I think you have both missed the point. There are, I would suggest, three types of variants:
1. Alternative Rules Where a standard, or near standard board is used but the rules are changed which usually emphasises one or more aspects of traditional chess ... examples are suicide chess, atomic chess, extinction chess and loop chess. These result in a limitation of the current strategies and tactics.
2. Alternate Starting Arrangements Using traditional rules but with different starting positions ... examples are Fortress chess and Corner Chess. These result in alternate strategies and tactics.
3. Alternate Boards and/or Pieces These alternatives attempt to expand on the basic tenets of traditional chess ... examples are Gothic Chess, Janus Chess, Grand Chess and Shogi (although a Shogi player may well consider our traditional chess to be the variant!). If main-stream chess is to change it will be into one (or a combination) from this group as they offer teh opportunity to expand the strategies and tactics of the game.

In the end, they all add to our experiences of war gaming with little pieces on a generally chequered board. Chess has always been in a state of change although there have been few changes in recent times. As more people play I think all types of variants will increase in popularity as they explore the bounds of their experience ... and each person will have their favourite(s). If traditional chess is to change it will be a gradual process which may take many generations before it is like gothic or janus

"The" most popular was what was written, certainly "best" would have been a strange claim to make.

I thought it said "One of the most popular variants of chess in the world" in my profile. I don't recall ever changing it to explicitly state it was the best variant in the world, because there is no real way to measure this.

I know for a fact the USCF has a balance sheet of -$2,000,000. I spoke with Grant Perks (can you imagine that is the name of a person seated in the Finance Committee of a failing non-profit??) about the situation, and I recently (one month ago) met with Stan Booz, one of the CPA's working with the USCF. We went over the books of the USCF and he identified the key areas that were the cause of all of its strife.

They spun off the Products & Services sector, an annual $3,000,000 revenue stream, to the highest of 10 sealed bids. They needed about $300,000 immediately in order to get their "Christmas Inventory" in place, which is why I was meeting with Stan.

Stan told me 17 people were let go to reduce the cost of the payroll, some waste/fraud/abuse was discovered by some former high-level officers who are no longer involved. And the "relocation project" where the headquarters was moving was a real nightmare, I will not get into that.

So, yes, things look bad for the USCF.

Okay, so you no longer claim that it's the world's most popular chess variant. I guess you'd be happy to admit that the statement previously displayed on your profile was an exaggeration if you dont want to go as far as calling it an absurdity.

I'd say yes
according to the last rumors, the USCF is on the fast road to commit suicide :(

I just checked online, found some links for Suicide Chess, but no federation or other governing body.

So let's look at some details.

First, we are focusing on the "popularity" of variants, a bit nebulous, but I think we both can agree on some common ground.

I guess my first question is, how many people play Suicide Chess? Is there a way to estimate this? I am not sure "tens of millions" is a viable answer for this variant.

Surely if there were "tens of millions", even if 1% of these players banded together to duke it out regularly we might expect to see a federation formed with some multiple of 100,000 players.

Or can something be very popular and yet have no centralized governing body? I don't think there is a World Jogging Federation, although groups such as the New York Road Runners' Club exist.

I am not sure there is a universal answer. I can quantify sales. I can quanitify interest in the form of email contact and other communications. I can attest to people feeling very strongly about the game of Gothic Chess.

I would think such a combination would allow me to say that this is a very popular variant of chess.

I've no idea.

I was just asking a question. Is there a Suicide Chess Federation?

You consider the existence of a "federation" to demonstrate proof of popularity? There is a federation of Gogo shogi, the first time I ever played the game was in a match for the world championship such is the paucity of players. A federation demonstrates some manner of commitment by the practitioners, it has nothing to do with popularity.

I sold Gothic Chess sets in every state of the USA, every province and territory in Canada, and about 47 other countries at last count. I have post cards from people from all over the world who tell me how much they like the game.

I have a postcard from a U.S. soldier in Iraq saying he saw his supply Seargant playing Gothic Chess, and that he would order one when he returned from active duty.

A scientist at the South Pole Observatory also has a Gothic Chess set.

These are not one-time players, these are zealots who are strong advocates of the game. I have also played suicide chess once or twice, does that mean I am counted in the popularity index? I played it, gave it a try, and don't particularly care for it.

There are many different metrics you can use to gauge something as intangible as "popularity", and I think unsolicited testimonials from many different corners of the globe is a fair measure.

Let's start with a more tangible one. Is there a Suicide Chess Federation?

Tsiang Ki is Chinese Chess, the rest is a matter of demography. How about the popularity of suicide chess compared with that of Gothic Chess.

I am just relaying the message. I interviewed Larry for Gothic Chess review, the quarterly magazine. Larry told me he was the highest rated Shogi player that was not Asian. I do not know if that was a "current" statement at the time of the interview, or if it reflected a previous accolade.

I cannot speak of Tsiang Ki since I am unaware of these Asian variants. I can only relay what I have been told by a formidabe player.

Considered by whom? Larry Kaufman has never been considered to be clearly the strongest occidental shogi player, Glyndon Townend was considered stronger in the eighties and in the nineties the likes of Grimbergen were at least his equal. Tsiang Ki is of course a lot more popular than Shogi, do you also have that as a "stand alone"?

A chess variant is any variation on the game of chess. Shogi is considered a stand alone game by itself. I have played Gothic Chess face to face with the world's strongest occidental Shogi player, Chess International Master Larry Kaufman.

He does not consider Gothic Chess and Shogi to be in the same category.

Strictly a chess variant is played with standard chess men and board, in this catagory there exists suicide chess which has been played at least once by almost every young player. Your game uses a different board and pieces putting it in the same catagory as games like Mak Ruk, Janngi, Shogi and Tsiang Ki, games with tens of millions of regular players.

Why is that absurd?

I'm glad to see that you've removed the absurd claim that Gothic Chess is the world's most popular chess variant from your profile.

1800+ Gothic Tournament

Despite the recent tragedy, the very strong 1800+ Gothic Chess Tournament concluded recently. There was a major upending of ratings as a result of the strong fighting it out with the strong. ChessCarpenter gained the most points, scoring a stunning 6 out of 8 and nearly getting a draw with me. My own personal adversary, nstre (who always plays me tough) managed only 2 out of 8, and Fencer was blanked!

I hope to run some more strong events such as this more often. Those who are in the top 10 that would like to participate in such an event, please let me know.

You can see that the BrainPawn section was hit the hardest, since most made new IDs to participate in this event (which was fine) but now their population has been cut in half. Some people may not even remember all of the IDs they made just for this event, so I am thinking about scrapping it altogether.

Fencer claims below that he can reset the results and that they are known. Any unfinished games may have to be restarted.

What happens now with this tournement and the finished games? Or have we here a restart?

More on the pawn count...

Originally I had the non-captured pawn permutaion count at 774,468,423,574,600,034,220 which, as Thad pointed out, seems a little high. When using the concept of the "rammed pawns" constrained to a rank, there are actually 30 different configurations possible per file.

You can have an unmoved pawn in the a-file on a2, and the black pawn can be one of 5 different squares in the same file, a7,a6,a5,a4 or a3. If the white pawn were on a3, then there are 4 squares for the black pawn, etc.

There are always 5-r permutations for the black pawn for each rank of displacement, r, the white pawn has moved.

So, there are 5+4+3+2+1 = 30 possible configurations per file. The total number of permutations is therefore 30^10, which is 590,490,000,000,000. This is only 590 trillion, a lot less than 774 quintillion!

Yes, as stated on the page, I wanted to calculate a reasonable upper bound that could not be exceeded.

The lower bound can be estimated easily by not placing the kings on the board at the end, and restricting the pawn count as you indicated. It gets messy though, when you consider a position that has a legal en passant capture, even though not executed, can also look the same as a position where the en passant capture opportunity has expired. These identical board setups are actually two different positions.

The same is true of castling rites. If I move my king to the left, then move it back to the original square, but it looks like I can castle, it is really a different position than an indentical setup wherein I have not moved the king.

If someone wants to work out the numbers to that level of detail, they are welcomed to it!

I also made a formula error for the Bishops. I listed them as a summation of a choose formula, rather than of the form (T/2)^2 where T is the total number of vacant squares that 2 opposite color bishops can occupy. The formula should not be T choose 2 as I indicated at the top of the page, since that implies the Bishops can be both on the same color squares.

I did explain this part of the calculation properly but I did not redraw the formula yet.

Ed,

Interesting calculation, but I think you can do better. Since this is only a count of board positions WITHOUT any captures, any given pawn can only occupy one of six squares, NOT sixty, right? Also, once a white pawn is advanced, this decreases the number of available squares for the black pawn in the same rank by the number of squares the white pawn is advanced and vice versa.

What you've calculated is that there are at MOST x board positions without caputres, but what we really need is to know that there are at LEAST x positions. ;-)

Still interesting, though.

Thad

While BrainKing was down, I was counting the number of Gothic Chess positions that were possible. I came up with 32,099,674,107,692,140,366,789,953,222,888,490,987,180,838,400,000,000 positions before any pieces were captured so I know this final number will be huge.

If anyone wants to double check my math, visit...

this link and let me know what you get.

Yes. I can set the correct result for all games that have been finished before the crash and their results are known.

If we finished games and the results are needed for the tournament should they be posted here?

Just a side note - it is better to use relative URLs, e.g. <a href=/game/ArchivedGame?g=98600>Defrag Game</a> to make them compatible with both possible host addresses - brainking.com and www.brainking.com.

Rob's game is at Defrag Game for those that want a quick click.

On the other end of the spectrum, I think I have the quickest game,

mate in 5 which only took 5 moves.

Of interest is that Rob defended a difficult Queen vs. Queen + Pawn ending in his 86 move draw, but in my 74 move win, it was a rather complex Chancellor and Pawn ending, the first time this class of positions was ever reached.

Myself and Defrag1971 played the longest game ever that was completed on September 1st! The game was 86 moves which eclipsed the record which was 74 played by CaissasDream-GothicIventor. The game was a draw which for some people might not seem dramatic, but for us I would say that the game was hard fought and well played. There were probably second best moves played throughout the game, and other than myself losing a pawn which I never was able to win back this game is definitely worth taking a look at!! Game #98600
If anyone knows of a longer game of either one of these please post it.

Thanks

The members and friends of the Killing Machine have been directed to the "Support Us" page. The only bad news is that many of us get lost on the way to the bathroom. :o)

And the collection can be collected here on BK using "Support Us" page :-D

And they said you didn't have a sense of humor!

No, you all have to take up a collection and buy me a Gothic Chess set :)

Ed, will the person who comes in 2nd place win the Gothic Set since it looks like your going to come in 1st!

I sent an email to everyone who registered for the tournament, but one email bounced back, so I guess that was you Felix. Just sent an email to GothicChessInfo@aol.com with your info, and I will send your money back to you.

Felix: The tournaments rules have been changed, there is no more a registration fee and the prize has been raised to $3000. I am sure that if you ask Ed to send the $50 back to you, he will do it.
And the tournament starts on 1st October 2003. You can find more information on GothicChess.org.

I am still waiting for confirmation of my registration in the tournament. I sent in $50, but have not heard any news. When does this start? Today is Sept. 1st, and it is 23:00hrs here in LA, so it's already Tuesday on the East coast where Ed Trice is from.

What's going on?

Thanks Kevin :-)

It's danos' tournament, and there's a link 6 posts down :-)

It would be easier if you add a link to your tournament here.

We need once again four players to start this tournement. Sign in!

Great!

The images on the website were created on my Macintosh with a little program I wrote to save and replay games.

When Gothic Vortex comes out, there will be a free version that just can save and replay games.

A chessboard which supports load/save of PGN format would be the most appreciated one ;)
Usable to review some interesting games offline,
unharassed by server lags.

Of course its a circle, or vortex :P, higher level, more players, more sets sold, more federation members, more incomes etc. Of course now there are some investitions too.
But its not only a business plan, I believe, like your stories about visiting clubs show, you really like the game, as you found something where your talents show. Or perhaps you want to be famous and known to next generations as the inventor/starting setup modifier of a great game and a great player :)

I am looking for some chessboard (for windows)
for gothic chess, as its sometimes better to check some variations on the board instead by memory. I see Zillions of games board mentioned but couldnt find it until now. There is Gothic evolution chess, but if the piece functions change after taking a piece, its not quite the same. And there are also lots of other variants like Capablanca chess, but to avoid of checking and downloading all possible files I am asking here. I need just a chessboard, without engine.
Ed, I see you were using some boards prior to Gothic Vortex, as your screenshots show. But you aint willing to share it, are you? Hope not only business plans with wooden boards and Gothic Vortex are important for you but also overall progress of players strength in the world :P
Just dont be mad on me if something sounds somehow offensive, its not thought that way :)

Every month I ask for annotated submissions from the players here, and I do not get any.

As I review my games, I select the ones with themes that would help explain certain aspects of the game.

I think this approach makes the most sense for the time being, but I always welcome input from other players.

OK Ed, I believe you are the best, but dont occassionally other players deserve to have their
game promoted? :) I am just a mere beginner, but perhaps you could search a way other people can send some candidates, and perhaps some prize awarded to participants of chosen game to encourage players create artworks :))Even in such cases like you present here your opponents would deserve at least whipping-boy prize ;)
Read this with a bit of sense for humor :P