Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

@HG yes, now it works. How come a problem like this can cure itself is a real mystery for me.

@Fergus: I interpret your answer to me as a disaprobation of using HG's PTA to make a GC preset. This would be difficult to understand from my perspective. Your GC app is fantastic and really appreciated by all people on this site, as far as I know. Really nice as it allow us to play an incredible variety of games. But, you alone cannot code GC presets for every CV that is published here. So, it is also very nice what HG has made with this PTA because otherwise people like me would never been able to code new games for GC. Big thanks to you and HG.

Something very fishy is going on. I discovered that what GAME code prints is hidden in the header of the preset page, so I could see it by looking at the Page Source. (A bit inconvenient, as it is buried in an insane number of empty <P> tags, but I managed.)

You can set the system variable showoutput to true to see the output. Also, you can find it in the source code in a PRE tag with the id of errors.

Something very fishy is going on. I discovered that what GAME code prints is hidden in the header of the preset page, so I could see it by looking at the Page Source. (A bit inconvenient, as it is buried in an insane number of empty <P> tags, but I managed.)

I experimented a bit in Play mode, and the fastest way to reproduce the disappearence was 1. j3-j5 i10-i8 2. j5-j6 i18-i7 3. Nk2-j4 and i7 would disappear. In particular, the problem occurred when a Pawn was moved a single step to attack another Pawn; that Pawn would then disappear.

So I put statements in the GAME code to see what move was offered to GC for playing. This was simply "N k2-j4", no instructions to remove anything else. So I printed the board just before that move would be executed. The Pawn was already gone. So I tried printing the board earlier in the process of verifying the legality of the move, to see at which point the Pawn would disappear. But after that the Pawn on i7 did not disappear anymore!

That was weird. Printing something should not alter what the code does to the board. I commented out that extra printr statement, and later removed it alltogether, to go back to the situation where I last saw the problem, only printing the board just before the move was made. The Pawn did not disappear anymore. So I removed all print statements I had added for debugging: the Pawn stays. I played to the game position: also there no Pawns disappear.

So it seems the problem has cured itself, without making any changes to the preset. Please try again to make a move in the game, to see if you have the same experience.

I think the dotted circle is a new feature of CG, for highlighting locust captures. The question is why there was a locust capture.

Do you have a link to the preset? Never mind, I figured out how to use the log id.

@Fergus: Is there a way to see the result of print and printr statements in the GAME code when the move gets accepted? I only get to see those automatically when it executes die, which I can often trigger myself by playing an illegal move. But in this case I really want to know what happens on a specific move, and without any output from the prgarm debugging is hard.

Thank you Fergus. I thought that the apparition of a dotted circle instead of piece could not be in relation of the use of HG's PTA.

@HG: could you please have a look?

I can't see what is the problem. Is that with my coding of the GC?

Since you used H. G. Muller's PTA to make this preset, you will have to ask him.

@Fergus: In this log

timurthelenk-fhou-2024-41-899

If I play (with Blacks) any move with a non-pawn piece, for ex; sh d11-e8, the white pawn in f6 disapears, replaced by a dotted circle (?) and it results that white King is in check which should not happen.

I can't see what is the problem. Is that with my coding of the GC?

Thanks

There are a couple of other way(s) to go about it, too, that I forgot to mention. Once, an opponent's last comment in a game vs. me was that I was too strong for him, so henceforth I have not accepted any of his open invites (though he could pick up any of mine later if he wished).

On another occasion an opponent just wrote that he needed a break from our matches, before resigning a game - again I have not accepted any of his open invites, though he may choose to accept one or more of mine later.

Yet another way that might be effective is to end a game by commenting something like 'let's not play again until [e.g. March, of 2024] at least, I need a break from our matches'.

If all else fails, you might issue only (or some) Personal Invitations, at least for a while. Some can be played privately, I understand, if you don't wish to give any hint of an impression that you might be avoiding certain player(s).

I will finish the game I have with him and then I will keep silent, no open invitation anymore.

When you make an invitation, you can enter a message for anyone thinking of accepting. So you could use this to say that you would like to play against someone you're not already playing this same game with or whatever stipulation you want to provide.

Thanks Kevin. There is no quarrel in my case. I'm glad to play with Richard, actually I have my best stats with him. But he took the last 5 or 6 open invitations I have made in a row, so it is a bit frustrating, I say to myself, let's open a new one to play someone else, and immediatly, it's him again.

I will finish the game I have with him and then I will keep silent, no open invitation anymore.

I once commented to Greg and he agreed that maybe a filtering-out option on open invitations could be a good idea - at the time there was one player who would take back moves if he blundered, such as in games of mine with him. CVP staff seldom seem to get involved in any of the few GC quarrels we have.

There are two other choices: if a person you don't wish to play lives in another time zone far away, and you know that, you could issue an open invitation(s) when you think that person may be asleep.

Alternatively, if the person you don't wish to play accepts an open invitation, you could just delete that game log, and repeat the process as often as needed. He may complain though, but you could argue your case at that point, too - perhaps by email with CVP staff, if you wish to keep things low-key.

@Fergus: is it possible to make an open invitation, open to everyone but 1 person?

I'm almost joking but on the other hand, launching an open invitation is identical to play always with our friend Richard which is always the most rapid to accept. It is virtually impossible to play agains someone else by open invitation.

@Richard: you are playing more than 1/2 of the total list of logs here, so please let the others play a little bit. Thanks.

Some diagrams for certain Game logs of mine, even long after I made a move, are showing funny patterns, like circular lines on the board's squares - for example:

That's now corrected. I had forgotten to correct how the upsidedown position for square table boards checks whether anything is different from the previous position. It now checks the $prevpos variable instead of $posdata[$movenum - 1]["space"]. By checking the wrong variable, it calculated that everything was different and highlighted every space.

Also for me

@ Fergus:

Some diagrams for certain Game logs of mine, even long after I made a move, are showing funny patterns, like circular lines on the board's squares - for example:

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Wide+SOHO+Chess&log=panther-cvgameroom-2023-350-831

Ok, I viewed those logs in question, and, from my perspective at least, they now show correct result on the Finished Games Page that's linked to from the What's New Page.

If you view these logs, they should self-correct.

Thanks Fergus, although it appears some other entries near the top of the Finished games page (games I didn't play in myself, I think) have wrong results, still.

In one new line, I had tested for empty($log) when $log wasn't a global variable. So I changed it to empty($GLOBALS["log"]), and that fixed both of the games you mentioned.

@ Fergus

For some reason the Finished Game Courier logs page is showing wrong results of late today. For example, a game of Pocket Shogi Copper I won vs. wdtr2 in 2023 is showing up as 'Juan Juan has won' in the result shown for it, in the Finished Games page linked from the What's New page(!):

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Pocket+Shogi+Copper&log=panther-cvgameroom-2023-279-196

Also from 2023, a game of Pocket Copper Shogi I won vs. Richard Milner is showing up as 'White has won'(!), which is better, at least:

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Pocket+Shogi+Copper&log=panther-cvgameroom-2023-253-172

When I try to open it for accepting (or not), I get this error message: Your userid is timurthelenk. This log is private. It may be viewed only by the players. If you are one of the players, please sign in first. You may use the menu for this.

I fixed that problem, but when I clicked on the link, it automatically accepted the invitation for me without giving me the option.

@Fergus:

Paul Rapoport (Numerist) has launched an invitation to play Pemba:

numerist-cvgameroom-2024-8-677

When I try to open it for accepting (or not), I get this error message: Your userid is timurthelenk. This log is private. It may be viewed only by the players. If you are one of the players, please sign in first. You may use the menu for this.

In my experience, this has only happened to me in the past with Paul's invitations. As far as I know, he never got an invitation accepted and he finished by cancel them. Sad. But maybe, there is something wrong that he or we have not understood. If his invitation is open to anybody, how come I am refused to open it?

Could you please have a look to this particular log. Maybe you will see what is not done properly or if there is a bug.

Many thanks

Thank you for this explanation. I didn't know it was incremented that way. Thanks

What you're calling a reference number is just the date and time in the format date("Y-z-B"). They are the same, because the invitations were issued close enough together in time. So, it's no surprise that in each case, the same person issued the two invitations with the same date and time.