Check out Symmetric Chess, our featured variant for March, 2024.


[ Help | Earliest Comments | Latest Comments ]
[ List All Subjects of Discussion | Create New Subject of Discussion ]
[ List Latest Comments Only For Pages | Games | Rated Pages | Rated Games | Subjects of Discussion ]

Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Later Reverse Order Earlier
Mad King Chess. Missing description (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Larry Smith wrote on Wed, Oct 22, 2008 08:05 PM UTC:
I've noted that this form of play was presented by R. Wayne Schmittberger.

The Emperor King Chess Zillions implementation fails to 'see' the potential mating position stated in previous postings. So it actually needed a re-write.

And I've worked up an implementation which does. Hacked out a sub-routine which specifically looked for those potential defenders. Since this checked for sliders, I only let the engine check for Knights and Pawns with the 'attacked?' command. This greatly improved the performance of the implementation, increasing the Strength level to over 6 at 3 minutes. And this is best because the AI tends to go for the draw by stalemate(Q-c8) if run at Strength 2 or less.

The implementation includes both Emperor- and Amazon-style Mad King games.

Anonymous wrote on Tue, Oct 21, 2008 11:16 AM UTC:
How does this differ from 'Emperor King Chess' which already comes with Zillions?

💡📝Larry Smith wrote on Sat, Oct 18, 2008 12:16 PM UTC:
It appears that Zillions may not be up to the task of presenting this game. Here's a simple position example to demonstrate:

White - Kg4, Qd7
Black - Ke4, Pd5

White King is defended by its Queen and Black's King by its Pawn. So neither King can attack the other. White King is able to take Black Pawn since it maintains its Queen as a defender but Black King cannot take White Queen because then it is open to White King's attack.

White could simply win by taking Black Pawn with White King. But what if White makes the following move: Q-a4?

At first glance, this appears to leave White King un-defended. But White Queen continues its purpose because the Black King will be in threat if it attempts to take the White King. And the King is not permitted to move into threat.

So, Black is also mated in this position.

Zillions has difficulty in 'seeing' this potential.

💡📝Larry Smith wrote on Fri, Oct 17, 2008 08:04 PM UTC:
It is never permitted to move a King into threat. This includes the Mad King.

I have worked up a Zillions implementation for this game. I will post it as soon as I have finished play-testing it.

Doug Chatham wrote on Fri, Oct 17, 2008 01:57 PM UTC:
Can the Mad King move to a square that is defended by an opposing piece?

5 comments displayed

Later Reverse Order Earlier

Permalink to the exact comments currently displayed.