Pythagoras: You will.

Pythagoras: What colour do you propose?

Fencer: It was fine the color it was, though the new color isn't so bad either. What difference does it make? Can it be made something that the player can set for himself? Just have default colors for each game and if someone wants a different color for some reason, they can change it themselves.

Walter Montego: There was no border color before.

Marfitalu: Good question, there is no outstanding reason for it, the main reason was simplicity.
I thought about three possibilities :
- The more natural one seems to consider castling as a king move. Then castling is ambiguous can always be replaced by a rook move, and the right to castle would in fact be a disadvantage for the player who can castle. For this reason I don't like this one.
- Consider castling as a two-piece move, hence unambiguous. This is now perfectly sound. But we would also have to state whether it is possible to castle under or through check. As the straightforward set of rules state that check does not exist and that the goal is to take the king, one would have to allow that. Personally I don't like at all the possibility to castle under or through check, like it is the case here in Atomic and Extinction. But this is probably a matter of taste.
- Banning castling is simple, clear-cut, easy to implement and can be phrased in very few words. That is what I like about it :-)

PS Someone composed a retrograde analysis problem of Unambiguous Chess, a variant I invented before Ambiguous Chess, where ambiguous moves are simply illegal (this variant is less playable but fun for problem composition). He asked me whether he could state that castling was an allowed unambiguous move, as his problem needed it, and I told him it was OK with me.

when a guy takes a promoted queen it should revert back to a pawn not remain as a queen for opponent to place. Thats the offical rule.

tbart: No, it is the official rule for "Crazyhouse" (and Bughouse) but not for "Chessgi" (=Loop Chess) which is probably the oldest of the three games.
It was already discussed here, because all Bughouse players (me included) are acquainted to promoted pieces reverting to pawns, but there is no reason why it should be the same in Loop Chess.

Fencer: And without a border it was fine. I didn't even notice. The blue is something you notice. I don't see the reason for it, but it also doesn't matter. If I had the choice, I'd put it back as it was or choose a different color.

Besides, I've been playing Extinction Chess on your site for over two years now. It seems kind of strange to just change the look of the game now. What made it happen?

Play Ambiguous Chess for a 1-year rook membership !

Walter Montego: Somebody complained it should have a colored border. But I can revert it to the former transparent one, of course :-)

Walter Montego: The problem is if it has the same border (no color) as regular chess, if you are not paying attention and just going from game to game, you could easly make a stupid move in Extincion chess thinking it was regular chess.

BIG BAD WOLF: The price of playing so many games you can't remember which is which, lol.

grenv: problem is I play so little ex. chess that it there is not something jumping out at me and saying "Hey, don't lost all of 1 piece", it's easy for me to forget.

BIG BAD WOLF: I have learnt my leasson the hard way moving in an atomic game like it was real chess and kaboom I went. I like the idea of boards, never know which is which but it reminds me to check! (pun haha:)

Fencer: Filip, my boards have gone back to the borderless style. Now that I've a had chance to see both, I like it this borderless way. I've never had a problem knowing which game is which. Two reasons come to mind for me. One, I don't play regular Chess. Two, you have the name of the type of Chess I'm playing next to the board. It says "Extinction Chess" in bold letters under the left hand corner of the board. Hard to miss that. Ka-boom, eh?

Even though I like how it is being the old style you might want to add something about the borders for the games in the "Settings" page for those that might want different colors for some reason.

grenv: Ive thought 3.h4 was one of the more risky lines for white, after:
1.Nf3 e5 2.Ng5 f5 3.h4 Nc6 4.c3 Nd4 5.cxd4 Bb4 6.Nc3 Nf6 when 7.Nf7 0-0! gives black some good play (although I still wouldn't touch 1...e5)

http://brainking.com/en/ShowGame?g=1636349
move 25
my pawn did not promote

4 more players needed
random elimination wild chess

tipau: Ha, not a bad trick. White has to play f3 (either instead of Nf7 or after black castles), followed by e4 and seems to come out better to me (on first glance).

mangue: hmm weird ... did you post it in the bug tracker yet ?

Hrqls: no, not yet

Before the big July tournament I propose this one to you :
Ambiguous training

Any Ambiguous Chess links with games, or annotated games or strategies about this game....?

With a quick glance at the rules(around 40 sec) i suppose that if i click on e4 then the opponent has to play on e4 my Pawn right?
Hmmmm, interesting game then.

Aaaaaaaarghhhhhh! Right now i saw that there is no castling!
This reduces my interest but not by much. Why there is no castling?

Yes, there are examples, annotated games and tips here :
http://www.pion.ch/echecs/variante.php?jeu=ambigus&changer_langue=E
The tips should not be taken too seriously, everyone is still very much in learning phase.

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When this game has been invented or anyway publiced?

Crap! Are you the inventor? LOL! Well done....!
So when exactly did you publiced this game and when did you first thought of it and when did you resulted in its final rules?

Pythagoras: Why not have castling? You click the square two squares from the King, your opponent will either make the castle or move the Rook there or any other piece that can move there. I don't see what the problem is if castling was allowed. So why isn't it allowed as an option? As long as it doesn't move the King into check it should be OK to have it. IS there a problem I haven't considered with having castling that makes the game unplayable or unfair in some way? Like castling out of check? There's no check in this game, so that would make for some decision to how the rules are worded if one attempts to castle when his King is under attack. Are you allowed to leave your King in check?

Walter Montego, Pythagoras: I have already answered about castling somewhere lower on this page (May 16). It was the hardest choice and I am not 100% sure that I got it right, especially now that I have heard of four of you who are surprised that it isn't allowed.
What I am more sure about is that if one wants castling allowed, one should consider it as an two-piece unambiguous move that the opponent cannot replace by a rook move (because there is no point in having a special move if it is a disadvantage for the player at move), and that castling should be allowed only when it would be legal in normal chess (no castling under or through check). Like this, allowing castling would slightly complicate the rules but still be completely OK with me.
Maybe it is the opening theory (to be built) which should tell. If castling adds more variety to the games, it could be an excellent thing to allow it. If it turns out that castling is so strong that every games starts with 1.f4, 2.Nf3, 3.g3, 4.Bg2 and 5.0-0 then it is good that it is forbidden. Unfortunately, the game is still too new to tell.
For now, every other opinion on it is welcome !

Pythagoras: Thank you ! Ambiguous Chess was born in January 2005, published on my web site, on chessvariants.com and some months later in the Variant Chess magazine.
Although it is a very simple idea, it came to my mind in a very roundabout way. By telling it I am a bit afraid to bore everyone with a long post, feel free to stop reading right here !

I read in the Encyclopedia of Chess Variants about a strange variant called "Unambiguous Three-symbol Chess", where the only moves allowed were those who could be written in three symbols in the English game notation. It gave me the idea of "Unambiguous Chess" where the only moves allowed are those who are determined by the arrival square alone (all ambiguous moves simply forbidden). This was probably a good idea for a problem stipulation (problem composers like strong constraints, which make it easier to avoid dual solutions), but not a good one for a playing variant (actually Unambiguous Chess is a forced win for White under the no-check rule).
Moving from Unambiguous Chess to Ambiguous Chess is not a very big step, still it took me something like five years and happened only when for some reason both Unambiguous Chess and the game of Quarto came to my mind in the same time - Quarto is an alignment game where you choose the piece which the opponent has to place on the board.
There were only two rules which were not obvious to settle, the castling one (argh!) and the promotion one. At first I had the "normal" promotion by the pawn's owner, but then a friend of mine rightly pointed out that it was more logical that the piece was chosen by the opponent, as the different promotions were different moves to the same square. I hope you will agree with this one :-)

nabla: .
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I do not only agree with the promotion choosen by the opponent, but i've changed my mind about the castle rule. I think you've made the correct choice....!
And thanks about the history review.....

I've not gotten too far in a game to see a pawn promotion, but all the rules I've encountered seem to fit so far. I think it's a very interesting game.

Pythagoras: Cool about castling :-) I will stick with the promotion rule as it is unless it becomes clear that too many endgames are drawn, in which case having the promotion by the owner would be a solution. But it can require a three-step move instead of a two-step one (player A points the promotion square, player B chooses a pawn, player A chooses the promotion piece).

With all the interest in Ambiguous Chess, I'm beginning to wonder whether anyone else here would like to see Compromise Chess added. It seems to me to be a close cousin (or maybe just an older aunt or uncle) of Ambiguous Chess.

Rules summary: player to move proffers 2 candidate moves (except in cases of forced moves--which are directly made); the other player decides which of the 2 candidate moves is actually played. Where things get really interesting: captures and responses to them. :)

wetware: .
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Do you think we will live forever? There is not much timeeeee for all these!
Ambiguous Chess is enough for me.....
Hopefully it will not be me that would decide if this new game you propose will be added here....

wetware: Good old Compromise Chess is also a nice game, it is indeed the variant closest to Ambiguous Chess. It looks like it is usually played with the rule that if you have only one move to get out of check, your opponent has to accept it. However, I prefer the "wild" rule that in such a case you lose the game (because your opponent will capture your king).

Pythagoras: Sorry I misread you ! I thought that you disagreed with my promotion rule because I missed the "only" in your first sentence. A more careful reading switched the meaning of your sentence completely :-)

Marfitalu: That's how it works. After the second bugfix.

Statistics of won games
white 119 (49.79 %)
black 119 (49.79 %)
Draws 1 (0.41 %)

This is great news, no clear advantage for white and almost no draw! This is what makes a game challenging. Congrats Nabla and Fencer for providing that new game

mangue: .
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and almost no draw
This is logical since this is a completely new game and no one knows to play it well so there can't be many draws.


Statistics of won games
white 119 (49.79 %)
black 119 (49.79 %)
no clear advantage for white

We can't imply for sure the last statement from the statistics! It is very probable that it is just a coincidence and that as the game evolves and some opening ideas start being created the statistics will change in favour of a color....

But the most important reason is that if we see in a game: White wins: X times, Black wins X times then we can't assume in any way that we have a balanced game, meaning that we don't have an advantage for black or white! We just can't!
Why? Because suppose we have 80 players that played all these X games and the distribution of a single players color at a game is NOT equal, that means he didn't played equal times with white and black.
And let's assume that white has an advantage.
So a single player-stronger than others- could have possibly played more games with black but because he is stronger than others, he won more games than the disadvantage of having the black color would predict....

Pythagoras: On the other hand, since it's not clear from the statistics that either color has an advantage, it is correct to say that there is no clear advantage to white, whether we find out later there is or not.

grenv: .
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No! From the statistics we can only make assumptions that white has not clear advantage. We can't say it with 100% confidence! That's where i disagree.

We can say that: From the statistics we see that the highest probability(we just have an indication) is that white doesn't have an advantage.

But we can't say that: From the statistics we see that white doesn't have an advantage.

Pythagoras: I didn't say that white didn't have an advantage, only that it wasn't a clear advantage. If there is an advantage to white then it is unclear so far.

grenv:.
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OK then.... But why do you keep refering to a possible white advantage specifically? I've seen this from others too. You assume that if this game is not balanced and there is one side that has the advantage this side is white.
Why you don't even consider black for having the advantage....?

mangue: Thank you ! It is true that these are very good stats, but Pythagoras is also right that it is too soon to tell what will happen later. I am still concerned about the possibility that there may be too many drawn endgames in the future.
For the moment, the game seems to work even better than I had thought

Pythagoras: I like the games with balanced results. Atomic and 3-checks for example have a clear advantage for white (ok, I still like them ) . Maharadjah and Horde are simply unfair. The player starting at ambigous has certainly an advantage. Like in CHESS, and here on brainking.com, blacks wins more often than white at regular chess, probably because some feeble beginners play only with white

nabla: .
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You are concerned about Pawn promotions right?
Hmmmm.... I know as the level increases you will see that more and more games will be decided at Pawn promotions so this could be a problem.

Remember: Chess would not be what it is if there wasn't the Pawn promotions!
Most of the times if you outplay your opponent you will not win immediately by mate but just obtain a material advantage like a Pawn more or Knight for 2 Pawns etc....
So most times you will have to find a way to promote that Pawn or to use your Knight to help your Pawns to promote while your King stops the opposite Pawns or the opposite or just capture tha opponent's Pawns, but the extra Knight doesn't win alone if a Pawn doesn't promote! And most of the times it should promote to a Queen to win.....

So i guess you will need to change the rule one time or another but we will see....

mangue: May be good way to resolve this would be to ask excellent chess variants players like: Matarilevich, Ughaibu, Oliottavio, Reza, Tenuki, Pythagoras, Nabla, Pioneer54, Anencephal and others, what do they feel when they play this game together.

yes, maybe