Rabbits are counted as birds in japanese.

quality is already invented, feel free to make use, too. ~*~

Wouldn't the "safe check" procedure, if applied to a Pawn, Berolina Pawn, Ferz, Wazir, Man, etc., result in that piece having a value of zero?

Actually the safe check method is not applied to the Pawns. What is really happens in this method is that it predicts/tries to evaluate, the relative values between all the pieces except Pawns.

Let's say for example, that we find with safe check method that:
Knight=0.3 , Bishop=0.4, Queen=1.2
(the values are random)

Then we know from our (actually from GM's) experience that a Knight is worth 3 Pawns. So the previous values are adjusted properly to give:

Pawn= 1
Knight= 3
Bishop = 4
Queen = 12

I do not think a Bishop is worth a Knight and a pawn.

I have clearly said that the values were random.

and its basic piece-value calculation are
in the public domain since the early 90s ... ~*~

Oops!

if that happens to mt st helen
much more people have to suffer. ~*~

is that poll closed about keeping gothic at brainking ? not that I'd
want to change my vote completely but maybe refined to keeping
the game, paying him one dollar pa and kick his butt hasta la vista ... ~*~

danoschek,you are becoming insultive.

I thought you told me you weren't going to moderate for a while.

he didnt moderate ;o)

Yes, he did, Stevie. He put danoschek on hide.

did he?

Yes.

but danos posts were here for quite a while after bwilds post, theyve only been hidden since you came here

I have him on hide since his first abuse after my warning. ~*~

warned him, too - the kewl and moderate I am,reliably ...
and, ... as usual it's not me who has to hide something ... I love
to see my points proven ... carry on - don't worry be cappy ... hehehe ~*~

Purple, I have placed you on hide for your insulting post. If you delete or edit it, I will unhide you.

Thad

You can believe what you want about which moderator did what, but the truth remains the truth. Let's not clutter this board with this any longer. If you wish to continue it, PM me.

Thad

if I would fiddle a bit around in posts as it seems to be custom here ? saved
the board - blur is futile ... purple was pleasantly judging well. Hereby extending
my vote for hastalavista ceremony to any uncompetitive moderator applying ... ~*~

because of two screwed up wannabe-moderators and, one screwed up
ex-wannabe-moderator, who invented nothing but a trice-monthly newsletter about
how many orgasms he gets by playing hide and seek ... (I'll edit that - not promised) ~~*~~

Yes, Safe Check assumes that pawns retain the same value on all sizes of boards, while other pieces degrade in power. With a large enough board, pawns would be worth more than queens! But I guess for the Gothic or regular chess board, practical values are obtained.

danoscheck is both hidden and temporarily banned till the head moderator signs on...it will be Walters descision,after that.

It turns out that I can change the moderators. You've been relieved of your duties bwildman. Seems like you wanted me to do this, so there it is. If not, let me know. As for danoschek, I never wanted him back on this particular board while I was a moderator, so I will leave your decision to ban him intact bwildman.

This being a 24 hour medium, and me only going online for an hour or two a day except on somedays when I'm here all day or other times when I'm away for four days, it means the board isn't covered or moderated continually. A few of my Gothic Chess playing opponents might want to take the moderator's job. One or two more, especially in the right time zones or work shifts could keep the board covered over half the time and then there won't be a need to change it to having all posts approved by me. I don't like that way of doing it, but if most of the users and posters to this board would rather have me read incoming posts before they appear on the board, let me know. I can change the setting to that and see how it goes. As I've stated before, I think it will ruin the character of this board, but it will certainly cut down or out the flaming and cussing.
Also, if you'd like to be a moderator, or know someone that might make a good moderator, send me a message. I have a couple in mind and will run it by them in a few days. It's mostly a thankless job, and you must control yourself from being too controlling of others.
Freedom is something you can't have unless you're willing to let others have it.
I prefer working with people that share my philosophy on censorship and don't mind seeking a consensus on making changes to the settings or to the people allowed to post. Though as it currently stands, I have the power to do as I please until there's popular uprising and the overlord steps in to rectify the situation. I'm trying to be a benevolent dictator and just let things flow. Please don't assume that my attitude is one of benign neglect. I may not be online as much as some of you, but I will eventually respond to things that are envelope pushing or rude in nature. Debating and arguing are fine by me, fighting isn't.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled broadcast.

Now that was a very nice post Walter.. :) Kudo's to you..

The Safe Check method seems like a rather hard way to figure the strength and power of each piece. Why not just compare how many squares each piece can cover in one move? Obviously some of the piece's positions when doing the counting will have a great impact on the total, but some sort of average can be figured into it. It seems like the value that is assigned in regular Chess should be adjusted to the game situation. That's what I do when deciding to make a trade or not. Sometimes a well placed Knight is worth almost a Rook. Especially when the position is blocked with lots of Pawns and both sides have a Bishop to keep the Pawns guarded.

A Rook's total number of squares that it can move to on an empty board doesn't change regardless of where placed. Always 14. On the 8 X 10 board a Rook has 16 squares to move to regardless of placing. All the rest of the pieces gain squares to move to as they get away from the edge of the board. The Chancellor and Archbishop are interesting to compare to each other this way. A Chancellor can have as few as 18 squares and as many as 24 on the 8 X 10 board. The Archbishop as few as 9 and as many as 22. It seems from just casually looking at this analysis that the Archbishop is a piece to try to get into the center of the board and keep it there or near there, and the Chancellor can stay away from the center and still have good range. More Rooklike than Knightlike. Both of them are trouble against the opponent's King. The Archbishop seems to work real well against the King when the position is cramped with its ability to move diagonal and get around the Pawns with its Knight move too.
This is what I've figured out so far. Still learning. :)

<>The Safe Check method seems like a rather hard way to figure the strength and power of >each piece. Why not just compare how many squares each piece can cover in one move? >Obviously some of the piece's positions when doing the counting will have a great impact >on the total, but some sort of average can be figured into it.

Doing this we have:

Chancellor= 1720
Queen= 1672
Rook= 1280
ArchBishop= 832
Knight= 440
Bishop= 392

So we see that something is wrong. A bishop can't be weaker than Knight. What is wrong?
It's the method, that underestimates many things. Of course safe check method has it's weak parts too, but it seems it is a better estimator for the piece values.

But a very hard question is what really is a piece's value? How we should define the "piece value"? What's the meaning behind this? Can anyone find a good definition of the piece value?


>It seems like the value that is assigned in regular Chess should be adjusted to the game >situation. That's what I do when deciding to make a trade or not. Sometimes a well placed >Knight is worth almost a Rook.

Deep Junior 8.0 knows this well, after the game with Kasparov:-)
Here it played Rae8?!:
r4rk1/pb1n1ppp/2qN4/4p1Pn/2p1P3/2Q1BN2/P
P3P1P/2KR3R b - - 0 17

>Especially when the position is blocked with lots of Pawns and both sides have a >Bishop to keep the Pawns guarded.

A piece's value is not merely a function of its mobility. A board can be loaded with pawns that impede a Bishop of the same color, making it a "very bad" Bishop and a piece you would trade for a Knight immediately. One long series of pawn swaps, and now the Bishop might be poised to dominate the Knight in the ending.

As I discussed in my paper here there are values other than the "mobility/safe check" that also factor into the equation. On page 90 of this paper:



There are a few things worthy to note at this point. These are not exact ratios universally accepted by the chess-playing public. The work of Taylor in 1876 provided a foundation upon which players could experiment and adjust the relative merits of the pieces over the years. In this respect, Taylor’s equations will compute semiconditional values for the pieces (Katsenelinboigen, 1997, p. 53). In this fashion, we differentiate these data from conditional, unconditional, partially conditional, and positional values that are computed in a variety
of ways by the contemporary chess master at various stages of the game.

This is explained in more detail in the paper, and in my reference to Dr. Katsenelinboigen's book.

I nominate Ed Trice for moderator

:) I think that would make a good mix.. don't you think.. ;)

I believe he already had his chance and it did not work out - this board has already been through enough, so there is no point (in my opinion) in bringing in a moderator who already has issues with other people - it is just asking for trouble.

He had two chances and was conspicuously useless.

What you've done to my square counting idea is not what I had in mind. I'm looking at the numbers that you've posted and figuring you must've pretended each piece was on every square on the board and totaled the square counts that way. That's almost exactly what the Safe Check deal is. What I am thinking is the relative strength of the pieces as to where the will normally be deployed. Rare will it be that one will choose to play to the corner or edge a piece that is greatly lowered in movement there unless forced to do so. Since a Rook is equally mobile on every square it might be the exception to that. As for your conclusion that a Bishop is weaker than a Knight doing the counting this way, did you take into consideration that a Bishop can only travel on half the squares? Perhaps you should double its count for a more accurate estimate. Or some other way. Hmmm, it seems like the pieces that can move diagonal are the ones that have the most variable count and really are stronger when placed towards the center of the board. The pieces that have the Knight component without the diagonal move vary less. As soon as they're two squares from the edge they're at full range. OF course, two squares from the edge can be considered in the middle of the board. Just one square from the edge and they have full range minus two squares. A Knight having just one way of moving, has slow going on the larger board. The Knight's move itself is pretty handy when in close and has the benefit of not being able to be blocked.

I'm thinking that game experience and judgment might give a player a better guide than simple assigning a value to pieces. It's still nice to have a chart with the relative values just to assist in making trades and planning ahead. Especially for beginning players a chart can be of great help. Since the strengths and weaknesses of each piece change from move to move as the game progresses a better approach has to be to learn the game and get more experience. Least ways that's what I'm trying to do. I almost have the hang of how each piece works and am getting better at making longer range plans and detecting my opponent's intentions. The two extra pieces are quite strong and make the game more volitile the regular Chess even taking into account the larger board size. The one constant that remains is the King and the object of the game. Having more power on the board has definitely got to put him in more peril. Why range the whole board to count squares when one usually just focuses on the opponent's King and can concentrate one's forces in his area? If the game survives to the end game stage it is going to be more of a wide body Chess game than a completely different game that exists in the opening and middle parts.

some like to flirt...some like to argue....some like to play gothic chess.
the current combination of moderators will suffice I think.

Wilderbeast: are you reinstated?

no ugh...really dont think I want to be on this team:)

That's what Thad wrote to me. I've asked one person so far, but he declined unless it becomes absolutely necessary to have another moderator. Thad's a little quicker than me with the editor's eraser and I told him a few things to go along with my thinking, but he's still able to make the call when the need arises.
I'll still tally responses to that previous post and try to keep a list of possible moderators. If Thad or I have to leave or stop using this site for some reason, it will be helpfull to have replacements in mind. So far no one has written me about nominating someone or suggesting themselves for the job. On the board itself, Ed Trice has been nominated and has been dished on. It might take a few weeks to see how it goes. Just the two us might be enough. It didn't work too bad when I was doing it by myself. Had I not had both computers breakdown and then my truck breakdown 300 miles from home, I might've not been missing so much during those two or three weeks when it all came to a head and would have been available to read the posts and monitor the situation better. Oh well, the water has flown by the bridge and this is where we're at now. :)

I think it would be helpful if people post their own values on the board for the pieces. Here are the ones I put in Gothic Vortex

Pawn = 100

Knight = 275 with 20 pawns, 255 with 0 pawns.
Exact value = 250 + pawns.

Bishop = 310

Rook = 530 with 0 pawns, 440 with 20 pawns.
Exact value = 530 - (pawns * 3).

Archbishop = 690 with 20 pawns, 650 with 0 pawns.
Exact value = 650 + (pawns * 2).

Chancellor = 860, unchanging

Queen = 900 with 20 pawns, 960 with 0 pawns.
Exact value = 960 - (pawns * 3).

These values were chosen carefully, but I still think they can be changed.

For example, compare how Rook + Pawn will be traded for Bishop + Knight as the pawn count varies. At the beginning of the game, R + P = 540, and B + N is 585. You don't want to give up a B + N for R + P early on, because your two minors are developed an in play, while the Rook is most likely just sitting there after having castled.

A Bishop will not trade itself for 3 pawns unless there is some other form of compensation. Notice a Knight will always trade iteself for 3 pawns, or 2 pawns + "heavy positional damage". Some of you may have seen Vortex tossing its Knight to do this already. So far, I think this is strong behavior.

Also, 2 Knights cannot mate a lone king in the absence of pawns. So, a Rook is more valuable than 2 Knights with pawns = 0 (530 for Rook, 510 for 2 Knights).

This "simple" approach makes the program appear to have endgame intelligence. It will prefer to have a Rook over 2 Knights heading into the endgame, and it can direct this play from a distance with the properly chosen values.

If others want to post their "ideal values" I would be happy to review them.

Bonsoir, mes petits loups !

Anyone remember "battle chess"? An electronic game that assessed the present value of pieces when they met and decided which killed which.

Chess with a twist: All pieces come to life and humorously animate the "battle" that ensues when one piece takes another. There is a different animation for each type of ", yes of curse i play it in mi old commodore64 then in my Amiga Great original game.

:)

I am working on some new graphics for the next version of Vortex to be released.

click here to see the proposed new board image.

Is there an online practice board anywhere?

Sure, take over for white, you can mate in 268.

click here

No, I mean a practice board, where I can set up positions and make a few moves and see what it leads to. For example, there is one here for Pente (this link might not work if you are not a member..not sure). You can test out lines etc.

Well, you can download Gothic Vortex for free here:

Download Vortex

You can try everything you want for 30 days.

Got a version for Macs? ;-)

I was a Mac programmer for decades, from October 1984 until Mac OS X made me a dinosaur in 2001. I am in the process of divorcing the gui from the engine so that it would be an easy port to OS X. If you know any Mac OS X gui developers, please let me know.