CAPABLANCA RANDOM CHESS (2004-Nov-26) Proposal

This definition of CRC should cover the following goals:

a) creating an interesting drosophila for chess programmers
b) using Capablancas 10x8 Chess board geometry
c) using Capablancas piece set (incl. archbishop and chancellor)
d) applying rules aligned to Fischer Random Chess
e) avoiding conflicts to any claimed patents

The CRC rules are:

a) creating a starting position (one of 48.000):
1) the bishops have to be placed upon different colored
squares; same rule applies to the implicite bishop pieces:
queen and archbishop (aligned to FRC)
2) the king always has to be placed somewhere between the
rooks to enable castlings (aligned to FRC)
3) use only such positions without unprotected pawns (Chess)

b) describing a method of generating starting positions on
free squares by using a dice or random number generator:
1) select queen or the archbishop to be placed first (2x)
2) place the selected 1st piece upon a bright square (5x)
3) place the selected 2nd piece upon a dark square (5x)
4) one bishop has to be placed upon a bright square (4x)
5) one bishop has to be placed upon a dark square (4x)
6) one chancellor has to be placed upon a free square (6x)
7) one knight has to be placed upon a free square (5x)
8) one knight has to be placed upon a free square (4x)/2
9) set the king upon the center of three free squares left
11) set the rooks upon the both last free squares left
12) this establishes White's first row, the Black side
has to be built up symmetrically to this
13) place ten pawns similar to traditional chess in a row
14) skip this position if it has unprotected pawns or at
least three positions in line 1 similar to Gothic Chess,
this finally gives about 21259 distinct starting arrays.

c) nature of (asymmetric Fischer-) castlings:
1) castlings are (like in traditional chess) only valid
if neither the affected king or rook has been moved, or
there would be a need to jump over any third piece, or
the king would be in chess somewhere from his starting
position to his target field (both included). Therefore
all squares between king and its target square (included)
have to be free from third pieces, same applies to the
way the rook has to go to its target square.
2) the alpha-castling (O-O-O, White's left side):
like in FRC the king will be placed two rows distant
from the border (here c-file) and the rook at the next
inner neighboured square.
3) the omega-castling (O-O, White's right side):
like in FRC the king will be placed one row distant
from the border (here i-file) and the rook at the next
inner neighboured square.

d) performing castlings:
within a GUI try to move the king upon the related rook
or at least two squares into that direction; manually:
1) move the king outside of the board
2) move the rook to its end position (if need to)
3) move the king to his end position

e) extended FEN encoding:
1) the extended FRC-FEN could be used as a base
2) 'a'/'A' are used to identify archbishops
3) 'c'/'C' are used to identify chancellors
4) '9' is used to mark nine empty fields
5) '0' is used to mark ten empty fields
6) if a castling enabled rook is not the most outer one
at that side, the letter of his file has to be placed
immediately following his castling marker symbol, where
'q'/'Q' are used for the alpha-, 'k'/'K' for omega-side.
(Because of the three black fields a1, c1, e1 which are
candidates for the queen's starting position, from White's
view the left alpha-side is more related to the queen
than the right side, according to the naming conventions
within traditional chess, and the majority of starting
positions will have the queen at the left alpha-side.)

f) engine notation rules for castling moves:
According to UCI convention the castling moves should be
written by using both coordinates (source and target field)
of the involved king. But there are castlings, where the
king does only one or none simple step. In that cases the
castling should be distinguishable by appending a 'k', like
already practized in promotion moves to make them unique.
Overmore an engine should accept O-O or O-O-O (no zeroes),
but only use them, when the GUI would demand for such a
less precise notation.

Describing a method of generating starting positions on
free squares by using a dice or random number generator:

1) select queen or the archbishop to be placed first (2x)
2) place the selected 1st piece upon a bright square (5x)
3) place the selected 2nd piece upon a dark square (5x)
4) one bishop has to be placed upon a bright square (4x)
5) one bishop has to be placed upon a dark square (4x)
6) one chancellor has to be placed upon a free square (6x)
7) one knight has to be placed upon a free square (5x)
8) one knight has to be placed upon a free square (4x)/2
9) set the king upon the center of three free squares left
11) set the rooks upon the both last free squares left
10) this establishes White's first row, the Black side
has to be built up symmetrically to this
11) place ten pawns similar to traditional chess in a row
12) skip this position if it has unprotected pawns or at
least three positions in line 1 similar to Gothic Chess,
this finally gives about 21259 distinct starting arrays.

On CRC: there are about 21259 selected positions from 48000. You seem to forget that Archbishop and Queen has to be placed on different colored squares by CRC rule. See for this also at: [http://www.chessbox.de/Compu/schachcrc_e.html]


Chess960 has been invented by Bobby Fischer and you should not change its rules because of respecting its inventor. The unprotected pawns there are a more cosmetic problem than in CRC where are more heavy sliding pieces. See Japanese Shogi having always three uncovered pawns at the beginning but nevertheless was played for centuries.

I think an interesting variatino would be Capablanca chess with a random starting position following the rules of Fisher random chess. That kind of chess is best suited to match play rather than single game play because white could have an advantage in the first move.

Another note:

Why is it in Chess960 that none of the positions having an unprotected pawn is excluded?

I have seen the book on your website, but I do not know german so I cannot read your book :)

I did not know you were the one who named FullChess. This is a great name for CRC.

You keep saying 48000. My calculations are:
5 bishop x 5 bishop x 8 Q x 7 A x 6 C x 10 ways to put 2 knights in 5 sqaures x 1 K and 2 rooks = 84,000.

When I play this at chess clubs all I have with me is the set and a die. A computer and program are not with me. It is very practical to use something simple like a die.

Well Smirf GUI is a great tool to have those positions generated. Moreover it can create all of those 48000 basic positions, which number is also identifying the selected 21xxx. There is a bidirectional identification of number and position as is in FRC, where I standardized all 960 arrays. Do you know my (German) book on FRC?

Well, Ed Trice is selling 10x8 chess sets, but I think most people - especially in that context - will use computer assistance. Thus Smirf is a good tool. It would be very frustrating to have a lot of manually dice rollings to end up often in an unwanted position.

Those 48000 numbers already are standardized.

FullChess has been my proposal to rename FRC. But Mr. Schmitt decided for Chess960, which is not a bad name at all. So I took back that proposal and gave it a new meaning to cover several 8x8 and 10x8 Variants within one engine and GUI. And the most creative part within that approach is the CRC invention. So why not use the name "FullChess", which has not existed before I created it?

Reinhard.

Subtracting some positions makes it more difficult over-the-board to generate a position. Using all 84,000 it can be done with only 1 die. Roll for both bishops, then for the king. If position has an unprotected pawn, all pieces would have to be placed again.

There definitly should be a standard that everyone uses so that there is more collectivity and the game can grow faster.

As for a name, Fullchess is a great name if it has not already been taken for 8x8 :)

To 1) interpreted as near to normal FEN as possible:
'w': white side to move
's': symmetrical (Janus) castlings (using b-file instead c-file)
'K': white (classical) King side castling (to i-file) possible
'Q': white (classical) Queen side castling (to b-file) possible
'k': black (classical) King side castling (to i-file) possible
'q': black (classical) Queen side castling (to b-file) possible
'-': no e.p. capture square active
'0': no move done for 50 moves draw count
'1': current move number

To 2)
I have definded that variant myself. So I decided when having a pool of 48000 positions to select only the most stable ones. I think 21xxx should be sufficient.

The name:
I called it CRC (Capablanca Random Chess) but I am open for good proposals. My original programming approach was called "FullChess", how about that?

Reinhard.

1. What does w sKQkq - 0 1 mean?
2. I never knew it called for A and Q on different colors and all pawns must be protected. Looking on chessvariants.com, bird's chess has A and Q on the same color. In Chess960, sometimes you can get a start where a pawn is not protected. Who decided the standard should be with these two rules?

If someone is going to market this game or popularize this game, there must be a good name for it. Fischer random's name was changed to chess960 and fullchess. It should not have a name which is gimicky like random, super, etc. It also should not have a chess player's name in it. Cassius suggested chess21000. Prehaps Chess21k. Does "hybrid chess" make it sound too much like a variant?

Hi all 10x8 interested people,

I just have decided that Smirf will also support Janus Chess with its different symmetric castlings. This will extend the FEN string slightly the way I have suggested with an additional 's' for to state the presence of symmetric castlings. In that case also an Archbishop 'A' will be displayed as Janus 'J'. The FEN string then looks like the following one:

rjnbkqbnjr/pppppppppp/0/0/0/0/PPPPPPPPPP/
RJNBKQBNJR w sKQkq - 0 1

The Capablanca Random Chess also demands for Archbishop and Queen to be placed on different colored squares and for the avoiding of uncovered pawns. Thus about 21000 positions will result.

Reinhard.

And you can play also with ChessV and Zillions. Not very strong,but you can play.
Nothing will remain as a comuter free zone in the future.

Random 10x8 chess with a chancellor and archbishop would definitly be neat. Chess960 cuts out the analyzed openings so memorization of openings is not required. Ed Trice has said that gothic chess does not yet have a large opening book, but it is quickly becomming very large. Gothic chess, although more exciting with the two additional pieces, could suffer the from the same problems as classical chess is.

I guess random 10x8 has the best of both world with the chancellor and archbishop, and not having pre-planned openings.

Why is it that some programmers have said that programmings castling rules is difficult. Fritz has said they won't put Chess960 in their program because it is difficult. Yet other programmers have done this like Chess V.

By the way, my calculations are 84000 for random 10x8 with bishops on different colors and the king between the rooks. How did you guys come up with 2000?

As for janus chess being computer free, I can already play janus chess with gothic vortex. All I have to do is rearrange the setup. The only thing is that the castling is slightly different.

Hi Caissus,

you are pointing to a direction which is not quite wrong. The argument has been, that Janus Chess would be a computer free zone and any thus Janus Chess aware computer programs would be negative. This has been told to me in a very harsh and insensible way, instead of honouring to be asked for a comment in that approach. I easily could have avoided any contact to that people, but instead I have been that polite to ask them for their thoughts on that. But my will to cooperate therein so has not payed at all.

Reinhard.

To play additionally Januschess with the Smirf would be nice,of course.
But which people from Germany have reacted negative? The Januschessfederation? And why?

Hi Caissus,

I had been in connection with some Janus relevant german people, whether to enable Smirf to also play Janus Chess, but the reaction has been very negative.

To enable Janus Chess for playing will mean to extend the understanding of FEN strings targeting to also support the different symmetrically castlings.

I do not know whether there has been already proposals in that direction, but I would suggest to simply add a preceeding "s" before the castling block of a FEN string. With that it would be able to send an information to the engine to generate symmetrical castlings instead of the standard assymmetric castlings. (This would also give new possibilities to 8x8 chess.)

How do you think about that problem / suggestion?

Reinhard.

Hi Caissus,

I see, your example is probably Janus Chess. Janus Chess has a different Queens side castling than canonically understood for chessboards 10x8 or 8x8. But except of this feature the just rebuilt Smirf GUI will support Janus PGN inputs, if the appropriate FEN is included (J will be interpreted as A, Archbishop).

See the following transformed PGN

[Event "Casual Game"]
[Site "BrainKing.com (Prague, Czech Republic)"]
[Date "2004.08.07"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Caissus"]
[Black "EdTrice"]
[Result "*"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "ranbkqbnar/pppppppppp/0/0/0/0/PPPPPPPPPP/RANBKQB
NAR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.e4 Ac6 2.Ng3 Nd6 3.Ac3 Ng6 4.Nb3 e5 5.f3 b6 6.Be2 Ah6 7.Be3 Bg5 8.Bxg5 Axg5
9.Ah3 Axh3 10.ixh3 Nf4 11.d4 Nxe2 12.Qxe2 f6 *

Reinhard.

Thanks Reinhard, I have sent the pgn-file as PM in your messagebox:-).I hope if Fencer reads this notes he will perhaps enhance the pgn-code.

Hi all,

I forgot to mention, that Smirf is able to add comments to such games and will reformat the PGN when writing it itself:

[Event "Casual Game"]
[Site "BrainKing.com (Prague, Czech Republic)"]
[Date "2004.07.15"]
[Time "??:??:??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "tangram"]
[Black "nstre"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Annotator "?"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rnbqckabnr/pppppppppp/0/0/0/0/PPPPPPPPPP/RNBQCKA
BNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.d4 Nh6 2.Nh3 i6 3.i3 Bi7 4.Bi2 d6 5.c4 f6 6.d5 c6 7.Nc3 e6 8.e4 e5 9.f3 c5
10.Af2 a6 11.O-O Af7 12.g4 O-O 13.Nj4 g5 14.a4 Nd7 15.Ne2 Nf8 16.Cg2 Ng6 17.Bd2
Nj5 18.Bh3 Nh6 19.Ni2 Nf4 20.Nxf4 gxf4 21.Ah4 Ag5 22.Be1 Cg7 23.Axg5 Cxg5
24.Ng1 Qe8 25.Bi2 Bd7 26.h4 Cg7 0-1

Reinhard.

Hi Caissus,

Still I have not received a PGN file. So I tried to find one hier at this site. As I prosumed the local PGN file is not obeying the PGN format in two points: a) the game lines are not limited to about 80 chars each, b) the initial GC FEN string is missing.

If you would insert the matching FEN string [FEN "rnbqckabnr/pppppppppp/0/0/0/0/PPPPPPPPPP/RNBQCKA
BNR w KQkq - 0 1"] (should be a constant for GC) and also enter line breaks Smirf is able to read such files.

ne converted PGN file would then look like this:

[Event "Casual Game"]
[Site "BrainKing.com (Prague, Czech Republic)"]
[Date "2004.07.15"]
[Round "?"]
[White "tangram"]
[Black "nstre"]
[Result "0-1"]
[FEN "rnbqckabnr/pppppppppp/0/0/0/0/PPPPPPPPPP/RNBQCKA
BNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1. d4 Nh6 2. Nh3 i6 3. i3 Bi7 4. Bi2 d6 5. c4 f6 6. d5 c6 7. Nc3 e6 8. e4 e5
9. f3 c5 10. Af2 a6 11. O-O Af7 12. g4 O-O 13. Nj4 g5 14. a4 Nd7 15. Ne2 Nf8
16. Cg2 Ng6 17. Bd2 Nj5 18. Bh3 Nh6 19. Ni2 Nf4 20. Nxf4 gxf4 21. Ah4 Ag5
22. Be1 Cg7 23. Axg5 Cxg5 24. Ng1 Qe8 25. Bi2 Bd7 26. h4 Cg7 0-1

Maybe it would be a good idea to convice the site owner to enhance the PGN compatibility in the both mentioned points.

Reinhard.

Reinhard,I have tried Zillions,ChessV,Max,Vortex and Chess2000 (8x10) and all the programs only have a special format and cannot be used as pgn-viewer for the games here.I will send you a game example.

Hi Caissus,

I have not seen PGN code here. But as long as it obays the PGN convention to include a FEN string because of the GC starting array being different from 8x8 standard chess, it should work.

What has been the problem in trying Smirf for this?

Reinhard.

Reinhard, is your Smirf program compatible with the Pgn-Code of this site? Could we use it as Pgn-viewer?

Hi all,

please do not confuse the FullChess Editor (which is not playing any chess) with the well playing Smirf beta version. Of course it is intended to be sold as shareware, but there is no pricing published yet. I have to think it over. So please do not use the 2 Dollar/Euro PayPal button, which is intended for the FullChess Editor, but please email me directly (you will find a valid email address e.g. at the imprint of www.chessbox.com.

Regards, Reinhard.

Yes, it already can play matches, but (like the participating engine) it still is a beta being
a crippled shareware version (2 euros via paypal), which might be fully enabled by purchasing keys. But Gothic Chess enabling keys still are not distributed, because of
some things have to be cleared before. See at:
http://www.chessbox.de/beta.html
at the "Project Chronicle" under 2004-Sep-29. The current version is 0.6.2.

Smirf is able to play a lot of 10x8 variants like Capablanca Random Chess
(with over 20000 starting arrays), Bird's array (very interesting, remark by editor), Capablanca's array,
Carrera's array and whatever you will setup yourself by hand. But, please
do not forget, it is also covering normal chess, Fischer Random Chess and
could overmore play with all kind of shuffled positions.

Chess V is a nice program, thanks for giving link

rescharn@gmx.net - somehow, he now only writes about an editor, but I myself had a beta version which could play some moves, maybe the offcial release will take some more weeks, I know that he is working on it. Sorry for the la-la-info ;-)

The author speaks English.

It is 2 Euros (paypal) donation-ware on chessbox.de, it was developed out of just a 10*8 PGN-Editor, but it is an engine now, it participated in the GC championship. With 8*8 only it is free.

Is the SMIRF program free to download, and if it is, where can i download?

Here is the link for download:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/chessv/ChessV_0_7_1.zip?download

In ChessV Henry Bird´s Chess from 1874 uses RNBCKQABNR, I don´t know if this is the right setting. The program is not comparable to Gothic Vortex 1.2, but it is very worth a download anyway. Sign up for being informed about new versions of this many variants open source sofware from Greg Strong. SMIRF is rather new and was finished the last minutes before the tournament. The author still sees a lot of potential to improve it. I play only GC as variant, he is crazy about 10*8 FRC.

netguru. I posted those very moves awhile back. Though the starting position for Bird's Chess is a matter of contention as to where the Guard and Equerry are placed at the start of the game. I used the version from the Chess Variants web page, which Ed Trice dubbed "Wrong Bird's Chess". Assuming you're using Ed's set up for Bird's Chess, I thought it would take 7 moves to transpose the game into Gothic Chess. You say it's five? It has been my assertion about the game being a subset of the other. It was shortly after that post an immense flame war started. It also got some interesting conversation about both games going, so you'll have to wade through a lot different posts to see which apply to your interest. Starts October 14th.

Capablanca Chess was created about 50 years after Bird's Chess in the 1920's. I believe Bird made his game up in 1874. Gothic Chess in the late 1990's. To me, all are the same game. Same pieces, same rules. The starting position greatly effects the play at the beginning of the game, but after 15 or 20 moves it'd be hard to tell which game is which if you chanced upon a game in progress.

After 5 moves for each side. With ChessV for example. So, it´s somehow better to see GC as not so strong protected, but the best Capablana variant with Gothic Vortex as the by far strongest engine.

very cleverly named game..unlike other variants here!

Janus is also a nickname of the bad guy from James Bond's movie "Goldeneye" :-D

is the double faced god and our piece got his name because of his two faces - knight an bishop.

wikipedia.org is the biggest encyclopedia on this planet. In 100 languages it offers high quality of information, at least in the English and German version which are already extremly popular. You yourself can edit information whenever you want, you don´t even need an account. So far Gothic Chess is included at least in the Portuguese, English and German version. Looking forward for French, Czech and Russian for example. ;-)

Googled "Janus" and came up with some interesting results.

I expect the Janus of Chess variety is reference back to the Roman god of gates ... more can be read here

Wolf is the German word for wolf (it's pronounced volf).

I have taken my Gothic Board and peices to regular chess tournaments;and between rounds have had very little trouble getting other younger players to play;after I explained the differences. I also have taken it to our local chess clubs and gotten a few people to play. Also,about 4 or 5 of us meet regularly at each others houses and every 3 or 4 days just to play Gothic Chess. We are beginning to get others interested to.

Okay,maybe I'll give it a new try.

shoot! I'd love to find a chess club,or a park setting where folks played chess.the only over the board games I get...is when my brother visits.

Do any of you play over the board gothic? I find when I take my set to the park (chess club there) and chess clubs is that most people prefer classic chess over gothic because gothic is something new. Some people can be coaxed into trying and they play a game or 2. Others are more enthusiatic about playing, but even if they are good chess players, they usually find it difficult to get used to the new pieces. I find it takes a few games to get the basic feel for the pieces.

Regular chess games are very good, but if I could play gothic games it would be even better.
I have had some experiences where at the park some people play and many others huddle around to watch, so there are some good experiences.

Do any of you have expereinces of trying to popularize the game?

I guess we can welcome Ted to the paid members roster?

What are you talking about tedbarber? You are the only person who has posted on this board for the past week!

Once Trice left the board, this board has now settled down very nicely. Hopefully some good Gothic talk can start again.

Since no one seems to prefer discussing games, but prefers silly flamewars;I intend to join Mr. Trice and boycott this board.

tedbarber ... there has at times been discussion hereon Janus Chess, but soon after Janus Chess was introduced on this site Fencer also implimented Gothic Chess which seems to have been played more. There has certainly been more discussion on the Gothic Chess boards than here.

You are quite welcome to raise any issues or discuss any games or strategies you would like to.

Cheers

WQ:)

I thought janus was german for wolf;am I wrong?

Do you people discuss games or something else? if you discuss games I'll use this board;if not,I will not use it.