Omega Chess's extra peices are soooooo unchess like in their moves;that it is just not very interesting to me. However, the extra peices in Gothic Chess seem to complete the combination move capability of the chess peices that regular chess never got around to doing. I believe Gothic is not only the most interesting variation of chess ever invented;but it is the most playable and complete variation. Although,you had better adjust and realize that normal chess ideas will not always work in Gothic Chess;because of these new peices.

Have you played chuushogi? I suspect it's the largest chess over which one can hope to conduct a whole-board strategy. It's not a game I like but very impressive when contested between strong opponents.

discussion about Gothic Chess,games.tournaments,related intrests,or to find new opponents"
all seems reasonable to me.
So I see no reason similarities cannot be discussed.

A larger board tends to "dilute" the strength of the pieces. As an exaggeration to make a point, imagine a 5x5 board, and a board 100x100.

Place a queen near the center of each "empty" board. On the 5x5 board, the queen has 4 horizontal, 4 vertical, and 4 diagonal (x 2) moves. It can reach 16 of the 25 squares. 16/25 means it can cover 64% of the board in one move.

You can see on the 100x100 board, with 10,000 squares, there is no way it is going to reach 6,400 (64%) of these squares. It will reach (100-1) x 4 = 396. You can see 396/10,000 is a very small fraction.

In this sense, pieces on a smaller board are stronger since they have a greater "density".

Quite, yet we have the excellent game of Kyoto shogi on a 5x5 board and the utterly trivial game of gogo shogi on a similar board. Chuu shogi is played on a 12x12 board with a wild array of diverse pieces incuding the lion and two other promoted forms capable of two distinct moves at one turn. Th tactical possibilities extend well beyond those available to pieces with chess movements and the larger board size, as pointed out by Gothic, 144 vs 64, gives a far wider strategic challenge.

Although i don't know the game of Ghuu Shogi, i have to say that a bigger board with even more tactical abilities is not always something good and more fun. In fact there is a limit on the board and on the branching factor of the game, and after that human brain is incapable of playing a good game. A 12x12 board with many new pieces create a dizzy brain......

I think Gothic Chess board 10x8 is the upper limit for a human in order to play a competitive game without blundering all the time.....

Just my opinion.........

For sure, as I suggested in an earlier post chuu, with a C, maybe the limit at which humans can conduct a whole board strategy, as it has been played by among others Oyama, I think it's viability is incontravertable.

<First of all i completely disagree with your previous post. You tried to prove or anyway to give some explanations about: "why a larger board tends to "dilute" the strength of the pieces" and that "pieces on a smaller board are stronger". These two statements CAN NEVER be proven as true or false since they are not defined properly. The reason for that is simple:

These two statements have the expressions: "dilute the strength of the pieces" meaning "reduce the strength of pieces" AND "are stronger".
These 2 expressions are not real and have no meaning since words like "stronger" WITHOUT the "in comparison to" OR the "than that of" are pointless.

Now if you meant: "pieces on a smaller board are stronger than a bigger board", we have again something not very logical since we compare how strong the pieces are in 2 differents boards-worlds. This has no meaning.


What we have to do is simple: If with one way we have that in one game (G-1) (with a board size LxK) we have the values for the pieces:
Piece-X1 = E1
Piece-X2 = E2
.............
Piece-Xn = En
(the values E1,E2,...,En has been at a increasing order.)

and in another game (G-2) (with a board size (L+H)x(K+G)) the values are:
Piece-X1 = R1
Piece-X2 = R2
.............
Piece-Xn = Rn
(the values R1,R2,...,Rn has been at a increasing order.)

Then to have a valid comparison of the strength of every piece (suppose the Piece-Xz) at G-1 in comparison with the same piece in the game G-2, we should compare the Ez/E1 and Rz/R1.

What this means is that in order to compare the strength of every piece at G-1 in comparison with the same piece at the G-2, we compare the relative value of the piece in relation with another piece(Piece-1 for example) at game G-1, with the relative value of the piece in relation with the same piece(Piece-1) as before, at game G-2.


But although not very logical, even if you meant "pieces on a smaller board are stronger than a bigger board" the below procedure you used is wrong.


>You can see on the 100x100 board, with 10,000 squares, there is no way it is going to reach >6,400 (64%) of these squares. It will reach (100-1) x 4 = 396. You can see 396/10,000 is a very >small fraction.

I disagree to your example as a proof for that. And in fact i can find reasons at your example that contradict to your conclusion-statement.
I disagree as a proof because while the Queen on a bigger board covers less percentage of the board, the same exists for the other pieces also.

And altough with a first thought we can say that the Queen covers a smaller percantage of board, so it's weaker, when we compare her power to that of Pawns at 8x8 and 100x100 we can imagine it's much more powerful since with one move it goes from one size to another at every board, while the Pawns at the first case will do 8 centuries, but at the second will do 100 centuries. Also the same exists for the Knights. At a 8x8 board are cats compared to the Ferrari-Queen but on a 100x100 are just turtles.


>In this sense, pieces on a smaller board are stronger since they have a greater "density".

Oh well, you get a feeling for a game and choose by your predilection. Sure you can use arithmatic to demonstrate that gothic's extra pieces dont compensate for the larger board but so what? Some people like gothic chess and who are we to arbitrate their taste? Merely proving it's triviality doesn't detract from it's vulgar appeal.

You are allowed to disagree, of course.

But I gave mathematical backup.

On a larger board, a piece has to be weaker. It just make sense. How long do you think it would take a Queen to mate a King on a board of dimension 100x100?

Does not the amount of moves required to deliver mate correspond to piece "strength"?

If "no", then why does that harderst Q + K vs. K mate more quickly than the hardest R + K vs. K?

If "yes", then how can your larger board, with mates taking longer, back up your claim that a piece is stronger on it?

Put Ben Johnson, the fastest sprinter, on a 200 meter track, and he is deadly. Put him on a marathon course, is he much less likely to be a strong contender?

<>Oh well, you get a feeling for a game and choose by your predilection. Sure you can use >arithmatic to demonstrate that gothic's extra pieces dont compensate for the larger board but so what?

What are you talking about? You are miles away from what i've been saying...........

>Some people like gothic chess and who are we to arbitrate their taste?

I have never tried to criticize anyone of course because he likes Gothic Chess. In fact i'm one of the best supporters of this game!

>Merely proving it's triviality doesn't detract from it's vulgar appeal.

Proving it's triviality?????????? Come on!
Vulgar appeal?????????????? Are you serious?

but one cat certainly has one tail more than no cat - therefore a cat has three tails ... ~*~

Up to you, so gothic falls somewhere between Georg Dunkel's Bushi shogi on a 1x2 board and taikyoku shogi on a 36x36 board, in short nothing special size wise. Nevertheless the game is quite boring, trivial, artificial and as exciting as watching maiden aunts knit socks for their spayed cats.

somewhere between overdoped for 200 meters and underdoped for marathon. ~*~

<>Does not the amount of moves required to deliver mate correspond to piece "strength"?

Absolutely has a relation with the piece strength. But it's not the only factor of course.

And that's the weak part of the "safe check" procedure in order to find the piece values. It only takes into consideration the safe checks a piece can give to an empty board at every opponents King position. Yet the piece values it predicts is amazingly close to that most GM's think.
This is inexplicable and seems incredible to me!

I wonder if a similar method that would calculate the percentage of safe threats of the Rook for example, at every piece, what would give?

Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors. ~*~

Doesn't it it mean a cat has at least three tails but we dont know how many up to infinity whereby the probability of a cat having a definable number of tails is zero plus some negative factor to exclude the one or two?

my apologies - you guyz have fun ... ~*~

Then we've got to worry whose aunt the tails belong to anyway, inheritance is crucial on a dollar a year.

I shall step on that tail at the story board eventually ... :P ~*~

There are a number of techniques we have to try and determine a piece's value. One thing I use to add more merit to the Archbishop is 'safe check' plus 'solo mate' summations. Since the Archbishop can not only deliver a check, but a mate as well, should that not increase its worth?

So, I sum over all the squares where the solo-mate occurs, add that to the sum of checks, then divide by the number of squares (multiplied by king arrangements first, of course.)

Basically, I found Archbishop is like Bishop + Knight plus 2 pawns, while Chancellor is like Rook + Knight plus about 1.25 pawns.

We can't really have "hard values" for the pieces for every scenario.

Two knights in regular chess are 300 + 300 = 600, which is greater than the Rook at 500. But what happens with 0 pawns? The Rook can mate, the 2 Knights can't!

So, you have to turn 2 Knights into "0" with 0 pawns and 0 other pieces on the board, since at best they can draw a lone king.

Clearly 2 knights are stronger than the Rook with most non-zero pawn counts on the board.

But we can debate this endlessly.

My question is, which is stronger?

Knight + Archbishop or Queen?
Archbishop + Rook or Bishop and Chancellor?
Bishop + Archbishop or Chancellor and Pawn?

These are compex issues.

I guess the aunts are knitting cat's tails inumerable.

Suppose 2 cats play the Cat-Gothic Chess game. The Cat-Gothic Chess game has the same rules as Gothic Chess but at every move a cat can give it's turn to the opponent and don't play nothing.

As cats are stupid, can any human say them why this game is not fair and one player may have the advantage, so they should start playing Gothic Chess instead?

counts for the chancellor too - could give
an epaulette-mate even without epaulettes
but I guess you mean without foe pieces as well ... ~*~

Dont be so modest, you have the rudiments of cat chess, go for it.

I have some people on "hide", so I can only assume there are other comments being made. As I have done my best to answer questions seriously, and I have seen some responses which don't make sense, I will leave this discussion for the time being.

on hide also ... but we got used to it, so merely play
hide and seek, while we take care of gothic - and I was
yet far from my best pointing that you're minorly serious ... ~*~

Well "ughaibu" and "danoschek" made some "------" comments.

Well I am not unhiding them to see what they said, I just suggest everyone hide them and pretend they don't even exist.

To all:

Please stay on topic.

Mahalo (Hawaiian thanks),
Thad

Thad, your post was too vague. Name names. Who was off topic, and what was posted that was off topic? We all know not to make off topic posts, so your post supplied no information.

your old notorious misuse of this board for patching personal reality problems ... ~*~

I appreciate your few topic posts without
the olympic games and silly statistics ... ~*~

All comments by myself have been on topic or in response.
Gothic: how do you get to quote my posts to Walter with me on hide?

I reckon that we shall have to live with some non-linearities until
each topic board has the backstage gruntler-lodge implemented ... ~*~

Sorry, Ed. A couple posts (not yours) didn't make any sense to me. Perhaps others understand them and find them relevant to the rest of the conversation. I was hoping that a reminder to stay on topic would encourage those posters to either quit posting messages that aren't understandable or to make their messages clearer.

Thad

I love Gothic's foolishness, digs his own traps and falls in every time.

I have made a formal complaint about your partial and unjustified moderating on the BrainKing board. This isn't the Bagpuss fan club.

the only thing that - imho - makes sense on gothicchess.org
is the tiny tiny chapter Mr. Trice wrote about symmetry in gothic chess ...
he's now just running out of feathers on a snake in his redundancy ~*~ 0:)

but you poor Alpha are proven provocated below
by nasty Omega ... here's a sedativum. Ur welcome ~*~

I post here because I have opinions to express about the game. Sure I dont play it, see my earlier posts.

you really should not dare speak, eddieboy ... ~*~

Oh well, Gothic killed another interesting idea with a few trivial whinging and "off topic" posts, par for the course.

you can't negotiate with two groups of mankind
that is sulking children and terrorists ... good night, and leave me
a few crumbs of him, ugha, I want to eat them on the gameboard ... ~*~

Sure, see tomorrow.

ughaibu,

The following posts were all made here today. None of them seem to make any sense and all seem off topic to me:

"I guess the aunts are knitting cat's tails inumerable."

"Then we've got to worry whose aunt the tails belong to anyway, inheritance is crucial on a dollar a year."

"I shall step on that tail at the story board eventually ... :P ~*~"

I don't think reminding everyone that posts should be on topic and following it up with a second post after someone asked for some clarity qualifies as "unjustified moderating", especially since I haven't censored, edited, banned, and/or hidden any post or person at all. I don't understand what Bagpuss refers to.

Thad

personally I have found that an Archbishop is especially powerful and in many cases would rather have one than a chancellor or queen. One reason is the solo mate, the other is the incredible defensive features it offers by being able to fork attacking pieces while defending. I think that the human brain finds diagonal routed attacks more difficult to deal with than ranks or files. There are so many examples I can think of in Tal's games where he would set up an apparent rook sacrifice, then sac the bish or N as the opponent was bolstering against the open attack..and this is at the GM level!

One more thing, as public service: the word "it's" is a contraction for "it is", so the cat put it's feet in the water is WRONG, the cat put its feet in the water (possessive) is right. Further unwelcome education may be found at http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif

encourages to carrying off-topic posts elsewhere (e.g. story board) is perfectly on
topic, as I do believe, actually - ben johnson though merely stay as nice pointer at more folks who were not very selective by what means special privileges are to be acchieved ... ~*~

The grammar link even has cats for its examples! How'd you ever find that redsales?

I think the Queen is almost always the best piece on the board. Only a particular position would make me trade away a Queen for a different piece.

has anyone patented it yet? nobody move until I see my lawyer