all inclusively patented. Most emphasize no Queen promotion: Daniel and Carlos are playing now with Queen promotion. Incidentally, the possibility of promotion to Falcon always differentiates from OrthoChess, regardless whether Falcons get captured early. Daniel has been playing well and removed Falcons in Carlos game, reverting to OrthoChess strategy. The library of OrthoChess goes to tens of thousands of volumes. My brief comments cover 0.00001% at most of the broad topic of fully-realized Chess with all four potential compounds, Falcon included. Hey, thanks for interest, Muller. And still very seriously, drop posturing and please discuss specifics of endgames etc. of less general interest elsewhere sometime as suggested. // Charles, I got cut off from Computer to correct details of last Comment including 'I's and do so now. The 'We' refers to Falcon partners in Colorado USA when that applies. Keep on laughing within your laughable games whilst the faces on the horizon are not even smiling.
H. G. Muller wrote on Fri, Jun 27, 2008 09:08 PM UTC:Incredible! After four posts of extremely verbose and incoherent ranting you managed to address exactly zero of my questions / issues. So let me repeat the most important ones: 1) Am I allowed to include Falcon Chess as a variant that Joker80 can play, and offer it for free download? 2) To which pieces can a Pawn promote in this game? 3) Does, according to you, a single Falcon have mating potential against a bare King on a 10x8 board? And on 8x8? Note that the fact that this page is a copy of a patent application, which by necessity has to be elaborate, is in no way an excuse. No one forces you to publish the full patent application here. In fact patent applications are utterly unsuitable as contents on chessvariants.com. They are meant for lawyers.
Most Falcon Chess arrays protect all Pawns. We thought back in 2000 or 2001 that surely by 2008, we would have constructive feedback whether to diverge from natural-seeming RNBFQKFBNR, unusual for unprotected Pawns. With departure of Abdul-Rahman Sibahi and Jeremy Good, those ruminations are at standstill. Anyone seeing the need for essentially one Chess, not a wide variety, and the natural evolution of Falcon from RNB basis, is welcome to get emails through Game Courier to inquire. Just post a Falcon Preset sometime and we will watch to accept it. So-called royalties would be out of the question until there is fee membership or other material for sale. My partners told me to add the last part, more or less.
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Which of the two possible stepping Fortnights do you mean?
For a stepping‐Trison component I'd probably choose the former, but individually both are interesting enough imo. There's still a few bird‐of‐prey names unused I think so if one were keen to name them in Gilmanesque fashion all that'd remain would be finding a game to use them in…