AbigailII: I have a feeling Abigaill that we talk about two different things ... it's like a poet trying to describe his/her world to a mechanical engineer ... I am talking about having some fun and thrill, you about some robots playing chess ... I can show you millions of chess situations where my doubling cube would make perfect sense ... have you ever studied middle games combinations ? I was studying Alekhine games and believe me, had no idea what this genius was doing until the last two or three killing moves ... If it would be my doubling game scenerio I would offer doubling cube to my opponent after discovering a brilliant combination and he would most likely accept it ... is it so hard to imagine that I would double my score ?

And those who played with him were top players, not brainking masters ... and he wouldn't offer doubling cube after the first move since he also was beaten by others. So, your argument about automaticaly doubling after the first move has no place here ...

AbigailII: few positions ? many, many position in chess have undiscovered yet better plays  ... not just few ... my strategy is opposite to what you think: because I discovered a brilliant idea I WILL DOUBLE, not the other way around. You may created an open tournament for every skill level but you may also restrict weak players, right ? So where is the problem ... Bill Robertie one said (two times backgammon world champion) that an average, very good player would have zero chance with the elite players in the match to 21 points ... these players also can double after the first roll knowing that they will win in the long run ...

Would they do it ?

AbigailII: no, not only after discovering brilliant ideas ... I would occasionally trick my opponent into thinking I have a killing option  ... doubling theory in backgammon has nothing to do with excellent rolls in a row (when doubling is an obvious thing to do)

doubling cube in Yahtzee or dice poker games ?

Hi everybody!

There're some people creating many tournaments with same characteristics (all games and same time control) and it's confused for people choose a tournament to play a specific type of game, because some players want play the same type of game, but tournaments don't start, because players are dispersed for some tournaments.

from Wikipedia:

The Battle of Grunwald (or 1st Battle of Tannenberg) took place on July 15, 1410 with king Jogaila (Władysław II Jagiełło) leading the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in alliance against the knights of the Teutonic Order who were led by the Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen. The engagement in the Polish-Lithuanian-Teutonic War (1409-1411) was one of the most important battles in Medieval Europe, and the largest battle to involve

                                                                              KNIGHTS

The forces of the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights were decisively defeated in the battle, but were able to defend their castles and retain most of their territories despite the long-term consequences they suffered as a result of losing the battle. The order never recovered its former power, and the financial burden of the ensuing reparations eventually caused a rebellion of cities and landed gentry.

I decided to commemorate this big event (600 years anniversary) by creating a new chess variant called Grunwald Chess ...
The rules are exactly the same as in traditional chess, with the exceptions given below:

1. Knight can move also as pawn (including double move from starting position)
2. Knight can promote as in traditional chess only when they reach 8th or 1st row as a pawn ...
3. En passant is possible as long as knight moves two fields from its starting position as a pawn ...
4. Knight is entitled to move two fields as pawn as many times as it wishes after reaching the 2nd and 7th row on its sites ...
Below is the link to my new blog about chess variants. Please visit me and "tell me what is wrong with me, lol"

http://mychessvariants.blogspot.com/

Andy.

a combination of cribbage scoring and typical dice mechanism:

Equipment: 5 dice

Game play:

there is 10 rounds and who gets more points after the 10th round is finished, is the winner. Draw is when players' score is the same. Player A (let's say white) rolls 4 dice. If the player likes what he/she sees (later about this), he/she rolls the fifth die and start counting points. If the player wants to improve what he/she sees, he/she takes one, two, three or all 4 dice and reroll them. Then he/she rolls the fifth die and start counting.

Counting:

if the player rolls his 4 dice only ones, he (as a bonus) may count pips on the fifth die EITHER on top of the die, OR at the bottom ... so, if, let's say, 5 is at the top, he may use it for counting, or he may use 2, which is exactly opposite to 5 at the bottom od die ... if he chooses to reroll his 4 dice he may use only top number of his 5th die for counting ... how to count ?

1. For each pair - 2 points

2. For the same three dice - 6 points

3. For the same four dice - 12 points

4. For all the same dice - 20 points

5. For a run (sequence) - as many points as many dice make the run (3 minimum)

6. For 15 points on any combination of dice (example follows)

Example: [6] [6] [5] [4] [1] = 12 points total for all the combinations (details below)

[4] [5] [6] = 3 points (first run or sequence )
[4] [5] [6] = 3 points (second run or sequence)

[4] [5] [6] = 2 points (first 15 points)
[4] [5] [6] = 2 points (second 15 points )

[6] [6]       = 2 points (pair of 6)

IMPORTANT: in cribbage, as you noticed, cards, or dice in our game may be counted several times
in different combinations. This is very important feature in this game.

Hope all the cribbage players and dice games fanatics will find a pleasure playing this game. Perfectly playable head to head.

Andy.

AbigailII: and I totally agree with you ... I was thinking that this little dice cribbage would be much easier to implement since dice routines are well established here ... besides, dice games are the most popular at brainking and it would be a nice addition to our collection.

Cheers,

Andy.

joshi tm: thanks for asking ... it'll be my pleasure to explain the whole (really easy) mechanism of this little game. Let's picture this:

- we have a table showing 10 rounds and accumulated points for the players (very similar to Dice Poker)

- below the table we have 4 dice ready to be rolled and 1 separated die (similar to starter card in cribbage)

Scenerio I

- you start always by rolling 4 dice ... you examine the outcome ... do you see any pairs, 15s, runs, etc ? do you want to keep this roll ? do you see any chances to extend it when you roll starter die ? you will have two numbers from the starter die when you accept your roll now... top number or bottom number will contribute to your score ? do you need 6-1, 5-2 or 3-4 on your starter ? let's say you accept your roll of 4 dice and next step is to roll your starter die... now you are ready to count the points and your turn ends ...

Scenerio II

- you didn't like your initial roll of 4 dice ... you hope to get something better ... you take 1, 2, 3 or all 4 dice and RE-ROLL them. Next you roll the starter die and begin your counting ... this time you may use only TOP of your starter die ... this is a penalty for RE-ROLLING your 4 dice ...

OK, this is really funny and fast dice game ... it teaches some cribbage principles and how to manages your luck-skill abilities ... this game is my invention originally published on polish site devoted to dice games ...

Cheers,

Andy.

here is another invention of mine ... it's based on very popular dice game FARKLE of FARKEL ... there are many versions of this game. They call it the game of guts and luck ... there is one thing that make it very different ... you may roll dice as many times as you want, as long as you manage to get VALID meld every time you roll remaining dice ... let's look at the details:

Equipment: 6 dice

Examples of valid melds and points (with premiums) they bring:

Straight [1][2][3][4][5][6] = 100
Three pairs [1][1][3][3][5][5] = 18 (any three pairs will do)
Six of a kind [1][1][1][1][1][1] = 6 + 120 preminum (any six of a kind will do)
Five of a kind [4][4][4][4][4] = 20 +50 premium (any five of a kind will do)
Four of a kind [5][5][5][5] = 20 + 40 premium (any four of a kind will do)
Three of a kind [2][2][2] = 6 + 30 premium (any three of a kind will do)
Pair of sixes [6][6] = 12 (ONLY pair of 6s will do)
Six [6] = 6 (ONLY single 6 will do)
Pair of ones [1][1] = 2 (ONLY pair of 1s will do)
One [1] = 1 (ONLY single 1 will do)

Mechanism of play:

1. You start by rolling 6 dice ... examine the outcome ... IF you have any of the above VALID MELDS, you HAVE to put them aside and roll the remaining dice ... You DO NOT HAVE to put aside all the valid melds you got ... VALID MELDS that are put aside are frozen and you cannot add dice to them to increase their point value and they cannot be used in next roll ... example: you rolled 6-6-4-3-1-5 ... you may put aside 6-6, single 6 or single 1 (or combination of them)... assume you put aside 6-6 ... you re-roll remaing dice ... and you got 2-2-1-5 ... you put aside 1 as a valid meld ... roll again 3 dices ... you got 4-4-4 and put them aside (valid meld) ... so what you got so far is 6-6 1 4-4-4 = 55 points ... here is an important TURN ... since you used all 6 dices to get valid melds you HAVE to roll all of them again, but don't worry , your 55 points roll over with you to the next round ... you roll 6 dice again ... and TADA !!! you didn't get any valid melds, for example 5-4-3-3-2-2 ... you LOOSE your 55 points and the next player take his turn ...

let's say you rolled 5-5-5 1-1 4 ... you put aside 5-5-5 and re-rolled 3 dice ... and you got  2 3 5 ... again, you lost your turn since 2 3 5 are not valid melds and instead of collecting 45 points for 5-5-5 (15 +30 premium) you got nothing ... BUT WAIT, in Farkelek you may stop rolling any time you want ... and in our case you may collect 45 points for 5-5-5 and stop rolling ...

Important:

1. You stop rolling whenever you want and collect points (with the exception when you used all 6 dice for valid melds)

2. You keep rolling as long as you want, providing you are getting valid melds in each and every roll

3. In case of 1s and 6s you cannot extend your frozen melds to get a premium ... example: you put aside 6-6 for 12 points and in the next roll you got another 6-6 ... you cannot combine this two valid melds into one and get 40 points premium ... the same applies to other numbers ... when you get 4-4-4 in first roll you cannot combine with it another 4-4-4 from the next roll to get the highest premium of 120 points for 6 in a row ... your points will be in this case only  84 points (4-4-4=12+30=42 plus another 42 points for the second set of 4-4-4) ... 

4. Game of FARKELEK can be played to 1000, 2000 or more points.

5. When the first player (the one who started the game) reaches the goal of 1000 points, the other player has ONE MORE turn ... this is very important feature in the farkle family of games ...

Hope you like it ... it's a very exciting game ... therer are many, many home based rules and you may read about them on the internet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farkle

Andy.

I was always curious why nobody plays backgammon for points ... we have 15 checkers and eventualy we get them all home, leaving opponent with some of his/her checkers in the field. Score can be anything from 15:0 to 15:14 ... game can be played to 30, 45, 60 or more points ... or if we take only net points, the goal should be lower ... 15:0 can be counted as double points giving 30 points for the winner ... doubling cube can be easily incorporated into this system of scoring ... I think it can be more exciting to play for points rather than for won game only, since every checker would count toward the final score ...

Just an idea, what do you think ?

Andy.