Sam has closed his piano and gone to bed ... now we can talk about the real stuff of life ... love, liberty and games such as Janus, Capablanca Random, Embassy Chess & the odd mention of other 10x8 variants is welcome too
For posting: - invitations to games (you can also use the New Game menu or for particular games: Janus; Capablanca Random; or Embassy) - information about upcoming tournaments - disussion of games (please limit this to completed games or discussion on how a game has arrived at a certain position ... speculation on who has an advantage or the benefits of potential moves is not permitted while that particular game is in progress) - links to interesting related sites (non-promotional)
EdTrice: Sliding scale: In Smirf average exchange values are constant. But the positional influence will vary automatically, thus I have not to rebalance those values. When a piece is captured, the evaluation is not only reduced by the exchange value, it will be positionally recalculated.
Pawn Races: Smirf has included a simple estimation of passed pawn values - still not perfect.
Castling awareness: Castling is not individually analysed, it will be selected automatically by positional considerations only, independent e.g. from castling moves.
trying to teach Vortex: I am very distant to such approaches. Because it is nearly impossible for a chess master to describe what exactly he is doing during his considerations. I think that something like this might lead into a conceptual chaos. But why not give it a try? I am on the opposite way, trying to 'feel' the needs of a 'frustrated' and 'madly' working machine, to reduce the needs of its job (danger, could lead to paranoia).