Ratings & Comments

For Persian I refer to the writting of Antonio Panaino who is iranologist and wrote about this in 1998. Murray's book is 1913. Panaino explanation are clear and well informed, he is a recognized scholar on that.

What has he said on the subject, and where has he said it?

For rocca in Italian, one would have to look at the italian etymology. I don't know if rocca was meaning fortress in an Italian dialect (which one?) by the end of the 10th century? Rocca, roch, roche, roca, rock in romance languages and in English (by French influence) are all connected to the root of rock, meaning a big stone. What is true is that the Arabic word of "rukh" or "rokh" used at chess had been understood as roca/rocca/roch/rock etc. in Western European languages when it entered in those lands. This was natural by phonetics. And the representation of a solid rock by a castle/tower was also natural and it happened in many places in Europe as you can see on http://history.chess.free.fr/first-european.htm

Since your images portray pieces that look like fortresses, this supports what I was saying, which comes from Forbes and is agreed with by Davidson, that rukh happened to sound similar to rocca, an Italian word for fortress. It's certainly possible that rocca is related to the word rock, as rock was probably a common building material for fortresses, but without a related word like this, I don't think that sounding like words meaning rock would have led to representing the piece as a fortress of some kind.

I had a feeling I'd seen it before; I just didn't think it was my own. (Another reason to stop after a solid year's up.)

What I think I'll do is, roll the Kite in with the Tarantula as an alternate name and form, and post a double (one that I've been putting off) for yesterday and today. I'll probably get all that this afternoon.

@Fergus & @ HG,

I have managed to make presets for all the 6 games of my collection of games inspired by Kevin Pacey. Thanks for your help! Here they are:

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Frog+Chess+with+Gryphon+and+Falcon&settings=default

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Frog+Chess+with+Manticore+and+Falcon&settings=default

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Hannibal+Chess+with+Gryphon+and+Falcon&settings=default

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Hannibal+Chess+with+Manticore+and+Falcon&settings=default

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Waffle+Chess+with+Gryphon+and+Falcon&settings=default

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Waffle+Chess+with+Manticore+and+Falcon&settings=default

For Persian I refer to the writting of Antonio Panaino who is iranologist and wrote about this in 1998. Murray's book is 1913. Panaino explanation are clear and well informed, he is a recognized scholar on that.

For rocca in Italian, one would have to look at the italian etymology. I don't know if rocca was meaning fortress in an Italian dialect (which one?) by the end of the 10th century? Rocca, roch, roche, roca, rock in romance languages and in English (by French influence) are all connected to the root of rock, meaning a big stone. What is true is that the Arabic word of "rukh" or "rokh" used at chess had been understood as roca/rocca/roch/rock etc. in Western European languages when it entered in those lands. This was natural by phonetics. And the representation of a solid rock by a castle/tower was also natural and it happened in many places in Europe as you can see on http://history.chess.free.fr/first-european.htm

@Fergus: maybe you didn't understand my point. "Suppose that in Chess, a player queens a Pawn, then it gets captured. Would it be more informative to show a Queen or a Pawn in the Captured Pieces section?" I would say the Pawn, or it could be the Queen as well, but is not my point.

My point is if a Pawn is queened, then the Pawn is shown among the captured pieces even when the new Queen is onboard. That doesn't show the balance in my opinion.

I would have the piece figuring among the captured ones only when it has been captured, either in its original or its promoted form.

As an Italian speaker I can confirm.

Bishop = Alfiere

Rook = Torre (which means tower). 

If it turns out there are too many Centurions, you can always reduce the number of Centurions to two. However, the winning King promotion likely takes care of that, at least if it is an immediate win.

I did a game simulation and the number of Centurions are well balanced. 

Thank you for publishing this. It really deserves it. 

Rukh is not the Persian word for chariot.

Murray says it is, and I have now cited that.

Rocca is not the Italian word for fortress.

I have added a link to the word in an Italian-English dictionary, which does give fortress as a meaning of the word.

Etc.

Maybe you can expand on that.

Thank you!

I think the Dervish is not working properly on the interactive diagram, ata least on mobile.

I would expect x nand true to evaluate to not x. What you describe would be x or not y.

Remember that GAME Code uses polish (a.k.a. prefix) notation, not infix notation. So, in GAME Code, x nand y would be two separate expressions, not a single expression, and it would indeed be equivalent to x or not y.

I think it is a mistake to call that nand.

This is why I decided to no longer allow nand to be used with just a single argument.

I would find more useful that the origal piece-before-promotion is not added to the list of captured pieces. What do you think?

Suppose that in Chess, a player Queens a Pawn, then it gets captured. Would it be more informative to show a Queen or a Pawn in the Captured Pieces section? Since the main purpose of the Captured Pieces section is to show how balanced each side's forces are, or as you put it " to immediatly visualise the material advantage or disadvantage," showing a Pawn rather than a Queen would show this more accurately.

If you still wanted to show the Queen rather than the Pawn, you might be able to do it in the game with code specific for that game, but it cannot be done in a generalized way for any game. What Game Courier does by default is calculate which pieces from the original position are no longer on the board, and it presents these as captured pieces. This is basically the same set of pieces you would see off the board when playing with a physical set. It might be more accurate to call them something like off-board pieces, inactive pieces, or lost pieces, but I'm not sure it really needs changing.

The introductory text is very approximative. The main idea is here, but the details are not correct. Rukh is not the Persian word for chariot. Rocca is not the Italian word for fortress. Etc.

I could propose a better text if needed.

I would think x nand y should produce the same value as nand x y by definition, the only difference being that y (and thus its possible side effects) would not be executed if the value of x already fixes the outcome (i.e equals false).

First, remember that the order of operation is from back to front. So you meant to say, "the only difference being that x (and thus its possible side effects) would not be executed if the value of y already fixes the outcome (i.e equals false)."

If y is false in "x nand y", it would exit the expression with a value of true without evaluating x. But if y is true, it would evaluate x. If x is false, then "nand x y" would be true, but "x nand y" would return the value of x, which would be false.

I called Lance a Japanese Rook once.

@Fergus: it is possible that this question has been asked before. When a game is played with GC, there is box appearing with captured pieces. This is quite useful to immediatly visualise the material advantage or disadvantage.

But when a piece is promoted, that initial piece also appears as a captured one. And then, the impression given by this box is wrong. The promoted piece has not been captured, it has not really left the board. It has just changed its form.

I would find more useful that the origal piece-before-promotion is not added to the list of captured pieces. What do you think?

I would think x nand y should produce the same value as nand x y by definition, the only difference being that y (and thus its possible side effects) would not be executed if the value of x already fixes the outcome (i.e equals false).

317. Kite. This is named not for the flimsy-by-design paper toy that one flies on a windy day,* but rather the bird of prey, a relative of hawks, eagles, and falcons. I'd sometimes refer to it by a specific species, such as Black Kite, Mississippi Kite, or Snail Kite, but those have issues of their own.

The Kite's move is what gives it its name: it steps to any adjacent square, or leaps three spaces diagonally or orthogonally (KT).

It's very possible that this move has appeared somewhere before (probably as KGH). If someone points out a good one, I might just add it here.

The piece is based on a photo I saw of a snail kite standing on a branch. The model is taken directly from Tuesday's Falcon, but shrunk down, with the wings moved forward and the beak narrowed. I'm about 90% satisfied with the result.

*Except for Charlie Brown, of course.