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Game Courier History. History of the Chess Variants Game Courier PBM system.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Joe Joyce wrote on Wed, Apr 13, 2016 11:10 PM UTC:"Fergus Duniho Verified as Fergus Duniho wrote on 2016-04-12 None The Preview and Verify mode now has a Cancel button. This is like clicking the back button, but it preserves any comments you have written, and if you're in a multi-move game, such as Extra Move Chess, it will cancel the whole move at once. The main reason I added this was because I didn't like having my comments go away every time I decided against a move." Thank you very much - I got burned by that little feature more than once myself. I'm sure others have, also. I like what's been happening here lately.
Joe Joyce wrote on Mon, Mar 14, 2016 07:57 PM UTC:https://www.technologyreview.com/s/541276/deep-learning-machine-teaches-itself-chess-in-72-hours-plays-at-international-master/
Hyperchess4
. Hyperchess updated: changed rules, discussion, sample game, etc.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Fri, Mar 4, 2016 04:17 AM UTC:Hey, Kevin, it's apparently dangerous for me to reply to your comments - lost 2 so far on this one, from power failures. First, I do like the idea of holding to a 3D Row or Column. Just for starters, it's halfway between full freedom of the board and being held on a 4x4 2D plane. And I've done games (though I don't know if any yet survive) with kings facing queen analogs/replacements. So I think that makes an excellent optional rules set - swap 1 K&Q's positions and use 3D holds as well as 2D holds. As I was thinking about how to write this part to say the idea is interesting but too kludgy, I realized that you could get the same effect you suggested with easier visualization by using the 16 2D slices that have the same Column and file number and the 16 2D slices that have the same Row and rank numbers. This takes the number of 2D slices you can hold the king on from 32 to 64, which might be a little overkill. But once you're there, you could then try Row and file plus Column and rank, which if I'm doing this right, adds another 16 + 16 2D slices, for 96 different 2D "levels". While I would be hesitant to try playing with that many 2D planes available, this is certainly worth a write-up in the notes, in my opinion. What's your opinion?
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Feb 27, 2016 06:07 PM UTC:Hi, Kevin. Already lost a long comment and have been/will be busy over the next few days so let me answer briefly here , then when I have time, look at the board and push pieces. Grin, that's a lot easier than trying to visualize it in my head when I have a few quiet minutes. But the mental gymnastics gave me this much, using the 1111 - 4444 coordinate system: The current rules state a king is held when on a square with either the same first 2 digits or the same last 2 digits. (11xx - 44xx or xx11 - xx44) The kings start with the second and fourth digits the same. (x3x2) This precludes using every 2D slice of the board, given the current set-up. Switching 1 K-Q pair's start squares would make all 4 digits different, allowing all 2D planes to be used, but that's a true headache. The easiest effective hold is just hold on big or little square - real easy to see. That's what I got last night while falling asleep. It seemed to me then that your idea wouldn't work, but in the shower just now, I realized it could possibly work. You move your king onto a square with the same first digit - makes no real difference what the other 3 are for this purpose - to hold the opponent's king on 1 of the 4 3D rows of 2D levels. Trying to use the 4 3D columns this way - 2nd digit same - could really mess up the game, I think, since the kings start in the same column. And switching the K and Q for 1 side doesn't seem as satisfactory here, though it could work. In fact, except for the game starting with the kings restricted in movement, it would be okay. I don't like that, aesthetically, I guess. Doesn't mean it wouldn't work fine. I think you've just added a paragraph to the game write-up. This is certainly worth optional rule status.
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Feb 25, 2016 07:19 AM UTC:Actually, it's a pretty simple explanation. Just as in FIDE chess there is a condition called "opposition" in K+P vs K endings which prevents the pawn from successfully promoting, the same sort of thing happens when you try to get your king onto the same 2D level in Hype. The opponent's king stays as close to your king as possible, in both a neighboring big and little square, preventing your king from ever actually getting on the same board as your opponent's king to hold it to a specific 2D level. The position shown is the minimum force needed to force your king's way onto the same 2D level as the opponent's king to get the hold. Once held, yes, even a rook and king deliver mate. Hope this answers your question adequately. Ben Reiniger helped me find this position by playing the lone king as I looked over various possibilities. So let me here publicly thank him for his patience, as he didn't have my certainty there actually was a solution. And finally, there is no requirement for the king which initiates the hold to stay on the same 2D level. This only applies to the king being held. So the lone king, being the one doing the holding, cannot be forced anywhere in particular other than to any safe square.
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Feb 20, 2016 09:12 AM UTC:Thanks for the comment, Kevin. Checkmate is one of the trickier parts of higher-dimensional chess. The standard method for K + Q vs K in 4D is to move the king to the/a middle square, then move your queen between your king and the enemy king, pinning it against the edge of the board. But this only works if your individual "little" boards are no bigger than 5x5. My method, by restricting diagonal moves greatly and introducing the "held king" concept, will work on any size (rectangular) "little board". It allows forced mate with K and any 2 of the Q and pair of Bs vs. a lone K. And it took a little help, as Abdul-Rahman Sibahi gave me the final piece of the hold rule - that it works on the individual matching squares in each little board. A version of the hold rules can be applied to any higher than 2D variant, though it might well have to be tweaked to fit each higher dimension. I like this design because it is humanly playable, looks like chess, and gives people the feel of 4D and the pieces the freedom to move through 4D space without overwhelming the players with 3D and 4D diagonals, or very many of the available 2D diagonals, for that matter. Most who design 4D chess variants using the 2D layout of 2D boards to represent 4D space give the pieces moves that are based on a 4D space that is 2D x 2D = 4D. I've found this creates a totally chaotic game, where the state of the board cannot be reasonably projected even 2 or 3 turns into the future. Pieces move so freely that in a couple moves, they can be anywhere on the board, generally by many paths which can't all possibly be guarded in 2 or 3 moves. So I get my 4D by basing movement on a 2D + 2D = 4D concept. It gives you the same 4D game space, but it restricts movements to fairly easily visualizable, fairly simple patterns that players can project 2 - 3 moves into the future. While it is fast-moving, it is not chaotic. Almost nobody plays it, or ever has. Grin, that's the common fate of most variants. But getting it to work, finally, taught me something about chess design. For one thing, your pawns are there as much or more to protect your opponent's pieces as yours. And the checkmate problem in higher-D chess is merely a symptom of the chaos problem in higher-D chesses. The attempt to reduce chaos is part of what led me to short-range pieces. Restricting board size only limits the number of chaotic states that can occur, bringing it down from the all-but-infinite to a smaller but still effectively infinite number in terms of human lifetimes, as individuals or as a species.
Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Jan 21, 2016 10:08 PM UTC:http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/21/chess-forbidden-in-islam-rules-saudi-arabia-grand-mufti
Sac Chess. Play classical chess along with classical compound pieces: amazons, chancellors, archbishops...[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Dec 24, 2015 02:40 PM UTC:Hi, Kevin. To get the game logs, click on the site logo in the upper lefthand corner of the page. That takes you to the home page. Scroll down until you see the "What's New" section. The top line under What's New is the last game move made. Click on that kink and it will bring you to the game logs. Type "Sac Chess" in the game box, set the Age box to however far you want to go back and look - say 4 weeks. Then set the status to "Any Games", and click the "submit" button. This will bring up all the games of Sac Chess that were played in the last 4 weeks. You will get the current game between Carlos and Fergus and you will get their finished game. Note the game box is case sensitive. If you type "sac chess" or Sac chess", you will not see any games. Putting your user ID in will bring up just the games you've played in the last 4 weeks. You can use wild cards: putting "Sac *" or Sac*" will also get you those games, as will "Sa*". Typing just "S*" will bring up Seirawan, Shogi... also. *******EDIT: I see Carlos already gave you the short course.
4*Chess (four dimensional chess). Four dimensional chess using sixteen 4x4 boards & 96 pieces. (4x(4x(4x4)), Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Joe Joyce wrote on Sun, Dec 20, 2015 07:07 PM UTC:Here's a simple board you can use - just remove my pieces for this unsuccessful game, and place your own. And welcome to the ranks of those who have tackled 4D chess! /play/pbm/play.php?game%3DChess+on+Two+Boards%26settings%3DC02B
Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Dec 12, 2015 01:26 AM UTC:How do you define a chess variant? While this may seem to be a somewhat silly question, it bears directly on this topic. Over several years I designed a series of games that got farther and farther away from standard chess variants, starting with Chieftain Chess, a multi-move shatranj variant (which for reasons of euphony was not called Chieftain Shatranj.) During this development, the games crossed the line between chess and wargames, thus managing to turn off both chess variantists and wargamers. For each, the games were too much like the "other kind". But I think the series clearly fits into the category of computer-resistant variants. The beginning of the series, which I developed and playtested here (thanks, Nick Wolff and others) were expansions of Chieftain to larger boards and more pieces, but still very much large shatranj variants with 1 new idea - that "kings" could be multiple and would control their armies directly, requiring the "king" to be within a few squares (command range) for a piece to activate and move. This part of the series I developed with a friend, and named it the Warlord games, an unfortunate choice, as that name was already used by a commercial series of games. However, this worked well enough that I took the next step to create a true chess-wargame fusion by adding terrain. In FIDE chess, "terrain" is totally abstract, and is represented by the difference between dark and light squares, because some pieces, bishop-types, can only move on one or the other colored squares. I expanded from white and black to white and grey, which all pieces can move upon, and brown and green, which restrict certain pieces from moving onto them. The brown, green, and grey squares are scattered across a mostly white board, and conceptually represent hills, trees, and towns. This last part of the series, the "true wargame" part, I have called the Command and Maneuver series, which is more description of the game than it is a name. My developer, Dave, worked on the first few of these, but then moved away for a job, so I continued on my own. The best well-playtested game in the series is The Battle of Macysburg. It's played on a 32x32 board. Players bring 84 pieces on the board in 4 groups of 20 - 22 pieces each, coming in on Turns 1, 5, 15, and 20. There are 2 times in the game where 1/3 of the captured pieces are brought back as rallied troops, after turns 12 and 24. With a little care for positioning of troops and leaders (activators/"little kings"), players can move all their units each turn, if they so desire. There are 3 levels of victory, ranging from driving out opponent pieces and occupying Macysburg to chasing all the opponent's pieces off the board to destruction of the opponent's army - reducing it to 20 pieces or less. Players may achieve more than one level of victory, and players may each achieve some level of victory in the same game. Yet the mechanics are simple chess moves of 1, 2, or 3 squares for each piece, movement governed by the availability of leaders within 2 squares of each moving piece as it starts its move. With no wargamelike rules at all, just the rules mentioned above, the game reproduces fairly nicely much of the strategy and tactics of Western European combat around the 17th and 18th centuries. Mechanically, the game is a chess variant; organizationally it's a wargame. If you consider it a chess variant, Macysburg is computer-resistant. This is a review of Macysburg, written by a wargamer and chess, but not chess variant, player, complete with 2 "snapshots" of the game that give a reasonable idea of how it looks: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1178742/some-impressions-after-playing-battle-macysburg-sc
Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Oct 24, 2015 04:35 PM UTC:http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/G8TvJTjSBRppps_QjGR7tA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3NfbGVnbztmaT1maWxsO2g9MTk0O3B5b2ZmPTA7cT03NTt3PTYwMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ucomics.com/cle151021.gif
Game Courier Logs. View the logs of games played on Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Joe Joyce wrote on Sun, Aug 2, 2015 10:40 AM UTC:http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/41IomlwNkF7E924DreAtKw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTMyNTtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz0zMDA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ucomics.com/crspe150729.gif
Two Large Shatranj Variants. Missing description (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Mon, Jul 13, 2015 09:59 PM UTC:Thank you, Tony, for the comment and the rating. Sorry I didn't notice it when you posted it. You were partly responsible for my interest in shatranj variants, way back when. The games were fun to do and I got to "meet" Christian Freeling in the process. Fwiw, being very bad with awkward pieces, like the half-duck (HFD), and being terrified of relatively cheap but unblockable pieces capable of attacking several pieces at once, like the squirrel (NAD), I tried to design simple, obvious pieces that were easy to use and to understand. I didn't want them too powerful, but they needed to be much more capable than the original piece mix. It's nice to see some of my games being played. Thanks.
Joe Joyce wrote on Mon, Jun 22, 2015 03:20 PM UTC:I listed you as a contributor. You should now be able to submit variants with no more than the usual amount of trouble. ;) Enjoy!
Denver Chess Club Chigorin Chess Tournament. I'm sponsoring my first local chess variants tournament.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Dec 11, 2014 09:34 PM UTC:http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/tvbn8ckxBeMrg1I6XVVnXw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTI5MztpbD1wbGFuZTtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz02MDA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ucomics.com/bl141207.jpg
Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Jun 19, 2014 06:31 PM UTC:If the author's conclusions in this article are accurate, then males would also be better at chess variants. Chess is chess, until it isn't. (How many would recognize this game as a shatranj variant? http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1178742/some-impressions-after-playing-the-battle-of-macys) However, I would take issue with at least some of the conclusions in the article. The last 2 paragraphs of the article are: "Males on average may have some innate advantages in developing chess skill due to previous differing evolutionary pressures on the sexes. Females may have greater talent on average in other domains, however. If the male predominance in chess was due just to social factors it should have greatly lessened or disappeared by now. Indeed, some researchers now recognize that many psychological sex differences are due to complex interactions between nature and nurture. This conclusion is unpalatable to many but it is best to acknowledge how the world actually is." The idea that social factors are now balanced between men and women is a stretch, one I do not agree with. I believe it's been demonstrated that if there is a difference between men and women in any area, a good part of that difference *is* social conditioning. Encouragement and discouragement in children is often quite subtle, and recent studies of films of classes, for example, show this clearly. You want 2 kids who read the same to read completely differently 5 years from now. Tell one kid (s)he is a good reader and the other (s)he is a bad reader. Sometimes that's all it takes to turn 2 average readers into non-average readers. If that isn't enough, give the "good" reader encouragement and somewhat harder and harder books to read, and ask them what they liked and didn't like, and what they learned.Give the "bad" reader very simple kids books to read, with orders to write book reports on them. Keep it up for a year, and see what happens several years further on. Any bets? I do not claim men and women are equal in everything, as that is obviously wrong. I do not even claim that the difference shown in the article isn't real. What I do claim is that the author never analyzed the male players the way the female players were analyzed. Suppose only the top 5% of all chessplaying men go on to get better, and the top 50% of women do. What would that do to the conclusions? We know that women are discouraged from things like chess, and men are encouraged to play things like chess, on average. Finally, the little matter of sexual harassment also has a bearing. Based on studies of women, any that rise are subjected to more intense, more open, and more hidden harassment. In fact, you can see that in the news, if you look. Just 1 example, the Gov. Christie bridge-closing scandal was blamed entirely on a woman working directly for Christie by the lawyers Christie hired to "investigate". It seems she was having an affair with another Christie top gun, and he dumped her, leaving her to close the bridge in a fit of irrational female passion - all her fault, because she was jilted.
Joe Joyce wrote on Mon, Jun 9, 2014 04:15 PM UTC:Thank you, HG - figured if anyone knew, you would, to be honest. It's for a serious Xiangqi enthusiast who composes problems and wants to publish books on the game. But he only has an iPad. He recently put some Xiangqi problems up on Rick's ANCIENT CHESS Facebook page, should anyone be interested. I hope he will find this useable.
Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Jun 5, 2014 06:09 PM UTC:I'm looking for an app for an iPad that will allows someone to compose Xiangqi problems on his iPad. Does anyone know of such an app? He is also looking for colored Beijing fonts. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Apr 5, 2014 03:12 AM UTC:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9IYRC7g2ICg
Bede Chess. Missing description (9x11, Cells: 99) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Joe Joyce wrote on Mon, Mar 31, 2014 08:04 PM UTC:Agree that it should be able to capture with a mobility of 1.
Joe Joyce wrote on Sun, Mar 30, 2014 06:02 PM UTC:I should know better than to comment when not feeling well, but have never learned that particular lesson. Sorry about the bede jumping comment. However, the king can reach 25 - counting its starting position - squares. How many pieces would be required to cover all 25 squares, and prevent the king from capturing any of them? How likely are those positions to arise?
Joe Joyce wrote on Sun, Mar 30, 2014 12:51 AM UTC:Two comments: 1) It's not specified if the colorbound bede can ignore pieces on the opposite color, or if those pieces block the bede's move. 2) How checkmatable is the king? It's an extremely powerful piece, and allowing it to move through check on the first step of its 2 step move makes it even more powerful.
Joe Joyce wrote on Fri, Mar 28, 2014 05:57 PM UTC:http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ucomics.com/cl140327.gif
Joe Joyce wrote on Fri, Mar 21, 2014 11:11 PM UTC:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qQ0GzYabEgk
Joe Joyce wrote on Fri, Jan 24, 2014 04:02 PM UTC:http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ucomics.com/of140114.gif
Directed Alice III. a 3-board Alice Chess variant.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Mon, Dec 9, 2013 06:02 PM UTC:After all this time, I find VR Parton has already suggested 3 boards for Alice, with player choice of which of the 2 possible destination boards to end upon. And I found it here, on this site, in a spot I didn't know existed. http://www.chessvariants.org/parton/Curiouser&Curiouser.txt I quote from page 10: "Alician Chess can also be played on three boards of identical size. In this case the player has now a choice between two corresponding squares to which the piece that he plays may be transferred, though of course one these may sometimes happen to be occupied, thus allowing no choice." The link above the quote takes one to 31 pages of Parton's thoughts on Alice and various other variants, which he saw as related to Alice. I do not know if he ever made explicit that in Alice with 2 boards, the knights are colorbound, nor that giving one the choice of boards unbinds them. There is a comment on this idea that suggests a standard 8x8x3 3D chess board could be used, but then suggests a modification to 3-board Alice that would re-bind the knights, namely only allowing pieces on the center board to choose which of the other 2 boards to transfer to, and only allowing the top and bottom boards to transfer to the middle. This, I believe, only makes the colorbinding worse. (Sorry, Larry!) Finally, I'd like to point out that the construction of this website presents a lot of "Secret Gardens" that are difficult to find, but once found offer a multitude of surprises.
Joe Joyce wrote on Mon, Nov 18, 2013 07:33 PM UTC:http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1062991/activator-game-design-contest-on-the-fly-updates
Refusal Chess. Refuse your opponent to make certain moves. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Oct 31, 2013 03:55 AM UTC:Okay, you got me to dig out my complete set of Variant Chess issues. First: Refusal Chess [article by Paul Novak] "Refusal Chess (also known as Rejection Chess or Outlaw Chess) was invented by C.H.O'D, Alexander... The only rule change from normal chess is that you may refuse one of your opponent's moves each turn (you cannot leave your king in check though and refuse your opponent's piece takes your king). Since its conception two very similar siblings have appeared; that the number of refusals is limited; and where two moves are proposed together on each turn... Different pawn promotions count as different moves..." So there is a confusion among similar games, which is causing the problem. Based on my reading of this, a player may or may not refuse a move. So white is not obligated to refuse a move of black's. But black has the right to refuse white's move R-h5+. So white must make a different move. Still, any rook move on the H column would mate, except of course, R-h7. This does indicate a problem - if white did play R-h7+, could white then refuse k x R, leaving black no legal moves at all, and if so, would it be considered stalemate rather than checkmate? It's maybe slightly shaky logic, but not totally outside the realm of possibility.
Joe Joyce wrote on Wed, Oct 23, 2013 03:07 AM UTC:Hey, Greg. None of my presets has any code. I'm B.C. - before computers. I keep the slide rule I used in college under an abacus on my encyclopedia bookshelves. And I just use the originating and destination squares - everything goes in like "d2-d4" - no names or other characters at all (except for the semicolon that separates the moves.) Guess I'll have to put another preset together (the 3rd for this particular preset, not counting the original, which has no accounting table on the side) and see what happens this time. Thanks for looking. Like I said, I cannot see why there is a problem.
Joe Joyce wrote on Mon, Oct 21, 2013 06:50 PM UTC:Hey, Ben. I don't see why the multi-moves are the problem. I've been making and playing multi-move games almost since I got here, and never had this trouble before. I also noticed my name would appear for both sides when I was having problems. I suspect that is related to the problem, but the games were started as 2-player. And the glitch didn't show up instantly. Look at the first game, with catsmas. That went a bit before it punked out. Was there a change made to the system recently, that my preset might have run afoul of?
Joe Joyce wrote on Mon, Oct 21, 2013 06:44 PM UTC:Click on "menu" in the viewing screen, and it takes you to a screen where you can edit, customize, whatever.
Joe Joyce wrote on Mon, Oct 21, 2013 04:59 AM UTC:Currently there are three that have blown up. /play/pbm/play.php?game=CaM%3A+A+Tale+of+Two+Countries+2&log=joejoyce-catsmas-2013-252-784 /play/pbm/play.php?game=CaM%3A+A+Tale+of+Two+Countries+1.1&log=joejoyce-capnmunch-2013-287-056 /play/pbm/play.php?game=CaM%3A+A+Tale+of+Two+Countries+2&log=joejoyce-capnmunch-2013-291-145 Thanks for looking! I appreciate it.
Joe Joyce wrote on Sun, Oct 20, 2013 01:55 PM UTC:Crashed and burned again. Any suggestions, anyone?
Joe Joyce wrote on Sun, Oct 20, 2013 02:37 AM UTC:I'm trying again, sending out another invite. I don't see anything obviously wrong with the presets. They are not rules checking, and exclude pieces not in set-up. I tried sending a move in the previous game I mentioned 4 times in succession. It tells me the move was sent, and that I must sign in to make a move, even though the previous screen shows me as signed in and I've entered my password.
Joe Joyce wrote on Fri, Oct 18, 2013 04:21 PM UTC:I've made my 1st move twice in this game, some days apart. It said the move
was sent both times, and both times, the game showed up later with my move
missing. Note this game allows 8 moves/player-turn. What's happening here?
joejoyce-capnmunch-2013-287-056
Lion. Powerful piece from Shogi variant.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Joe Joyce wrote on Wed, Oct 2, 2013 06:56 PM UTC:Hey, HG, I agree with Antoine and Greg about board sizes, but I do have a suggestion that while a bit gimmicky might work. Add an extra square behind each king, place the lion there, and when the lion moves or is taken, the square (and any taking piece) is immediately removed. Hm, that would screw up your chess engines, wouldn't it? The other "preserve 8x8" option is a drop, but I do not favor that approach.
Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Sep 28, 2013 02:12 PM UTC:Warning! The following cartoon contains checkers and may not be suitable for under 18. http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ucomics.com/of130926.gif
Home page of The Chess Variant Pages. Homepage of The Chess Variant Pages.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Sep 21, 2013 11:07 PM UTC:If you are interested in volunteering, please contact David Howe. I agree the site needs more conversation. If you go over the comments section you'll see there is a slow churn of members, or members designing and/or commenting. Look closer, and you'll see a core group several years ago that talked with each other, ran contests and group designs, and essentially had an acknowledged leader in Ralph Betza. A number of others have served as lesser activators for the site. But the main thing is that several people participated regularly or semi-regularly and there were a handful of interesting things, discussions, recent designs, contests... going on at more or less the same time. So a Ralph Betza is not required to have a good site* but group participation is. Who are the members of the group? Who will participate and follow through? A design contest is always fun - who will judge it? Based on my experience, it turns out you need several judges. You could have everyone in the contest judge all the entries except their own, which would relieve a lot of stress and pressure on the erstwhile judges and allow people to participate more fully. You can also run a set time tournament, where everyone starts with say 3 - 5 months of grace time, and nothing else. No time is ever added. This guarantees the tournament will end in 6 - 10 months. All games are played at once. Each player is assigned black in half the games at start, and white in the other half. Once the games start, all players must win, lose, draw, or time out in every game. It works, and prevents tournaments from going on for years. It works for small numbers. However, it is highly unlikely we would get so many participants that it would break the format. Discuss this here, see who will commit to what, and we shall see what happens, if anything. I would not mind seeing this site a little livelier. Enjoy! *Thank goodness, because Ralph is quite a hard act to follow, being a master in both chess and variants as well as a good writer, someone who could explain variants and analyze them for the rest of us.
Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Sep 21, 2013 02:56 PM UTC:Got a problem with this game: /play/pbm/play.php?game=CaM%3A+A+Tale+of+Two+Countries+2&log=joejoyce-catsmas-2013-252-784&userid=joejoyce Mark has not been able to make moves - he can't even always sign in. After using his password to move for him, I had no trouble with his turn, but he still did. Finally, this morning, he sent me a move where every piece he moved disappeared from the board. What is going on? He is using Google Chrome.
Home page of The Chess Variant Pages. Homepage of The Chess Variant Pages.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Sep 7, 2013 01:54 AM UTC:http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ucomics.com/crrub130905.gif
Joe Joyce wrote on Wed, Aug 21, 2013 04:17 PM UTC:"One note: Ancient games often used dice. Would such be a part of this game?" Based on what you've laid out, absolutely. And I totally agree with the pyramids being blocks; that's exactly how I saw them when I looked at the pieces after reading the article. As moving pieces, wazir to R3 is all I could see them as... although orientation could be important. The pyramid shape could have 2 distinct orientations in a square, and would thus block or deflect left or right. You might use a few kinds of racing pieces, and throw a few dice, apportioning results of the die rolls as you see fit. It might be nice to have fewer dice than pieces, to make the choices more interesting. If you can move a block out of your way and/or into the other guy's but it costs you a move elsewhere... On the other hand, looking at the center and lower left of the picture, I saw pigs, dogs, truffles and baskets. So I'll stop there, and let someone else have at it next. Enjoy!
Joe Joyce wrote on Tue, Aug 20, 2013 01:30 PM UTC:Hi, Larry. I was always a sucker for a collaboration. The thing that struck me as a false note was something you commented on, too - the "based on 4" bit. They would, I suspect, say chess was based on 2, because the main pieces come in pairs, and the pawns are a multiple of 2. The other thing that bothered me most was that there are 2 "styles" (at least) to the 'game' pieces. The pillar pieces are more crudely carved/finished than the pyramid or pig, for example. The final bit, of course, is that the coloration doesn't indicate game pieces, at least to moderns. So, sure, what did you have in mind?
Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Aug 17, 2013 02:00 PM UTC:http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/14/4622122/oldest-board-game-tokens-found-turkey
Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Jul 25, 2013 08:41 PM UTC:Thanks, Ben. It took me a while, but I finally got what I wanted. I hope/expect to have some icons to add to the Alfaerie set soon.
Joe Joyce wrote on Wed, Jul 17, 2013 04:56 PM UTC:How do I assign specific colors to specific board squares in Game Courier? I want to make a 12x24 board with primarily white squares, and want to place green, brown, and gray squares in specific locations. How do I manage this?
Joe Joyce wrote on Wed, Jun 19, 2013 05:41 PM UTC:http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ucomics.com/crstr130615.gif Strange Brew, Saturday June 15
Joe Joyce wrote on Wed, Jun 5, 2013 08:04 PM UTC:Saw this on BoardGameGeek. It looks like a 4-player chess variant. Can anyone come up with a name and rules? http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/987262/game-unknown
Home page of The Chess Variant Pages. Homepage of The Chess Variant Pages.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Joe Joyce wrote on Tue, Jun 4, 2013 01:06 AM UTC:Who runs this site? We do. It's volunteer. I agree about the email address; I think we should retire it. There is an application form, but that is well-hidden, I see. It took me a while to find. Anyway, here it is: http://www.chessvariants.org/onthese/membership.html If you have any problems with the form, contact me through the email address in my personal info - click on my name to the left. I will be happy to assist you as I can. What we probably need is a "How to Join" button on every page that puts you at registration. Joe
Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, May 23, 2013 09:35 PM UTC:Couldn't you set up a round robin on your chess engines and play each different location against the others? I know it'd be something of a pain, but it might tell you a lot about the various positions for the lion.
Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, May 23, 2013 05:42 PM UTC:I think you are most likely right then, that introducing it on a knight square is probably the best option. Imagine you'd replace the king's knight.
Joe Joyce wrote on Wed, May 22, 2013 03:03 AM UTC:Or what if you replaced a rook with Jeremy's weak version, and allowed castling with it, to start? Then you could upgrade to the full lion later, after a player has had experience with the weaker version. Maybe use 2, replacing both rooks and leaving the queen. If you did that, you could dispense with those I can't capture your lion if you capture my lion with your lion... rules.
Joe Joyce wrote on Tue, May 21, 2013 01:15 PM UTC:You might replace a rook with the lion, instead. This would keep more power on the board, but would mess somewhat with castling. One thing I neglected to mention in my last comment is that the weaker lion I use captures only once/turn, and stops on that square.
Joe Joyce wrote on Mon, May 20, 2013 11:49 PM UTC:I've used a weak form of the lion in a number of games, mostly as the leader piece in a series of games ranging from Chieftain Chess through my current assault on the size of chess variants and the sensibilities of chess variantists. It steps one or two squares, may change direction between the first and second step, but may neither jump nor return to its starting square. (Leaders aren't allowed to run around in circles!) But the first game I used it in was Lemurian Shatranj, as the queen analog. It was quite a strong piece there, and it was matched up against some rather strong pieces on a small (8x8) board. It was the other strong pieces which balanced it out. When I look at Chu Shogi, I see both a 12x12 board and 8 pieces/side of a rook or greater in value, most of them sliders. Both these serve to dilute the power of the lion. Both are lost in bringing the lion to the queen's place in FIDE. It seems to me you are metaphorically bringing a ninja piece into a game of epee and main gauche... I have a terrible urge to suggest taking a leaf from Noble Wing chess and adding a non-capturing ferz move to the queen's rook and king's knight, and a non-capturing wazir move to the king's bishop as an alternate variant that might reverse a little of the gain the lion has made in the transition to a smaller pond. Some may find it interesting.
Joe Joyce wrote on Sun, May 12, 2013 07:47 PM UTC:Charles, zzo38, thanks for the comments. Each points to a design feature I found essential for controlling the playability of the game. First, I'll speak to zzo38's googolplex of piece types. The Warlord scenarios use 5 piece types, just like the original game Chieftain Chess. To achieve playability with very large numbers of pieces requires, I think, simplification of the piece types. As variant designers, we often add a "new" piece or pieces for each extra square or pair of them we use to place the additional pieces on. The very large shogis, I think, represent the futility of that approach. Proliferation of piece-types clogs the analysis of moves unduly. For my truly large games, those approaching the 100x100 "goal", I'm offering an optional 6th piece. But unlike the other 5, it is not a unique piece, but a combination of existing pieces that fills a need in that size game. And still, no piece moves more than 3 squares in a turn. How you manage playing a game of this size in a "reasonable" time - which, for the sake of argument, is a couple hours for the smallest sizes to a couple weeks for the largest - answers Charles' comment about "huge" games being those larger than 150 squares, more or less. The trick, of course, is organization, and on 2 levels, one being operational and the other conceptual. Leader rules allow organization of 5 - 10 individual pieces into one "superpiece" which moves and fights as a cohesive whole. The individual units within the superpiece essentially act as hit points representing the offensive and defensive strength of the piece. The specific combination of units within one superpiece dictate the tactics used both by and against the formation. Seeing the game as a diceless wargame allows the players to organize their thoughts in a highly useful way as they compete for victory. The Battle of Macysburg uses 84 pieces/side To fight a "3-day" battle for control of the center of the board, where the city of Macysburg is located. Each side's pieces are organized into 4 corps of 3 divisions each. Each division has its own leader which can activate the entire division each turn, provided all the (surviving) units start in command control each turn or can be brought into command range by leader movement during the turn. Each division also has a detachable self-activating unit which can freely move anywhere on the board. The corps come onto the edge of the board 1 at a time, the first at start, the 2nd on turn 5, the 3rd on 15, and the last on turn 20. (Turns are organized into 12 move days, with an optional night turn allowing rally of casualties.) Each corps is 20-22 pieces in size. I was shooting for something that felt a little like Gettysburg in the US Civil War. So the game is organized as a meeting engagement where forces come on board over the course of time, and from all different directions. Each player's divisions come on spaced several squares apart, in shifting locations that encompass half the board for each player. Day 2's units enter on an axis almost perpendicular to day 1's units. And there are 3 levels of victory. Tactical victory is complete control of Macysburg at the end of the game. Operational victory is chasing the opponent's army off the board. Strategic victory is destroying the opponent's army. Grin, and I can tell you from experience in this one that, after you've massacred half of each army in about 3-4 turns late on Day 2, you want more pieces. You find yourself wishing you had another corps showing up real early on Day 3. The rules and components have been through a large number of playtests - for a chess variant. For a wargame, not so many. That explains why the pieces work so well together tactically - they actually show the value of combined arms on both offense and defense - but the scenario quality is somewhat spotty. All the scenarios I've posted are fun the first time played. But not all of them have high replay value, in my estimation. Some of them display a sameness in the games that starts to show up after a few plays. The game was always fun, but after ~3 plays, you knew how the basic flow of the next one would go. There were no real possibilities for strategic surprise, it was always start on opposite sides and meet in the middle. The game uses variable terrain, and the specific terrain arrangements affected the details of the flow, but not the strategic possibilities in these scenarios. As I pushed pieces, both by myself and with my developer, Dave, certain patterns and alignments of space, time, terrain and pieces jumped out at me. The game is playable at 2 scales, one with full activation of pieces, and one with limited activation - specifically, the number of activations is set to ~1/4th of the on-board army size at start, and does not change during the game. No completed playtest game has gone 40 turns, in any of the scenarios. In limited-activation games, it takes about 12 turns to get 6-8 squares from your territory into your opponent's territory in a successful campaign. This info let me put together the introductory scenario A Tale of Two Countries, a 12x24 square game with 8 activations per player turn, 4 home cities per player, 4 leaders and 32 other units/side at start. It is meant to play in the 90-180 minute range. A "teaching" game takes 4 hours, though, based on experience. The games have lasted between 15 and 35 turns, with victory determined by a player having a friendly unit in an enemy city at the beginning of the friendly turn. Reinforcements may arrive, on home cities, on turns 13, 25, 37..., but no one's made it to turn 37. Replacements, at the rate of 1 per 4 casualties, also arrive on home cities, 2 turns after they become available. This is a nice, tight little wargame with very good replay value, even solo, although the game plays differently solo.
Joe Joyce wrote on Fri, May 10, 2013 04:37 PM UTC:Some time ago, I got into a discussion where I argued that a 100x100-square humanly-playable chess game could be designed, design requirements including being played in a "reasonable" amount of time. Just posted rules and 2 complete games on BoardGameGeek, here: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/850601/chess-wargame-fusion-ii-success/page/3 If you go back a page, you'll find another complete game on that page. So far, I haven't created anything larger than 32x32, and likely won't go past 36x60 at home, but proof of concept is easily demonstrated with "The Battle of Macysburg", a 32x32 which is crowded on Day 2, and already just over 10% of the target 100x100. Macysburg and "A Tale of Two Countries" demonstrate the 2 different levels of conflict, both corps/army and brigade/division, the game plays on, and either game can be scaled up as much as you want. My practical limit is the size of my game table. Should anyone be interested, I sprang for some nice looking pieces. If you are interested, email me, and I'll send you printable files of board and units.
Modern Shatranj. A bridge between modern chess and the historic game of Shatranj. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, May 4, 2013 04:23 AM UTC:Grin, allow me a little poetic license, HG. I will point out that my shatranj variants allow promotion to effective pieces, so promotion is important in them, also, and can easily be just as decisive, if not more. Further, especially in the D versions of MS and GtS, the pawns prove to be rather useful little fighting units in their own right. At least in my experience. I agree with you that pawns are the heart and soul of FIDE, but that is more true the better the player. And you see far more pawn moves in the openings of shatranj than you do in the modern game, from what I remember. Grin, could be wrong, as personally, I play way too many pawn moves in the beginning. Still, from the games I played, pawns could restrict the mobility of the enemy power pieces, and lock up anything moving diagonally. Further, with pieces that move only 2 squares a turn, a pawn that moves 1 and is backed up is a strong threat. Overall, pawns may not make more moves or many more, in the shatranj variants, but the moves are more effective, because the pieces are weaker, or certainly give that feeling.
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Wed, May 1, 2013 03:41 PM UTC:Grin, and here I thought all this time you were trying to get me to design back towards the ancient game! ;) The "speed bump" comment is merely meant to illustrate the difference I've seen between pawns in shatranj and FIDE. In the short-range games, pawns are actually fighting pieces, whereas, in the modern games, they act as a structure, a scaffolding to build your attacks and defenses around - essentially terrain.
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Tue, Apr 30, 2013 07:39 PM UTC:Thank you for the comments, HG, zzo38, and sairjohn. I actually think you're all essentially right in your comments. I did set out to change the nature of shatranj, to give it a modern flow, but without the modern style of game. I think I've come pretty close. HG, in our discussions of promotion and/as a geographic objective, I've come to see your point of view about the subject. I concede the initial point that the potential promotion to rook or even commoner changes the basic nature of the game - but where and how? Certainly not in the opening; no piece moves faster or farther than it ever did. The pieces are as slow, but move to more places. What I've done for moves is just remove one binding each from the alfil and the ferz. Yes, it changes the character of the game, because all the pieces are now deadly - like the modern game. This applies, of course, just to the R(ook) version. The D version was a retrofit, with the WD (warmachine, or Betza's woody rook) first used by me in Great Shatranj with good results, and added as an option to MS since it did work well in GtS. Sairjohn, your comment mirrors my thinking when I designed Great Shatranj and Grand Shatranj, rather than Modern. But while the warmachine is slow and awkward, it can mate in a K vs. K + WD. And I think the use of short range rook analogs mitigates the increased power and influence of promotion in the game. I will note that in all 3 games, the power of the pawn is significant, and they become something more than speed bumps, unlike in FIDE. I grant I've considerably changed the game, more by promotion than anything else, but would anyone really want to bring promotion back to only the ferz? The original shatranj must have been a rather drawish game, as it plays that way now.
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Mar 21, 2013 07:47 AM UTC:Thank you for the comment, Orleanian. (Which one, btw, old or New?) That is a nice little intermediate step, with a piece I didn't think of. A minute's consideration shows the logic of the piece, and it certainly does fit neatly after Step 2. Hm, if I recall correctly, Jeremy Good made an icon for that piece, an elephant with an 8-pointed star on its side, that can be found in the Alfaerie: Many piece set.
Joe Joyce wrote on Mon, Mar 11, 2013 12:38 AM UTC:Thanks, Fergus. The URL : /play/pbm/play.php?game%3DGreat+Shatranj%26log%3Djoejoyce-catsmas-2013-54-894%26userid%3Djoejoyce
Joe Joyce wrote on Sun, Mar 10, 2013 06:28 PM UTC:Fergus, I just accidentally erased a game in progress. Got distracted while I was calling up the game and managed to double-click the "Delete" option, instead of clicking on my name to call up the game. Heh, it would be one thing if I was winning, but I was losing in that one. I agree it's a rather unlikely error, but as I have just demonstrated to my chagrin, it is possible. Could that be changed, maybe requiring a password to activate? Thanks.
Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Nov 17, 2012 04:04 AM UTC:Nate, you and Mark are now listed as contributors. Please email me directly if you should have further problems.
Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Oct 20, 2012 03:00 PM UTC:I thought you meant "where did this particular thread come from", Mark. I did not know you were not the author. I guess that explains why you didn't answer my email. I deleted the incomplete item. Johnny Luken, here are the URL's for your Minima games: http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSminima http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSminima2 http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSminimaalt http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSminiultima You need to go to the page and complete the form to get Minima posted. Each of the links brings you to an uncompleted form. If you are not going to finish the 2 part form in one sitting, you need to save that URL, otherwise next time you will get the message that game already exists, because you are trying to open a second page with that exact name. If anyone should lose their submission when only half done, email me and I will send you the link, if you do it within a few weeks of starting the post.
Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Oct 20, 2012 01:22 AM UTC:Hey, Mark. It's brand new. One of our members put it up. Glad it got your attention - my email didn't.
Joe Joyce wrote on Fri, Oct 19, 2012 02:28 AM UTC:Mark Thompson, you have a hanging submission: http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSscifichess
Chess Variant Pages Membership. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Joe Joyce wrote on Tue, Oct 9, 2012 04:28 AM UTC:Johnny Luken, you are now able to submit games or other materials to this site. I agree the wording might be a bit better, but you can join the site as a user without being a contributing member. And once you're registered, I can allow you to submit things, which I've just done. Joe
Joe Joyce wrote on Wed, Sep 5, 2012 04:09 PM UTC:Derek, that's an interesting little bit of figuring. And your win %ages throw a stronger light on the problem. With a 55% - 45% white ad, white wins an excess of 22%. Figure ~ 38% draws - Derek, are there more stats available from those datasets? - and knock 19% off each number, to get an estimate of the pure won-loss stats, and you get 36 - 26, or about a 38% excess of white wins over black wins, a + 1/3rd to + 2/5ths range for 1st move ad. Here's a question: what are the average lengths of white victories vs black victories [vs draws]? Does white win faster than black? Or to put it the other way, does black need extra moves to win to make up for white's advantage? [And how do draws compare? Does that tell us anything?] As for the most important moves in a game, hasn't it been your experience that in decently-played games, there are usually a few turning points? I wouldn't think the first or the last move would be *the* most important. I would expect maybe half-a-dozen moves or more to be of roughly equal importance, anyway.
Joe Joyce wrote on Wed, Sep 5, 2012 05:56 AM UTC:Okay, HG, it seems to me you are essentially saying that any game with promotion would have pretty much the same white first move advantage, if I understand you correctly. At least, it appears to me that it follows from everything you've said. The "linearity" that bothers me - it's because it is set up after the game is over - there is a calculated win. This comes about because one side is advanced a rank. I ask how this happens. If white just starts out on ranks 2 and 3, then the advantage for white is literally a shorter distance to promote, and the game is unfair at that point. If the players fought it out until that point was reached, well, 3/8ths of games are draws, which means 5/8ths are won or lost. I don't have a problem with saying that white outplayed black enough to gain the step and thus the game. If the position at our starting to contemplate the situation is such that white wins, then either the situation was set up unfairly to begin with, or white outplayed black enough to create the situation. Am I missing something? [I could be - my sinuses been messin' with me lately, and that will turn me brain-dead.] Why doesn't black have equal chances to promote?
Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Sep 1, 2012 01:46 AM UTC:Is it possible to design a legitimate chess-wargame fusion? What might it look like, if possible? If it isn't possible, why not? I've kicked these questions around in various places, and gotten a range of answers from "it can't be done" to "it has been done, this is it here." Don't suppose it'd surprise any regular here that I disagree with both statements, and also have some strange game to advance as a legitimate example of a good chess/wargame hybrid. Well, I do and I do - disagree, and have a strange game to offer for consideration. To be honest, most of the games I've seen have been bad chess games or bad war games, or sometimes both. What's my qualification to make such a statement? Brass ones, I guess. So I ask anyone and everyone to try to tear down my proposal, and to also suggest what a good hybrid should have. It seems to me that the most recent Warlord scenario, Border War, actually establishes itself as both a "legitimate" and "good" hybrid. I consider it "legitimate" because it retains all the basic elements of chess. It has royal pieces, the capture of enough of which will end the game. It allows, courtesy of HG, promotions, to add an extra element of tension. It allows "1/2" a white first move, courtesy of BoardGameGeek and Jeremy's comments, to preserve/insure [perceived] fairness. [;)] Each piece is moved individually, with its own short chesslike move, which must be legal when it occurs. Each different piece's move mimics that of a different chesspiece. All pieces capture only by replacement. The pawn equivalents are half the army, more or less, move only 1 square, and support each other, or not, in almost exactly the same manner as in FIDE. At the tactical level [within 1-3 squares], all piece moves are chesslike, and nothing more. The movement rules are very simple and easy to understand. I consider it "good" because the game mimics so much that traditional wargames strive for, but do not always achieve. And it does so in an extremely abstract way. I have seen all of the following during actual play in A Test of Wills and/or Border War. Terrain [Border War only] is simplistic but very effective in channeling attacks by providing blocking of movement, strongpoints that aid the defense, and an alternate means of victory by possession of a certain number of geographical objectives. Logistics becomes important; pieces are not easy to place where you want them, because you do not actually control your army directly. You only control your leaders and they control your army, and this makes an amazing difference. Pieces get left behind. Someone is always falling out of command range of any leader. So leaders run back and forth to shuttle pieces around. I played 1 game where 3 leaders were picked off by getting too close to the front lines and missing an enemy cannon. Those are obvious effects. And some less obvious. There are a few good leaders, a bunch of so-so ones, and more in-between, and they act like it. Two other effects, that arise from the interactions and specific moves of the pieces, are the great value of combined arms both for attack and defense, and that when it comes right down to it, infantry is the indispensable arm for occupying ground. Further, the game is complex enough, with a large enough number of equivalent moves [moves of ~equal value] that you cannot always predict what your opponent will do in reply to even the attacks you've made to force trades. The game, despite being totally deterministic, is chaotic, if not in a strict mathematical sense, then in a "close enough for government work" sense. Or at least, that's my opinion. I'm pretty excited about this game and where it is headed. I invite everybody to poke holes in the game, and my conception of it.
Joe Joyce wrote on Fri, Aug 31, 2012 06:26 PM UTC:In your last example, HG, promotion is the only thing that can happen to change the current game state to one in which a win can occur. And the pawns are essentially isolated, so however many turns it takes to promote that first pawn, that's as fast as the game can possibly go, so I do see it as fast. And by "linear", I mean in that situation, there is nothing else you can do. It has gone from game to puzzle once there is a guaranteed win that a human expert can conceivably see. Or, maybe better [and maybe not], once the situation has clarified enough that it is calculable through to mate. I think I want to go back to what 53% - 47% actually means, and how I see white's FIDE 1st turn ad as very significant. That 6% difference is ~1/8th of the 47% black points or nearly 13% right there. But ~3/8th of the games are draws, and to see a pure win-loss percentage, I discard these, and see about a 34% - 28% win-lose there, translates to a roughly 23% advantage for white. That is the number I am trying to reduce toward zero with the Chief series.
Joe Joyce wrote on Fri, Aug 31, 2012 05:15 PM UTC:HG, your comment shows up okay in this thread. Sorry I don't have the technical skills to correct the main comments page. And as far as losing lengthy posts, you have my complete commiseration and understanding. A software update and auto-reboot killed the lengthy comment I was about to post. Jeremy, I cannot answer your question exactly about first move advantage. Ben has the right of it from a FIDE perspective. The "noise" I talk about is essentially the jockeying for position players do during a game. And I do see the noise of the games as they change away from something with a 1st move ad to something without, or essentially without, as drowning out the ever-diminishing 1st move ad at some point. If the 1st move ad is 0.1%, but the statistics are only accurate to +/- 0.05%, then the 1st move ad could be just the extreme end of normal fluctuations. It's statistically very unlikely, but possible. I think it is legitimate to say there is no 1st move ad in that case. Now, if the 1st move ad is reduced by 95% - 99+%, I concede you are right literally, but I would consider it both a moral victory and "close enough for government work". But I would need a statistical "proof" there was a first move advantage of any size in Chieftain Chess, because I really have trouble visualizing, given the specific rules and setup of this game without promotion, how there can be a 1st move ad for white if black can skip the 1st turn without detriment. I see no need for all chess games to follow only the behaviors exhibited in FIDE, and no others. Please note this does not mean there is no advantage in continuing to move without an opponent response, nor does this mean that once the armies close, either side can afford the luxury of skipping a move without the very high likelyhood of losing pieces. It is just that this cannot happen in Chief in the beginning because the pieces are not close enough together. HG, you said it well when you said the setup in Chief leaves the pieces in lousy positions. From a chess perspective. I see it from a wargame perspective, and see 2 idealized armies, each with 4 equal divisions, arriving in remarkably good order at the edges of a battlefield. That good order is very flexible, allowing a fairly rapid deployment of forces and pretty easy shifting around, in the immediate area. Only 4 of 32 pieces/side are even out of immediate command control in the setup, and not only are they all supported by units in control, but those 4 units can be brought within control range on the first move, and 2 of them moved. Players start with very tight control of their armies. The problem to be solved in the game is that the force is spread evenly across the board, and with all short range pieces slowed a little by leader requirements, it not only takes a few turns to concentrate your strength, it takes a few turns to come to grips with your opponent, more or less telegraphing your offensive strikes. [A good reason for 4 or even more moves/turn/player.] You must get your whole army in close and tight before you can do any real damage. The tactics and strategy of the game are different from FIDE, which I see as more of a "sniper" type game, where long range pieces shoot across the board for an attack. It's the difference between a boxer and a puncher, maybe. But this is why I say there is no first turn advantage in the original Chief, and I would want to see the numbers for an ad in Chief with promotions before I would grant it. I won't deny I see the strong possibility of a 1st turn ad **EDIT: in Chief with promotions,** but don't have any reason to believe, given the above, that it is anywhere as close to significant as it is in FIDE. Promotion should reduce the number of draws in Chief, however. And I already have a "chief" icon without the gray shading, to distinguish between "royal and non-royal" chiefs. And there is the further option of allowing promoted pieces to "self-activate", which would not count against any individual leader's activation point for the turn, but which would count against the total activations allowed/turn, something successfully playtested in larger Warlord variants.
Joe Joyce wrote on Wed, Aug 29, 2012 06:42 PM UTC:Ah, HG, to me the setup you describe is maybe too linear to adequately represent the situation. I agree things like this can happen in a game, somewhere, somewhen, but only after a considerable amount of precursor action. Further, I see the 75 moves as minimal, because that is the least amount of time it takes for anything significant to happen in the game as it is set up. Nobody can win or even really threaten another piece seriously in less than 75 turns, so I do see that as a minimum number of turns to promotion. Throw in a knight or two, and you change the equation. But then neither of us can say for sure what would happen then [although probably not much, once you consider what a couple pawns and a knight could do against a couple pawns and a knight, when all pawns are passed but 75 moves from promotion...] As for the extra commoner, It can be a guaranteed win. What is necessary is to form a wall across the board with all your pieces, including your 4 chiefs and 1 extra commoner, then slowly move it forward until you can pin the opponent against a side and force an exchange of pieces and finally, chief for commoner. This requires you hang onto all 4 chiefs. With them and 1 commoner, you can wall off the board, then start your advance. It will take much maneuvering, as you must always block the opponent from either breaking out or exchanging one or more leaders.
Joe Joyce wrote on Mon, Aug 27, 2012 03:44 PM UTC:Nuts, I'm still not clear enough. HG, thank you for being willing to consider that Chief has no first move advantage. To clarify my position, it's very clear that black has to start responding within a few turns of white starting to move, or black will be crushed. And a move advantage will show up after a few turns. On the 16x120, or the 8x80, black *has* to come up to meet white, or clearly black cedes an advantage to white. To clarify what I mean by "fast" promotion, I mean promotion can occur in a minimum of turns, that it's only 2 or 3 steps [moves remaining] to promote. This can occur any time during the game, and may occur 78 squares down the chessboard in turn 497. "Fast" is meant only for the immediate situation, not how long it takes to get there. And that is why you are clearly right that there is an advantage to pushing down a very long board, if you can push far enough. On the 8x80, if I met you at row 30 instead of row 40, there still wouldn't be any significant value to promotion. However, if I met you at row 8 or 10, then clearly there is a value to promotions down the road, because we know promotions happen on 8x8 and 10x10 boards, and you would have the advantage. Somewhere between row 40 and row 8, pawn advancement goes from only a tactical value to a strategic one, in the sense that each square advanced becomes more meaningful for promotion, and is not just meaningful for local position. My 30% figure is the edge white has in wins when draws are discarded. It was based on a white-black points win total of 54-46. If we accept the lower figure of 53-47, then white has won 6% more, for a ratio of 6 divided by 1/2 of 53 + 47 = 6/50 = 12% edge to white. If you recalculate and discard 3/8th of the games as draws, a ratio I also gave earlier, then the pure white wins to black wins ratio is on the order of 30%. With the 53%-47%, the white wins to black wins without draws works out to [about] 34 wins to blacks 28 per 100 games, or 6 divided by 31, about a 24% win advantage for white. I find this number very significant, and a very strong signal of white's 1st move ad. And that's where I get the higher numbers from.
Joe Joyce wrote on Mon, Aug 27, 2012 12:21 AM UTC:Mats, I freely admit I prefer games with absolutely equal chances, but they aren't the only kind I try to design. To me, perfect balance is an ideal which cannot always be achieved. But to deliberately design a game where the chances for white are set as high as +30% is not something I would set out to do. Like Jeremy, I would ask you if chess variants must have a 1st turn ad, or for you specifically, Mats, is a 1st turn ad a necessity for a good chess variant?
Joe Joyce wrote on Sun, Aug 26, 2012 07:46 PM UTC:Okay, we actually have 2 questions going here simultaneously, and they are the initial one - why first move ad in FIDE, and secondly, does Chief have a 1st move ad? We may be coming to agreement on one aspect of the first question, that its small board size affects FIDE's 1st move ad. The 16x120 and 8x80 boards have pretty much settled that, no? Any objections? If not, then the potential for promotions is a source of White's first move advantage, how important yet to be determined. Do you think it fair to say that promotion potential is at least somewhat based, then, on mobility? Promotions need to occur reasonably fast to be of value. On the second question, is it possible that black's skipping one turn in Chief does not seriously - that is, do something like give white a 30% win advantage in games that are not drawn - affect black's winning chances? Is it possible that with a one or even two move advantage, white only wins 20% more, or even 10?
Joe Joyce wrote on Sun, Aug 26, 2012 01:29 AM UTC:Okay, Jeremy, yes, I do see the general properties of a game as including the general size, shape, density, "hotness" if I can use that word [and I don't really know what it means exactly], rules set and piece make-up. I see FIDE as a very small, overpowered game that is built to be a shoot-out. And rather often in shoot-outs, [s]he who shoots first wins. I would expect very small, overpowered, very dense and regular in shape chess games to likely have a first turn ad. The exact amount of the 1st turn ad is dependent on the specifics of each game. For example, I would have to argue Modern Shatranj must have a lesser 1st turn ad for white, because most of the pieces are short range. Just the change to the double-step pawn move makes a difference in the stats, I would have to believe. However, I don't see that a 1st turn ad *has* to exist in a chess variant. Heh, obviously, but I mean that it is not something I see as an inherent part of chess. Let me try an extreme example. Let's stretch the Chief board from 12x16 to 120x16. Now, instead of pieces being ~5 squares apart, they're 115. No piece moves more than 3 squares, and no piece may move unless it is within 3 squares of a leader, all of which move 2 squares/turn. In the first 50 - 100 turns, as the pieces are moving up to initial contact, surely the black pieces could see what the white pieces were doing, and adjust "on the crawl" rather than on the fly. [For that matter, you can set up a number of different board configurations in "3-Board Chess", which set white and black up on the back ends of 2 different boards, and the 3rd board is placed between the first 2. You get a rectangular 8x24, with the pawns 20 squares apart. You get an "L", with the pieces and pawns having to go around a corner. You can also stagger the boards, with a pair or each pair being offset 1-4 squares... What does that do to first turn ad?] And here's where the importance of reversibility comes in. If you get a few pieces too far forward, so you can see they will be overwhelmed by the opponent, you can retreat them faster than your opponent can re-form an attack. With such short range pieces, retreating 1 square is often enough to totally disrupt an attack. And this is a legit tactic/strategy. Sometimes you can bait your opponent into overextending, and gain a piece or two. In Chief, careful play after that gives you the game. Now, the difference between 3 and 5 squares is greatly different than the difference between 59 and 61 squares. Is it worth it to spend 50 - 60 turns to promote? What happens to the rest of your pieces if your opponent has all that time to attack freely? Clearly, promotion is only of benefit in games where the promotion line is close. The reason promotion works as it does in FIDE is that the pawns can be/are threatening promotion after they've moved twice. The double step and a single step puts a pawn 3 squares from promotion. That's mobility for a pawn. A third step, and they're worth a piece. And in Chief, it would take 50% longer, because you'd have to move the Chief up with the commoner piece [50 commoner moves and 25 chieftain moves, say.] And then you've still got to get it back to the action. The need for a leader to move any piece also slows down the game a bit. It is more than compensated for by 4 moves/player-turn, but that is why a rapid advance doesn't work - you are just advancing with a part of your forces into range of your opponent's army. Once you've made contact, all the moves get much hotter, but effective actions require several turns to set up. If you can't make a realistic threat in the first handful of turns, assuming your opponent moves after you've moved twice to start, then what happens to 1st turn ad? The reason I ask you to push pieces for a few turns is to demonstrate that there is no adequate attack than can be made in less than at least 4-5 turns, and maybe more. Historically, an attacker has needed 2-1 odds overall to "guarantee" success against a defending force. [And 3-1 at the point of contact to win that battle.] You have to do some serious maneuvering and a good bit of trading to make any headway against any reasonably competent opponent. And it is possible to do so in the original game, but I see high level Chieftain Chess as [almost] always a draw. Oddly [to most] the game is too small to provide enough possibilities to good players, like a very small Go board. [Small Go's are solved, aren't they? 7x7, 9x9] Warlord: Border War, which uses stripped-down short range chess pieces, leaders with different command abilities, and terrain, is a proof-of-concept game. Games on the Battle of Gettysburg [US Civil War] have always been a favorite of mine, as have games on the Battle of the Bulge [WWII, Ardennes] which are both meeting engagements. It has occurred to me I could do a decent Battle of Gettysburg, if not adequately enough with the Warlord rules, then with expanded rules which incorporate additional capture modes from Ultima/Baroque. Infantry would get custodial capture as well as the standard replacement capture, essentially surrounding, cutting off, and starving out an enemy. Artillery could gain a limited form of rifle capture, which would likely depend on facing. [Or even a version of the "coordinator" capture, by shooting a piece that is within range of the cannon and another piece.] Other pieces could gain an overrun capability, or capture by jumping. All these in addition to standard capture by replacement. Any of these games would be, move by move, a chess variant. But if first player has an advantage, why could I not slightly expand the size of the board, and start all the pieces a little farther back, and let black go first? Would this give black the advantage, or, in this very large [~100x100] game, would the exact balance between distance moved and the extra, earlier first turn for black just cancel out, leaving white with the "real" first move advantage?
Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Aug 25, 2012 10:16 PM UTC:HG, Jeremy, am I wrong in thinking you are both arguing from a similar point of view? Believe me, I am sorry I cannot come up with statistics to demonstrate my points. But are statistics the only thing you will accept as evidence? Grin, if so, we will probably have a bit of a wait before "proof" comes in. [If anyone would like to "help" me run one of HG's programs (aka: basically do it for me - I am no longer any good at that sort of thing and never programmed) please contact me. ;-) No, I'm not expecting to hear from anyone!] I will say that 10 meters is far less important at the beginning of the 10k race than it is at the end. One of the features of Chief is that it is deliberately made to slow down the initial combat by a turn or three. In that sense, white is "merely catching up to black in the race" - that is, coming close enough to black to press a decent attack. It does take a few turns to put together a decent attack. And that's why I say there is no first turn advantage, because you cannot press home any attack quickly. You literally have to marshall your forces first. Is there a first move advantage in wargames? As chess pushes toward wargames, I think you'd have to expect changes in behavior. Jeremy, we need to define terms so I'm not talking past you. I see the set-up as a general condition of the game, in the sense that all the setups in the Chief series [but not necessarily the Warlord series, because some of those setups are very close together - A Clash of Arms and Civil War, for example, might very well show a first-turn advantage] are made to prevent rapid and effective initial attacks. FIDE thrives on rapid and effective early attacks until you get to the high levels. And then it thrives even more on early and rapid threats. The design of Chief includes an organization/rally phase in the very beginning, where you order and advance your army to contact. Here, HG is where I see the effect of promotion. In running through game situations in my head, it is clear that promotion would change Chief, and my claim of no first move advantage is very suspect. Because obviously, the 2 turn move advantage I give white does cause black to give up a little territory, and if promotion occurs, white clearly has a small advantage, because they go 5 squares to promote, and black goes 7. In Chief, that 2 square difference means not only do commoners have farther to go, the Chiefs must also advance one extra time to allow movement, to match the free move white got. [However, grin, I would like to see some statistical proof that a 2 move advantage actually exists for white in Chief. Just because I can see it and agree with you doesn't mean it exists, right? ;) ]
Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Aug 25, 2012 01:07 AM UTC:Jeremy, HG, you ask for evidence that there is no first turn advantage and all I can offer is empirical evidence and logic. I will cheerfully examine the first few moves of Chief with either or both of you, and we can all work on showing a first 2 turns advantage in Chief. I am pretty much arguing that you cannot even demonstrate a credible 2-move advantage for white in the original Chieftain. I suspect you don't fully appreciate the effects of irreversibility on pawns, nor the greater room for pieces in Chief. As evidence, HG, you said this: "[T]ypically any constellation of opponent pieces can be cracked if you are given the time to organize your pieces in a constellation needed to crack it. So a game of chess is a constant race between concentrating your attack force, and the opponent strengthening the spot against which you direct that attack. Being allowed to do two quiet moves in a row (which is what happens when the opponent loses 1 tempo) makes it more likely you will win that race." Reversibility and more room means the position you are attacking can be ceded without any loss of pieces at all. A position doesn't crack as much as it shatters. And all I can offer for all these claims is empirical evidence. I invite either or both of you or anyone else interested to push pieces for a while to actually see why I say what I do. Chief is a very varied chess variant; it does not at all act like FIDE because it is structured differently. I see that difference in structure eliminating first-turn advantage, with the empirical evidence that you cannot show any effective initial attack, even with a 2-move advantage for white, because black has too many counters, and gives up only a little territory. HG, again: "Only in positions where nothing can be achieved no matter what (i.e. a static defense exists that has no weak spots weak enough to succumb to even total concentrated attack of all enemy material), a tempo loses its value. Such fortresses are quite rare." I submit they are impossible in Chief, unless the player making the fortress has already "won" the game by accumulating enough extra material to construct such a fortress. A static fortress can be breached by an active attack. Chief is designed to be a game of attrition, but is very unforgiving. If you can get a piece or two up on your opponent, you can probably force a win. Forting up doesn't work, empirically, in any of the games. People who tried it lost. The key to Chief is always maintaining the exchanges so you do not go down in total pieces on the board. An active attacker can, with maneuver, hit 1 spot with an overwhelming attack which will leave the attacker a piece or two up, in my experience. Two of the four non-leader pieces can create forward forks which can/will stymie a static defense. The Warlord games are more forgiving. You can get a couple pieces down, and still win a reasonable amount of the time. At least, now, in their infancy, you can. But the Warlord games are less susceptible to computer play than Chief is, I believe. Certainly at the larger sizes, the games are much more complex in a chess sense than any typical chess variant, even rather large, complicated ones. They can be complex even in a wargame sense.
Joe Joyce wrote on Sun, Aug 19, 2012 02:16 AM UTC:Something else I didn't think of, but which could play into this, is piece density. In FIDE, it's 50% to start. In Chief, it's 33%. In Border War, it's 25%. FIDE is deliberately cramped, with the pawns placed as they are to blockade the player's own pieces. And the cramping is maintained by the pawn's peculiar basic move and capture rules. That feeds into the first turn advantage, which you can see as a sort of head start on freeing yourself from the bondage of the pawns. Very often a mate is achieved with the passive help of the victim's own pieces, which block possible escapes.
Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Aug 18, 2012 10:59 PM UTC:Okay, maybe I can combine Jeremy's and HG's questions in a discussion of the "center". Certainly, control of the center is very important in these sorts of games, or in most actual battles, for that matter. But "the center" is a somewhat nebulous concept when expanded from FIDE to Chieftain and Warlord. On a 12x16 board, the "center" is a 4x8 strip containing 32 squares. Much easier for both sides to get into in force, and far harder to control. On the Border war scale of 16x24, the "center is going to be around 6x12, 72 positions to control. And the "edges" are 6 squares deep. At the larger sizes, control of the center often means the opponent's army is broken. But there is no first move advantage to controlling the center, because the board is so large, maneuvering around in it a square or two closer to one side or the other - consider the logistics of invading the opponent's home territory, where the army and command structure are initially established. It takes time to gather the troops and press forward. However, no static defense has seemed to work. It's always been the case that if a player cedes the initiative, the other player can pick a spot to attack where the attacker can guarantee overwhelming force. It is annoying that so many of the games on Courier are gone or inaccessible, but please look at the 2 games of Warlord being played now to get a little idea of the flexibility of the games, and why I say the first turn advantage has to be washed completely away at some point. The Border War playtest I ran Thursday night allowed promotion, but neither player bothered. Even with 12 moves/turn [48 piece armies at start,] it wasn't worth it to send some units off to try to fight their way through the opponent to promote. Although there were 4 geographic targets - towns - in the center of the board, so that made it less worthwhile to bother with promotion, because victory was to the player who could occupy 3 of those 4 towns at the beginning of that player's turn. I think that the center of the board geographical objectives would have to give the same effect as promotion, and they aren't all the way across the board. And I still don't see the need to say there is a first turn advantage. It's possible there is one, but I have to say I see it as lost in the noise. Just so you know, Jeremy, this series of games is also meant to show that there can be humanly playable super-large games, boards on the order of 100x100 squares. These games are scalable. Border War at 16x24 is 4% of a 100x100 board. How many steps do you want?
Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Aug 18, 2012 03:26 AM UTC:Wouldn't the argument that white's advantage is due to pawn promotion actually just boil down to my argument one step removed? Why does white promote that much more often that black? Because white moves first...? Still no mechanism. My argument is that the mechanism is the "infinite" ranges on a very small board with irreversibility built into the move structure accounts for the white win percentage, even if white's wins are 70% determined by the effects of pawn promotion. Why wouldn't/doesn't black get exactly the same benefits from promotion as white, and thereby block white from getting an advantage? Mobility. That's what makes the average step so big that black cannot even out the race over the short course. The arguments presented to me seem to amount to saying that the average step is large, and tends to put most of its length into moving white toward the goal of winning, at a 4:3 ratio when draws are dropped. The ratio could be 5:4, but isn't likely to be as high as 3:2. I see the individual steps more as a kind of semi-random walk in Warlord, where one or even several, do not necessarily advance the player toward the goal in any meaningful way. But the steps are never large with respect to board size, where in FIDE, the available steps become larger on average over the course of the game. Certainly, it is the case that in most FIDE games there comes a time when the scope of the pieces is not limited to 3 or less squares in any direction, thanks to piece densities. That nver occurs in the much larger Warlord games.
Joe Joyce wrote on Fri, Aug 17, 2012 09:07 PM UTC:Jeremy, I've considered letting only 2 white pieces move on turn 1. I just don't see that it makes any difference at all. However, I am perfectly willing to offer alternate rules packages, and I will add that as an optional rule for those who wish. HG, in thinking about your arguments, I've decided we can add promotion to the chief series quite easily, although I am not entirely sure of its effect on games until I push pieces a bit. For Chief, I would promote the commoner piece only to a non-royal chieftain, using the other chief icon without the grey band for the promoted pieces. In the Warlord series, especially the larger games, I am inclined to promote skirmishers also. ********* What effect does this have on the promotion argument? Please understand I am not trying to be sarcastic here. The promotion aspect totally blindsided me, and I am still trying to grasp its implications. I cannot tell in Chief what it will do, but I haven't tried to analyze that yet. It depends on 2 things: 1] whether white can grab a slightly larger share of the board; and 2] whether that extra few squares actually translates into an increased chance for promotion. It seems the extra squares grabbed, if any, should lead to a slight advantage for white, in having less distance to go for promotion. But the values of the pieces are not that disparate to begin with. And the infantry is the best piece to have a bunch of in the endgame, generally, because it has the property of interdiction - leaders cannot just move directly past infantry, stopping in an adjacent square, as they can for all other non-leader pieces. It's a common tactic to trade long range pieces for infantry at various points in the game. And the board is 12 squares deep, so that means white has to get through an active defense that can afford to trade non-promotable pieces for those that do promote, for 5 squares instead of 6. The noise level in Chief is high, and it only gets higher in Warlord. If I understand correctly, it is argued that there should/must be a first turn advantage, even in the very large scenario I playtested last night. Once again, I have to leave the computer, so I'll post this and continue later. In the meantime, you might look at this page in the CVwiki, and note the current, no-longer-experimental scenario, Border War. http://chessvariants.wikidot.com/warlord-2 At what point does a game become so complex and so different from the play of FIDE that in spite of every move in the game being a simple chess move, there is no first move advantage?
Joe Joyce wrote on Tue, Aug 14, 2012 06:27 AM UTC:Now, as to promotion vs mobility. Promotion occurs rarely, in roughly 3% of games [average of 4.4% and 1.5%] but influences a lot more. As a reasonable initial estimate, we could say 30% of games end because one player demonstrates pawn promotion. And the only statistic we have shows promo numbers mirror won-lost-drew point totals, so pawn promotion can account for maybe 1/3 of the advantage, tops. What is the other 2/3? And why does white promote more often than black, anyhow? I would think the underlying reason is the enormous mobility of the pieces. And this should show up as an evening out of the pawn promo ratio in GtS. If enough games could ever be run. And now it's past my bedtime. I'm enjoying this conversation entirely too much - thanks. ;-) To be continued...
Joe Joyce wrote on Tue, Aug 14, 2012 05:51 AM UTC:Hey, HG, thought I'd said that if I get a little help from a family member or two, I'd try to run FairyMax for a while to generate some numbers, but I didn't notice it when I scanned the thread. So I'll try to get some numbers run. I agree Great Shatranj is a reasonable test case [thought I'd said that, too :) ] and should show some effects - even if the leaping ability counteracts the shorter range a bit. GtS often features re-grouping turns, a few turns spent shuffling pieces around to get some attacking weight together. Shouldn't that feature tend to blur out first turn ad? Jeremy, 10 meters is a lot in the 100, but not so much in the 1000, and little enough in the 10,000 that it's almost a fair start. As for turn lengths, GtS goes around 50 moves, iirc, but that's very rough. Chieftain runs around 35; 40 to the bitter end. The latest versions, the Warlord games, seem run shorter, ~25ish turns for Clash of Arms. But at 4 pieces/turn, each player is making 100 - 150 moves [at least] in a game to get a decision. As for number of pieces, all the Chief variants discussed here have 32 +/-2 pieces, on boards that range from 10x12 through Chief's 12x16 to 12x20 for the free, hidden set-up Warlord: A Test of Wills. No Chief variant discussed here has pieces that move more than 3 squares; none of the variants has any piece moving more than 4. The average move in all variants is under 2 squares.
Joe Joyce wrote on Mon, Aug 13, 2012 08:14 PM UTC:To continue with the race metaphor, I see the race as a 1 step advantage, but in FIDE, it's a giant step, and in Chief, or 1-Square, it's 1 foot stepped forward [or 4, in the case of Chief] on that multi-legged insect, and the race is 1000 body lengths. It's lost in the noise of all those feet going all that distance. Maybe in 1-Square, it's 1 body length, but no more. Again, a very weak signal. I'd love to test it. If I can find someone who can help me set it up and run games, I'll do so. Can FairyMax be modified to play Chief? HG, you are quite right that I did not mention promotion or the lack thereof, as a difference between FIDE and Chief, and I should, but I would put it in the category of "no effect", working on the naive belief that the "pawns" are already promoted to commoners, which have an interdiction capacity. Not believing you would say something like that without good reason, I thought about it for a while. I believe that you are likely right in saying pawn promotion is one of the mechanisms for white's ad. It is testable. Are there statistics on ... okay, found this: h t t p : / / chess.stackexchange.com/questions/420/pawn-to-queen-probabilities-chart "I have some partial statistics for the question, from the Million Base 1.74 database, a collection of 1742057 games. 77218 of these games (4.4%) feature at least one promotion. I counted 49970 promotions for white (54% of all promotions) and 42519 for black (46%). Here are the destination square statistics ..." However, we are told here: h t t p : / / en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promotion_%28chess%29 "The percentage of games involving promotions can be misleading because often a player resigns when he sees that he cannot stop his opponent from promoting a pawn. In the 2006 ChessBase database of 3,200,000 games (many grandmaster- and master-level), about 1.5 percent of the games contain a promotion..." And there I got stuck. I didn't find any stats on reasons why games were resigned. The most interesting number I saw was the white-black promo ratio of 54-46, the numbers I've been using for total points scores. But this is already long and I've got a few things to do. I'll argue the points later, and thanks for the new perspective.
Joe Joyce wrote on Sun, Aug 12, 2012 06:27 PM UTC:Grin, we can have a theoretical argument or we can play one of the variants. Or one can use Game Courier to look at a game that shows a little of the behavior these games can display: h t t p : / / play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game=Chieftain+Chess&log=sissa-joejoyce-2008-346-851 I would be happy to play a public game against anyone who wishes, to illustrate what I mean. I am in a bit of a quandry; if someone says "I don't believe in X", but won't look at where I claim X occurs, how am I to demonstrate X? Grin, I could try to argue from authority and say: "How likely is it that I, an editor at CV.org, would make such a bold statement without very good reason to believe I'm right?" but I have no authority and no more knowledge about the theory of games than I have authority. :) I'm a tinkerer with a bump of curiosity and a little persistence. And sometimes I can see the obvious when it's right in front of me. I did not design Chief with anything like first turn advantage in mind. [In fact, a good case can be made that Chief designed itself one midday.] But as I played the game, I saw that any reasonably competent player could take black and pass the first turn without detriment - *any* reasonably competent player. To me, that screams any first turn advantage is effectively gone, dropped below "noise level". What other possible explanations can there be? My question about this is if Chief results can actually be used for looking at FIDE. Are the multi-move and leader features of the game enough to preclude us from using Chief to illuminate anything about standard western chess?
Joe Joyce wrote on Sun, Aug 12, 2012 06:41 AM UTC:HG, I don't see why/how a first-move advantage would stay strong as piece ranges decreases. From the BGG discussion, I get there are "hot" and "cold" positions, and the hot ones are where whomever has the move has a significant advantage, In FIDE chess that is very well-played, every move is hot. The same does not pertain in Chief. Or at least I believe it has been demonstrated that any possible first-turn advantage is so minimal that black can pass on turn 1 without detriment. So at a minimum, first move advantage is effectively gone. Therefor, the changes from FIDE to Chief have eliminated the first move advantage. There are 5 changes, 2 of which I believe are irrelevant. Those 2 are: 1 - chief is multimove, and 2 - chief has some additional movement rules/restrictions, the leader rules. The 3 changes I see as at least potentially relevant are: 1 - the greatly limited movement; 2 - expanded board, extending the time it takes, even if only by a turn or two, to first meaningful contact; 3 - all pieces can move both forward and back [and both left and right.] And all 3 of these items come down to mobility in one form or another. So am I wrong about why there is no sensible first turn ad in Chief? Or doesn't what happens in Chief apply to FIDE? What am I missing? Because if it's mobility in Chief, then a loss of advantage should occur in 1-square, even if not to the same extent, no?
Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Aug 11, 2012 03:09 PM UTC:Charles, you're right, the stepwise moo is a better representation of the N move for 1-square. The difficulty with using it in a board game is that the move of the piece is dependent not on the current state of the board, but on the previous state of the piece. If someone were to implement a massive computer analysis of the game to see if mobility is the key or any factor in first-turn ad, that rules set or something very like it should be used, to simulate FIDE as closely as possible. The parity check, while violating the letter of the law for N moves, tries to keep the spirit of the law, admittedly somewhat poorly as it mandates whether or not the knight switches, does have the advantage that it is only dependent on the current state of the board. Computer implementation of the "moo rule" would be all but necessary if players wanted to use it instead of a parity check. Changing icons for the knight would be more than just useful. Heh, if this turkey ever gets written up, you got the first optional rule.
Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Aug 11, 2012 12:44 AM UTC:Okay, let me venture into the math underpinnings on this. If you can mathematically demonstrate there *must* be a first turn advantage for white, no matter how small, then I will predict in the 1-square game, the "noise" will wash out the signal effectively totally. And the signal will emerge from the noise very slowly, as the ranges of the pieces increase toward the modern. That is apparently what I predicted anyway, since both our explanations can fit the prediction above. In Chief/Warlord, if there must be a first-turn advantage, then it *must* be miniscule, because it doesn't become obvious if white gets 2 first turns in a row [black passes turn 1.] The major part of the game is [nearly]mathematically chaotic, as far as I can tell. If there were an ad, which I doubt seriously, then I think it would be effectively washed away by the many turns of deterministic but effectively/essentially/[actually?] chaotic behavior. I don't see how a signal gets through that. Step through my first Chieftain game with Carlos Cetina, and my last Warlord: a Clash of Arms game with elkitch, for a look at the range of behaviors the series can display. *To fix the knight move in 1-square, base the parity on the other knight and the king, then the queen and the king, and finally on the moving knight and king, with the color of the king's square being the determinant color. The last condition will freeze the N as a wazir for the rest of the game, but that's the default state I want. Does that sound better? Rule: If other piece and king are on opposite colors, move to king's color. If they are on same color, move to opposite of king's color.
Joe Joyce wrote on Fri, Aug 10, 2012 11:34 PM UTC:Grin, Jeremy, I have never lost any version of Chief online, and very few have managed a draw against me. I did make a stupid blunder in an early face-to-face playtest game, and resigned rather than continue the game. That's my only loss. I have very high hopes for my newest Warlord opponent. He has picked the game up very fast and very well. And so far he enjoys the scenarios. While he lost our one completed game at the end, he won more than one of the battles within that game. Yes, I am looking for someone who can beat me, [and then beat me again.] I will be happy to demonstrate my preferred style to you. It is not passive. I see it as Cautious - Opportunistic. I suspect others could see it as Aggressive - Reactive. I see the game as similar to a boxing match. Both fighters can stay in their corners throughout the bout, and neither gets hurt. I would find that boring. If someone stays in their corner, so to speak, I go in and get them. If they come out, I go out to meet them, bobbing and weaving and jabbing and feinting as best I can. The series of games is meant to eventually simulate a wargame. Chief showed me the way. The Warlord scenarios are a nice step toward realizing that design goal. Chief is the first stop on [one of] the right road[s] to that goal. It's a good game in its own right, but it's a signpost to where I want to go. Warlord begins to show the potential of this approach. It's a better game than Chief, more refined, less obviously chesslike, with rough edges smoothed down and a more wargamish feel. You can lose not only an exchange, but a piece or two, and not be in more than serious trouble, rather than at death's door. Of course, you better be able to compensate for a good thumping, but the point is you can, often enough. If you are good enough against that particular opponent at that time.
Joe Joyce wrote on Fri, Aug 10, 2012 09:39 PM UTC:Hi, Jeremy. Yes, I am saying that I believe Chief has NO first turn advantage. In discussions on BGG, I've gotten the idea that the math would thus indicate the best move would be to pass on first turn. [This is the first time I've seen a useful way to look at that idea - your question set off the chain of thoughts in my head - thanks!] In a strictly mathematical sense, that may well be true. Just for starters, advancing most of the pieces on turn 1 would put them out of command control, thus weakening the army, and so being contra-indicated. Further, moving pieces toward the enemy makes them more vulnerable and easier to get to and kill, so moving toward the enemy would seem to be contraindicated. Interesting and thought-provoking So apparently that alone might show there is no first turn advantage. If all the values for aggressive moves on turn 1 lower your total army score, then there is no first turn advantage. I'd like to keep going here, but I gotta run. You are right about the knight being only a wazir - then need to play off king or king and queen squares to get some color-changing. However, in end of game, wazir N might be okay, as it does tour the board. It does become as strong as rook, but then it can't jump any more so it could use a little consolation... :)
Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Aug 9, 2012 11:39 PM UTC:When things are in doubt, a properly-designed argument can have great impact.
I give you Moving 1 Square Chess
[Betza's] Rule 0: All rules are as in chess, except where otherwise stated, including 8x8 board and standard FIDE set-up.
Rule 1: All pieces may move no more than 1 square in a turn.
1a] King moves as standard king.
1b] Queen moves as king.
1c] Bishop moves as ferz, 1 square diagonally.
1d] Rook moves as wazir, 1 square orthogonally.
1e]Knight moves as either wazir or ferz, depending on the colors of the squares both knights are on.
The parity of the 2 squares is either even - both squares the same color, or odd - squares are different colors.
Any knight move must change the parity of the pair of squares.
If a knight is lost, the pair of squares are the knight and queen.
If the queen is lost, the squares are knight and king.
1f] Pawns move as shatranj pawns - no double first step.
Is there anyone who would seriously argue that white retains any first move advantage? If so, how? Enjoy!
I give you Moving 1 Square Chess
[Betza's] Rule 0: All rules are as in chess, except where otherwise stated, including 8x8 board and standard FIDE set-up.
Rule 1: All pieces may move no more than 1 square in a turn.
1a] King moves as standard king.
1b] Queen moves as king.
1c] Bishop moves as ferz, 1 square diagonally.
1d] Rook moves as wazir, 1 square orthogonally.
1e]Knight moves as either wazir or ferz, depending on the colors of the squares both knights are on.
The parity of the 2 squares is either even - both squares the same color, or odd - squares are different colors.
Any knight move must change the parity of the pair of squares.
If a knight is lost, the pair of squares are the knight and queen.
If the queen is lost, the squares are knight and king.
1f] Pawns move as shatranj pawns - no double first step.
Is there anyone who would seriously argue that white retains any first move advantage? If so, how? Enjoy!
Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Aug 9, 2012 10:51 PM UTC:Hi, HG, thanks for the responses. I grabbed this part of your last comment: "Being allowed to do two quiet moves in a row (which is what happens when the opponent loses 1 tempo) makes it more likely you will win that race." I would argue this presupposes that the pieces are mobile enough to need only 1 turn to make the key attack. Hmm, guess that's the same argument I made last comment in a different guise, or at least from the other direction. The small board certainly plays into it. Nice aside, Derek!
Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Aug 9, 2012 10:36 PM UTC:George, thanks for the reference. That's where I took my numbers from. I'd run across it when I was searching for the answer, and that's the best I did in that search. I was quite surprised to see nothing there, other than it might be this or it might be that, and everybody likes tempo. But given the specific rules of chess, with move order and general structure built in, the thing that most gives white that 30% win-lose advantage is mobility primarily, as far as I can tell. No one, anyhow, has shot down the contrafactual argument. If you accept the premises, the result seems to follow inexorably. Derek, you may be right with that chain of "if A, then B; if B, then C, if C...", but like the Drake equation, it is expandable, and at each stop along the way [a, b, c... etc] you lose some of what you're looking for. I think you present too long a chain of events, giving too many opportunities to go wrong. I like short, sharp and simple here. Occam's Razor. Mobility, with or without board size and pawn reversibility, seemingly can be tested by using pieces that are all short range. Check the stats of great Shatranj, where all the pieces move only one or two squares [but all jump], and run FIDE-type games with B2, R2, and Q2, and/or B3, R3, and Q3 repalcing the infinite sliders, and see what happens to the stats. Even HG Muller's piece value estimation method, properly carried out, will give an indication, because it does show white with a 53-47 ad.
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Thank you, Jose, for the comment, rating, and especially the preset. Modern Shatranj is my simplest and in many ways most successful design. Grin, there's probably a lesson there. As for the shift in promotion rules, I consider games to be a collaboration between at least 2 people, the designer and the player(s), so "adjusting" a rule to suit the player(s) is okay with me. Just means someone is interested enough to try a game. Thanks again.