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Poll number Approval Poll for Game Courier Tournament #3. Vote for which games you want in the third Game Courier tournament.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Jun 9, 2006 10:41 PM UTC:
In setting up this page, I have noticed that several of the new presets do not have descriptions. It would be good for whoever has made these new presets to add descriptions to them, so that people voting on games will have a better idea of what kinds of games are available.

Jeremy Good wrote on Fri, Jun 9, 2006 11:20 PM UTC:
Well, this is exciting. So the first poll is meant to narrow the number of games down for the second poll which will finalize the results. So how many will be culled from the first and how many from the second? I presume you can vote for as many as you want? But if I know the final numbers, it will better allow me to prioritize. I see you voted for app. 21.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Jun 9, 2006 11:46 PM UTC:
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 will be culled from the first poll. It will depend on how many tie for 20th place and how many are in the next place above 20th. It will also depend on how many people vote. A large turnout could increase these figures. The number of games played in the tournament will mainly be a function of how many people enter. More participants will mean more games.

Jeremy Good wrote on Sat, Jun 10, 2006 01:09 AM UTC:
Okay, I added a dozen descriptions. I'll do the rest over the weekend. [Update: I have now attempted to add descriptions to all indexed games in Game Courier that previously lacked them. If I've overlooked one or two, please let me know. - JGG]

Tony Quintanilla wrote on Sat, Jun 10, 2006 03:04 PM UTC:
Thanks, Jeremy!

Anonymous wrote on Sat, Jun 10, 2006 03:48 PM UTC:
Some of the links on this page to not go directly to the presets but to the index.

Jeremy Good wrote on Sat, Jun 10, 2006 04:33 PM UTC:
Hi, Fergus. I have a request. Gary Gifford has a few presets for his games that haven't been formally indexed because the presets haven't been formally submitted even though they've been around, most recently his Three Elephant Chess which he has been playing through Courier with Joe Joyce. I've obtained Gary's permission to submit them but haven't gotten around to it yet. I'd like to ask if I could submit them tomorrow and they could be added to this poll.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Jun 10, 2006 04:36 PM UTC:
This would seem to be for preset pages that members have made through the
new system David Howe set up. This page reads the URL field to get the URL
to the preset page, but this does not appear to be the field that the URL
is stored in for the member-created pages. 

David, how can I find the URL for a member-created page from the database?

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Jun 10, 2006 04:38 PM UTC:
Jeremy,

Since this page just reads the database, any presets added to the site
before it's over will be automatically added to the poll. I don't have
to do anything extra to make this happen.

Jeremy Good wrote on Sat, Jun 10, 2006 05:10 PM UTC:
Good deal!

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Jun 10, 2006 05:10 PM UTC:
Okay, I figured out how to get the URL for member-created pages, and I fixed the problem with linking to them.

Jeremy Good wrote on Sat, Jun 10, 2006 10:43 PM UTC:
I don't understand why Amazon Grand Chess is still indexed as Grand Chess 2.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Jun 11, 2006 12:35 AM UTC:
That's now fixed. I changed its name in the database.

Jeremy Good wrote on Sun, Jun 11, 2006 02:12 PM UTC:

I have a special proposal for this tournament.

I propose that Gary Gifford, since he won the last one, should be allowed to sit out as the 'reigning Chess Variants Champion' so to speak, and that this tournament be a qualifying tournament for the chance to play a 'Chess Variants Championship' match against Gary.

I suggest that the challenger (winner of this tournament) and the current champion (Gary Gifford) each select one variant and they play eight games of each, 4 with white and 4 with black. Of course, the compensatory point system shouldn't be used if one of them chooses a game like Balanced Marseillais which takes away the theoretical first move advantage of white. Most variants do not.

The 'Compensatory Point System'discussed here awards 4 points to a win for Black, 3 points for a win with White, 2 points for a draw with black and 1 point for a draw with white. Or perhaps a different point system for the drawing aspect than the one I mention here, such as zero points for a draw.

So what do people think about my idea?


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Jun 11, 2006 03:30 PM UTC:
No, this tournament will proceed as the previous two have. I doubt that Gary would want to sit out of this tournament, and if he does and wishes to play several rounds of the same game with the winner, that is their business. I will not structure the tournament around this idea.

Jeremy Good wrote on Wed, Jun 14, 2006 10:18 PM UTC:
Just want to generate a little bit of discussion on this. Looks like we've got some pretty good games with 4 votes or more. What games would you - anyone - like to see in a tournament the most? What would be your first choice? What would be your top three? Top five? Top ten? Just curious. Which game that currently has only 2 votes or less would you like to see the most? I'd like to see 'Sky' played.

Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Jun 15, 2006 12:32 AM UTC:
Just a mention of a game I wanted to vote for but didn't see: Shatranj of Troy by Gary Gifford. I think it's worthy of being in a tournament. Any idea why it was left out? Were any more left out, deliberately or conceivably accidentally?

Jeremy Good wrote on Thu, Jun 15, 2006 12:52 AM UTC:
You don't mean Catapults of Troy with five votes so far? I voted for it. Add yours.

Gary Gifford wrote on Thu, Jun 15, 2006 01:20 AM UTC:
There is both a 'Shatranj of Troy' and a 'Catapults of Troy.' 'Shatranj of Troy' is not listed in the poll list, but has been around for a while. Joe is pretty darn good at it.

Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Jun 15, 2006 01:36 AM UTC:
Eric Greenwood's Archabbott Chess has just been added to the list of
available games, so if you have already voted, please consider adding this
one.  I think it is a very good game.  Since there are no rules listed, the
arch-abbott is a Bishop + Wazir + Dababbah.  And the Arrow-looking piece is
a Cavalier, a pretty interesting peice.  The Cavalier moves one square
diagonally, and then slides orthogonally outward (like a Griffon in Grand
Accatrix) OR slides orthogonally and then one square diagonally outward. 
It can never move to an adjacent square, and it has exactly two different
paths to any square to which it can move.

I will post more about other games later, but I am very pleased at the top
vote-getters so far.

Gary Gifford wrote on Thu, Jun 15, 2006 01:52 AM UTC:
'Dimension X' was recently added to the poll. For players who wonder whether or not this game would be of interest to them, there is a chess problem (Dimension X problem) in the rules page [just before the 'Notes' Section]. I have not heard of anyone having solved the problem yet, and a co-worker told me 'It can not be solved!' Upon which I showed him the solution. There is one Dimension X log game in progress as well, should anyone want to see an opening in progress. Of interest is that each player can make 4 moves per turn. I hope you will give it a look and give the problem a try. Thanks. - gkg

Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Jun 15, 2006 04:58 AM UTC:
Found Shatranj of Troy. It is mislabeled as Shatranj, and has 2 votes currently, as does the historic Shatranj. Please correct this; thanks. [I'd also like to point out that 'pretty darn good' means that Gary and I are 1 & 1 in our 2 games. ;-) Actually, against the reigning variants champion, that is pretty darn good.]

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Jun 15, 2006 01:30 PM UTC:
I've fixed the label for Shatranj of Troy.

The game I would most like to see make it into this tournament is Storm
the Ivory Tower. This is my synthesis of Smess and Chinese Chess. It
borrows the board, pieces, and setup of Chinese Chess, adding arrows to
each space of the board, and modifying the powers of the pieces to be
affected by the arrows. It's an improvement on Smess, because it includes
more types of pieces. And it is at least an interesting twist on Chinese
Chess with much of the same appeal.

Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Jun 15, 2006 08:09 PM UTC:
Thank you, Fergus, for fixing the label on Shatranj of Troy. I hope more
will vote for it now. I admit to prejudice; I think this is a Gary Gifford
gem. It takes the concept of openings to a whole new level. That
overstuffed Trojan Horse piece feels like having a full candy dispenser in
your pocket when you were a kid. [Now, for Jared. ;-) ] The tactical and
strategic possibilities are immense. It's a definite chess-player's
game.
Another game I would like to see in the tournament is Jeremy Good's Royal
Pawn Chess. That single change does amazing things to the game, and to my
chess instincts at least. The Royal Pawn can literally eat itself to
death: a series of sacrifices can force the RP across the board into the
opposing army. Opening strategy is turned on its head; what you need is
more of a Closing strategy, to wall off and protect the RP. Armies are
very self-blocked, and players have to work through the flanks rather than
coming up the middle.
As for STIT, I didn't originally vote for it, but you convinced me to
vote to include it [even though if given a choice I will avoid it, as I am
not very good at Chinese Chess]. It's hard to argue with a good,
established designer who says: 'This is good'. And I've enjoyed your
games before, so... As for the 2 designs of mine that are currently [I
think] in, they're the 2 best choices in my opinion. I lean toward the
Dabbabah versions over the Rook versions as the games were always intended
to be short range, but there are obviously people who prefer the rooks.
[And saying this for real is a fantasy come true. Thanks to all the
voters.] 
I assume the specific setup will be similar to last time, in that we will
have a choice of games to play within the finalists; the goal being that
all players have at least half their games in common. I thought that was
excellent last time. Whatever, it's beginning to look interesting.

Jeremy Good wrote on Thu, Jun 15, 2006 10:47 PM UTC:
Storm the Ivory Tower has a pretty amuzing first paragraph description. A fun alternate second poll would be to select from those games that got zero votes. I would like to see a list of the zero vote games after this poll is over.

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