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Thank you Carlos!

@Kevin:

Ready! Mission accomplished. It is difficult to understand how we did not realize that mistake before.

@Kevin:

Tomorrow I will make the correction because now I have no access to my laptop.

@ Carlos:

For some reason, on the presets' main intro page the presets for the standard piece set and the alternate piece set are showing the sailors switched with the missionaries in the setup, but otherwise the presets themselves have the pieces set up correctly at the start.

My opponent is having trouble moving in the following game of ours

I didn't notice any problem when I tried moving as him. If the problem is with using the mouse or touchscreen to move, he should update to a more recent browser or report which browser and device he is using.

My opponent is having trouble moving in the following game of ours - maybe the log/preset is broken, or maybe there's a technical problem like Carlos had in another Sac Chess game between himself and me?:

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Sac+Chess&log=panther-cvgameroom-2020-217-110

OK, thanks again for your attention. Currently I am accessing that and all the logs normally. I don't know what could have happened. Sorry for the false alarm.

What makes the matter more intriguing is that this happens only with a particular log and using my laptop with Windows 10 and Chrome. No problem using mobile devices.

Clicking on pieces to move them is handled by JavaScript, and since it is a client-side language, it can vary from browser to browser. I have been testing the new code mainly in Firefox. If something is not working right in a particular browser, please tell me about it in detail so that I can look into it.

I discovered that the log is loaded correctly from the main logs page only when I am NOT signed in. From my "Your Active Game Logs + Open Invitations" page, being me signed in, the log is displayed rightly when I click on my name, but if I click the link listed in the logs column, then the problem arises.

What makes the matter more intriguing is that this happens only with a particular log and using my laptop with Windows 10 and Chrome. No problem using mobile devices.

Anyway, thanks for answering, I already made my move.    

It loaded instantly for me.

Fergus:

The following log has a strange glitch because the page doesn't load completely and I can't make my move. Could you please take a look at it?

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Sac+Chess&log=panther-cvgameroom-2020-231-152

I don't think my computer or the browser I use has anything to do with it.

The textarea in Edit mode that it titled "Rules, Written in HTML for Players to Read:" should be used to provide a brief description of the rules that players can consult without looking at the rules page. It should not be used simply for providing a link to the rules page. There is already a Rules URL field for that.

Yes, the only difference is that there are two queens per side instead of one. I have already fixed the bug on the link to the ruleset page.

After going out this evening, I have returned and succeeded in making my second move in my Sac Chess game, and my first move in my Glinski's Hexagonal Chess game. Thanks Fergus. 

A question to Carlos is, for the Hexagonal Chess variant that we are playing, namely "Glinski's Hexagonal Chess (Symmetric)", is the only difference between it and Glinski's (original) Hexagonal Chess game that the start position is different, that is that there are two queens per side used instead of one queen? 

I did not see any rules given when I looked up the webpage for "Glinski's Hexagonal Chess (Symmetric)", in the big listing of games found on The Chess Variant Pages, so I have assumed (so far) that the basic rules are indeed the same for both the original & Symmetric versions.

I have made it a bit easier to move if you make a wrong turn. There is now a button in View mode for going to a form for making a move. But what you should normally do is this. Go to the Logs page, enter your userid and submit the form, then you will see the games you can move in, and for the games you are already playing, the link will bear your name. Click on your name for a particular game, and you will be brought to the form for making a move.

Sorry for your troubles. The website is working fine and it has not had any downtime. Hope they will be resolved soon.

I'm having trouble playing my games with you, Carlos. I managed to play my first move at Sac Chess, but not my second move after receiving your reply. I encountered the same problem as I had in our game of Glinski's Hexagonal Chess right away, in that I had no way made available to me to move (or Preview a move). I switched my browser to Firefox in attempting to shed the problem, and had trouble even visiting this website for a short while (maybe it was just down?). Now I'm back, but my troubles playing haven't gone away after switching browsers. Perhaps Fergus can help. Fwiw, I sent Fergus the following email, while I still could not yet visit this website again:

"Hello Fergus
 
I made my first move with White against Carlos in my Sac Chess game with him. I tried to make my first move as White against Carlos in our game of Glinski’s Hexagonal Chess, but was unable to because unlike for the Sac Chess game log webpage, many options were not presented to me on this game’s Game Courier log webpage, including a space to enter my move, or a button to Preview a given move I’d make. Figuring the problem was with my old browser, I finally decided to switch browsers in an attempt to shed the problem, clicking on Firefox (a suggested browser option on the webpage of my Hexagonal game). After I managed to download Firefox and set up a Firefox account, I was able to use Firefox to get to any number of my Favourite websites successfully using Firefox as my browser, except when I tried to visit The Chess Variant Pages I was not successful, in that a message appeared saying “502 Bad Gateway” and below that was “nginx” as well. Please let me know if the website is down (or whether I might have done something wrong), and pass on to Carlos that I am having trouble continuing to play our games, especially if he is not having trouble seeing The Chess Variant Pages website too (I received his reply with Black to my first move in the Sac Chess game, but clicking on the link also showed the Bad Gateway message.
 
Yours truly, Kevin"

[edit: on the bright side, the problem I had viewing the Berolina Pawn webpage (or unfavouriting it if I wish to) has disappeared.]

Exactly. Thanks for answering, Fergus. It is not easy for me to express myself in English. I only add that our games are UNTIMED. 

Kevin: I'm sending you a couple of invitations... Enjoy!

The player who issues an invitation decides on the time controls, and the player who accepts an invitation decides which side to play. Carlos and I have been playing with a preset that enforces the rules and displays legal moves. That is the sort of preset I recommend for playing most any game.

To Carlos:

Now that I've read Game Courier user documentation, I am thinking of trying to play my first Game Courier online game, such as a game of Sac Chess against you, if you wish to play (say at this point in time). I've got a handful of questions though:

1) I can't yet figure out how the players agree to the time contol to be used within their chosen game that is to be played on Game Courier (unless that comes somehow after an invitation is accepted). A large pool of time to play a whole game, for example, would probably suit me best, if that is the sort of default used nowadays.

2) I can't tell (e.g. by your ongoing 3rd Sac Chess game vs. Fergus) what you used as the preset for online Sac Chess (i.e. playing with, or without, rule enforcement) - that's besides not being able to tell what time control is being used in your game. I know I have some issues viewing webpages on The Variant Pages because of my older browser (which I may switch later on), but I don't think that's a problem as far as my viewing Game Courier, generally speaking. In any case, I don't know which preset for Sac Chess has been tested so far, or which you think best to use in a game.

3) I'm not sure if I need (or want) to be put on the Gamesroom(?) player list for regular Game Courier players to be told of existing open invitations. For invitations issued to a single person, I suppose they would show up on the publicly viewable list including open invitations, or the person to whom the invitation is issued to would receive an email. I'm not sure who gets White, i.e. to move first, when any sort of invitation is issued as well, but I don't mind playing against either colour my opponent may want in my first few games. If you wish, you could send me an invitation to play Sac Chess when ready to play (you could also send an invitation for a game of Glinski's Hexagonal Chess to me if you wish, too).

Sincerely, Kevin

H.G. wrote:

"If you want to test your theory about the computer resitance of this variant: 
You can download a version of Sjaak II + WinBoard configured to play Sac Chess from http://hgm.nubati.net/SacChess.zip. Just download and unzip it, and double-click the WinBoard icon (the black Knight) in the folder, and it should start up a Sac Chess game as black (so you can start playing white). If you want the computer to play white, click the Mode -> Machine White menu. You might want to give yourself more time through the Options -> Time Control menu. You can also watch Sjaak II play Sac Chess games against itself by clicking the Mode -> Two Machines menu.
 
Have fun!"


Thanks for your effort, H.G. I've been busy lately, with two 4D variant ideas of mine, and planning my activities (& recording appointments) ahead for 2016. This coming weekend, for example, I plan to play in a weekend tournament in Ottawa that starts Friday evening. A regular participant in Ottawa events is an immigrant GM from Montreal (Bator Sambuev), who is a mutual friend of the organizer/director of these events. I try to prepare something for him usually, since we'll usually play in such a small event, even though he almost invariably wins by a 5-0 score. 

After the weekend I was thinking of reading up more about Game Courier, to see how convenient it might be for me to understand & participate in that. Doing the downloading (and, e.g., trying machine vs. machine play) that you suggested will hence be on my backburner for a little while at least. To show how tech-challenged I am these days, I can't seem to recall ever doing the sort of 'unzip' you refered to, though I'm pretty sure it will be very simple to figure out how. Fwiw, my brother & his wife visit almost every weekend, and if able she helps me with software/hardware issues now & then if I am stumped.

Take care, Kevin

I greatly enjoyed the second ever game of Sac Chess, between Fergus & Carlos, both because it was full-blooded, in terms of having many pieces and pawns traded before the end (unlike happened in the first ever game of Sac Chess), and because all these trades (of about 20 units per each side) happened at a fast pace (namely about 1 pair of units for every 6 ply), i.e. faster than is the average pace for chess (which is 1 pair of units traded for every 10 ply, I read somewhere).

I was a little concerned that an average game of Sac Chess might take around 220 ply (if 1 pair of units are traded for every 10 ply on average in a game, as for standard chess). That is since an average game of chess takes about 80 ply, therefore leaving about 8 units per side on the board. That is presumably if an average game of chess is not further played out, until checkmate, or else until a draw by the rules of chess.

One thing I noticed was that in this second ever game of Sac Chess, Black seemed to pass up more than one available checkmate in 1 move (that was around move 69, I recall), but this did not take away from my enjoyment, because now I have more reason to hope that Sac Chess may be a fully viable chess variant, for people to play and enjoy.