Comments by FergusDuniho

This just isn't the same game as the Diamond Chess for which there is an Interactive Diagram.

This also isn't the same game as the Diamond Chess for which we have an Interactive Diagram.

Unlike the Interactive Diagram for Dunsany's Chess, the applet makes Black the side with 32 Pawns. So, I could not run a game between them.

The game I ran between the Interactive Diagram as White and this applet as Black went this far:

1. Rxa7 bxa7 2. axa7 Nd6 3. axa8 cxa8 4. Rh4 axg2 5. Bxg2

At this point, the applet would not allow the Interactive Diagram's last move of Bxg2. The rules state that the Bishop moves one space in any direction like a King, but the applet gave the Bishop its usual diagonal move from Chess.

This is not the same game as the Dynasty Chess for which we have an Interactive Diagram.

I ran the following game between the Interactive Diagram as White and the applet as Black, and White won by checkmating Black:

1. d4 d5
2. c3 Nc6
3. Bg5 Bg4
4. f3 f6
5. fxg4 fxg5
6. Nf3 Nf6
7. Nxg5 Ec8
8. h3 h6
9. Nf3 Ee6
10. g5 hxg5
11. Nxg5 Eg8
12. e3 Ne4
13. Nxe4 O-O-O
14. Eg4 Kb8
15. Ng5 a5
16. Bb5 Nxd4
17. cxd4 g6
18. O-O c6
19. Nf7 cxb5
20. Nxd8 Bg7
21. Nf7 Rxh3
22. Exh3 b4
23. Eg3 Kc7
24. Rc1 Kb6
25. Ne5 Bxe5
26. dxe5 Eb8
27. Eh2 Ee8
28. Ef4 g5
29. Eh2 g4
30. Eh6 Ka7
31. Eh4 Eg8
32. Exe7 Eh8
33. Rc5 Ka6
34. Rxd5 a4
35. a3 b3
36. Nc3 Kb6
37. Nxa4 Kc6
38. Rd6 Kc7
39. Rc1 Kb8
40. Rd8 Exd8
41. Exd8 Ka7
42. Eb6 Kb8
43. Kf2 g3
44. Kxg3 Ka8
45. Rc8

I would have given the applet the first move advantage, since I suspected it would be weaker, but I don't know how to get the applet to move first. One thing I found frustrating about the applet is that it would never highlight its last move. So, I would often have to figure out what its move was by comparing the two boards.

One of the main goals with GameID is to use it as the index of a new table for games and to migrate the game-specific columns of the Item table to the new table. While doing that, I would also like to consider revising the categories we use for games. In particular, we have a bunch of usual equipment categories that each effectively combine two categories into one. It might be better to have just a single usual equipment category, then replace the usual equipment categories we have now with ones that describe only one feature of the game, such as having different board rules or a different winning condition. These would help us better categorize games played with different equipment, and when used in combination with the usual equipment category, we could still query the database for lists of usual equipment games in the same categories we can now.

Here's a game I ran between the Interactive Diagram as White and the applet as Black. As expected, White won. Black soon fell behind by a Pawn, and then inexplicably exchanged a Queen for the Bishop that had captured its Pawn. From then on, Black wasn't doing well, and White began checking Black a lot. Black then exposed both of its Bishops to capture without taking anything and quickly lost them both. White maneuvered to capture a Wizard, then soon took a Knight and a Champion, with the capture of the Champion also delivering checkmate.

1. f6 e7
2. e4 exf6
3. Qxf6 f7
4. i5 c7
5. Bh5 Bi7
6. Bxf7 Cd9
7. g6 Qxf7
8. gxf7 g9
9. Wb4 Kg10
10. Qc6 Kg11
11. Bxc7 Rxc7
12. Qxc7 Ce9
13. Qd6 Bg5
14. h4 Bk9
15. Qxd10 Bg5
16. hxg5 Be8
17. fxe8 Kh11
18. Qc10 Cg7
19. Qxa12 Ce9
20. Nf3 Cc11
21. O-O-O Ne9
22. Qd9 Nh9
23. Wc7 Nf10
24. Qd8 Ned11
25. Ci4 Nxe8
26. Qxe8 Ki11
27. Nfh4 Ce9
28. Rf11 Cg11
29. Rxg11

Having gotten more experience with how the applets work, I tried Cavalier Chess against the Interactive Diagram again. The ID played White since I don't know how to make the applet move first. Things looked good for Black for a moment when it captured a Paladin with its Nightrider. But on the next move, White forked Black's Eques Rex and Marshall, Black blocked with its Paladin, and White took it for checkmate. This game shows what can happen when you neglect to put defenses in place by moving out some Cavaliers.

1. Cab4 Nf6
2. Cde4 Nh5
3. Nd2 Nxf1
4. Nc4 Pd6
5. Nxd6

While running a game between the Interactive Diagram and Zillions-of-Games, I found a bug in the Interactive Diagram. Here are the moves. The last move has an illegal promotion. The White Cavalier moves to White's first rank and promotes. But promotion is legal only on its last rank.

1. Cab4 Cde5
2. Ma4 Ced5
3. Mg3 Cc5
4. Maa3 Nh5
5. Mh1 Nxf1
6. Nxe5 Cxe5
7. Mxf1 Ccd3
8. Cxd3 Pxa3
9. Nxa3 Na5
10. Nxe5 Mb6
11. Cc4 Nxc4
12. Ca1=M

Here is a game I ran between the Interactive Diagram on this page at 2.5 ply and Zillions-of-Games at 1 sec/move. Assuming that the Interactive Diagram would be weaker, I let it move first. My prediction proved correct, and Zillions-of-Games won.

1. d4 Nc6
2. c4 d5
3. e3 e5
4. Nc3 exd4
5. Nxd5 Nf6
6. Nxf6 Qxf6
7. a3 dxe3
8. fxe3 Bf5
9. Nf3 Rd8
10. Qb3 b6
11. Bd2 Bc5
12. Bc3 Qh6
13. Bd2 Qe6
14. Ng5 Qd6
15. O-O-O Qe7
16. Qb5 Rd6
17. Nf3 Qe4
18. Bd3 Qxd3
19. e4 Bxe4
20. Qxc6 Rxc6
21. Ne5 Qc2

Here's a photo of a possible way to set up for 8-Piece Chess with some Musketeer Chess pieces. Affiliate links for buying these pieces are provided on the Musketeer Chess variant kits page. This setup uses pieces from three different kits, each visible behind the black pieces. For the Jailer, it uses the Spider from the Spider & Dragon (or Amazon) kit. For the Lancer, it uses the Unicorn from the Fortress & Unicorn set, whose horn can be set to point in different directions. For the Sentry, it uses the Archibishop from the Chancellor & Archbishop set. In case you want to save money by buying only two kits, some alternative pieces are shown along the side. If you use the Fortress from the Fortress & Unicorn kit for the Jailer, you could leave out the Spider & Dragon kit. Alternately, if you use the Amazon (or Dragon) from the Spider & Dragon (or Amazon) kit for the Sentry, you could leave out the Chancellor & Archbishop kit. I favor the Archbishop for this piece because it's shorter.

Here's a photo I took of a setup for Sac Chess. The board and Chess pieces are from Omega Chess. The squares are 1.75 inches. I covered up the edges to hide the corner spaces and coordinates that don't match Sac Chess, since within the 10x10 area, the Omega Chess board had a dark square in each player's right corner. The Amazons, Chancellors, and Archbishops are from the Musketeer Chess piece kits for those pieces. The Sailor (Dragon King), Missionary (Dragon Horse), and Judge (Centaur) are represented by the Rook, Bishop, and Knight from Peter Ganine's Superba set. These pieces have human faces, which seemed appropriate for pieces that can move one space in any direction like a man.

I tried looking at the finished logs for Duke of Rutland's Chess and most of them give an error like this

Error: The logfile at ../pbmlogs/duke_of_rutlands_chess/cavalier-cvgameroom-2006-127-561.php is missing, or something is misspelled.

The logs and settings files were each in two different directories. The older directory had an apostrophe in it. So I moved the files from the directories with apostrophes to those without apostrophes, and I removed the old directories. The standard behavior now is to generate directory names without apostrophes.

The query string put boardrows ahead of boardcols, and I was assuming the reverse, since I normally write columns before rows. So, I changed the order of boardrows and boardcols in the query string to fix this.

As a compromise between European and American times, I will make Cylindrical Chess the featured game for March late tonight, which will be a bit late in Europe and a bit early in America.

I have assigned you as the author of this page. So, you should be able to edit it now. Let me know if you have any trouble with this.

To me, Recognized suggests games that have achieved some notable popularity at some time,

That's hard to measure, has vague boundaries, and has nothing to do with our actions. So, if we just focused on which games are recognized, we would be trying to determine what is so instead of making something so through our own actions.

while Featured would include games that are considered to be deserving of recognition.

Yes, another reason to focus on featured games rather than recognized games is that is allows us to spotlight a game for its quality and not just for its popularity or historic value.

As one last touch-up before featuring this game, I replaced the diagrams with ones that have better-looking piece images.

Your function is recursive, but you're not using unless or onlyif, which were designed specifically for use in recursive functions. Although you seem to have gotten it to work anyway, I would recommend looking into how you could rewrite your function using one of them.

I replaced your TEST function with this:

def TEST aggregate lambda (fn nextstep #frm where #frm #0) (nw n w e s se) =frm;

Except for not including empty results, it gave the same output as this:

set c1 fn nextstep d4 where d4 nw;
set c2 fn nextstep d4 where d4 n;
set c3 fn nextstep d4 where d4 w;
set c4 fn nextstep d4 where d4 e;
set c5 fn nextstep d4 where d4 s;
set c6 fn nextstep d4 where d4 se;

set ra array #c1 #c2 #c3 #c4 #c5 #c6;
print #ra;

The problem with your code was that fn is a greedy function, meaning that it interprets everything following it as an argument to the function. Although you specified only two arguments for your function, it does not take this into account. So, it does not just pop off two values and leave the remaining values untouched.

To get around this, I used aggregate with a lambda function, and I used a named variable for the main input to your TEST function so that it could be used within the lambda function without being confused for input to the lambda function. Check the documentation on these details to learn more.