An excellent discussion of the value of the pieces and rationale is given in Andy Soltis' book "Karl Marx Plays Chess"

I see at the bottom of the page that Gothic Vortex will not run at Windows ME.
This is strange since i have ME and it runs?!?!

Or do you mean that the GOLD edition or the NUCLEAR will not run at ME? Damn! Why?

What is the reason for that?

Maybe this is a good time, then, to have a preview of the minimum requirements for this next, high-end version?

Requirements: click here

I played a quick game against Gothic Vortex 1.03 at 30 seconds per move(Me at 20 minutes per 40 moves).
At move 15 i played an astonishing anti-computer sacrifice that Vortex accepted it, although this time, i think it wasn't so happy for it's position after having the material advantage, so i can praise G.V for knowing what was goind on at the game, although not completely.


Me Vs G.V 1.03
1. f2f4 d7d5
2. g2g3 g7g6
3. d2d4 Nb8c6
4. c2c3 Ni8h6
5. h2h3 Bh8f6
6. Ag1h2 e7e6
7. Ni1j3 Ag8e7
8. g3g4?! (It seems that i'm opening my position too much, but actually i just hoped for the move G.V played while i think Bh4 would have caused me many problems.)

8...Bf6g7?!
9. Bh1f3 f7f6
10. Ce1g2 O-O?! (Perhaps another move that G.V should have avoided. Now i have a direct attack. It should have played something, waiting for me, to see where my King will go. If it castled o-o-o then i will be in a very bad form since my attack would paralyse and my King would be in danger.)
11. i2i4! (Attack and not castle!)
11...e6e5
12. e2e3 Bc8e6
13. h3h4 f6f5
14. g4g5 (Now it's getting even harder for black. Is there any defence? Probably yes.)
14...Nh6g4
15. Ah2i3!! (Probably this doesn't worth 2 exclamation marks, but in a game agaist a computer it worths.)

15...Ng4xi3? (I don't know if i have a forced win, but it's too tough for black to find a defence. And especially now that G.V has enough moves that it's difficult to search with a high efficiency.)
16. Bf3xj7+ Ki8j8
17. j2xi3 i7i6
18. Nj3i5! Ae7xg5 (Well i was happy to see this. I thought that something was wrong about my attack but hopefully the desperation of G.V showed me that i was winning.)
19. f4xg5 Bg7xi5
20. Bj7xi6+ Kj8i8
21. Rj1j8+! (Nice! Easy tactics and a well known pattern of course.)
21...Ki8xj8
22. Cg2j2+ Bi5j4
23. Cj2xj4+ Kj8i8
24. Cj4j6+ Ki8i7
25. Bi6xh7 Rh8xh7
26. Qd1i6+ Ki7h8
27. Qi6xh7# 1-0

lol, who has 8 GB of RAM?

8 GB will be a very common configuration in time :) Just because the software is designed to exceed current capacities doesn't mean it will always be that way. Remember, this version of the software is still being written. When it is finished, it will be a monster.

Why does it require so much? The common amount of RAM now is around 1 GB or so, maybe 2 for a high end system. My computer only has 4 slots for RAM, I would have to have 4 x 2GB strips for that.

So Nuclear is a few years down the line?

Are the OTB tournaments only in Phil or are there some in other large cities as well?

Nuclear will probe its endgame databases in RAM. For example, imagine a R+P vs. R ending. Hit "at a leaf node" from a great distance, the evaluation routine cannot search it. The program makes basically a "0-ply guess" at the value of the position, then reports this score back down the tree.


R+P = +600, R = -500, so it will score the position as +100.

The positions might be a dead draw, so the "real score" should be 0. The program, if it is up a pawn many moves from this leaf node, should avoid swapping into it. Instead, the program will play for it, "thinking" it is up one pawn.

Now imagine your Pawn can be on any of 60 squares, your king on any of the 79 remaining, and your Rook on the 78 left from there. The opponent's Rook can be on any of the other 77 squares, and the king will be on no more than any of 76 squares, with about 64 on average due to all the checks that can take place. That would be about 1,821,980,160 positions, x 2 since either side can move gives you 3,643,960,320 positions with just R + P vs. R!

How many of those 3.6 billion positions do you think Vortex can "guess" right with a 0-ply search? Not many.

Now imagine instead of +100 for being up one pawn, Vortex could return +6320 for mate in 80 moves, or 0 for a dead draw, or -6285 for being mated in 115 moves!

This information is PERFECT, no EVALUATION has to be "guessed", and this will greatly effect the way the program will play, even from a great distance!

There are roughly another 3.6 billion Q+P vs. Q positions, and Arch + pawn vs. Arch, Arch + pawn vs. Chancellor, etc, etc.

What you have is about 300 billion positions in a huge database probed in RAM being delivered to the search engine.

There is no way to create an effective buffer with less than 8 GB of RAM, and I would even recommend 16 GB. Macintosh systems now ship with 8 GB on some of their boxes. 64-bit 8x opterons are at the same stage I believe.

This type of knowledge needs RAM, RAM, and more RAM. But it would be soooo cool.

This software is MONTHS away from completion, not YEARS. The databases are already computed and are disk resident. Writing routines to probe it in RAM has never been done, and this is the last step.

The last really big OTB event was in Kansas City at Bartel Hall, over 3100 players.

will it be there again?

1. f2f4 d7d5 2. g2g3 g7g6 3. d2d4 Nb8c6 4. c2c3 Ni8h6 5. h2h3 Bh8f6?!

This is the so-called "Bishop Lunge" problem in the earlier versions of Vortex. The program gets a bonus for being able to reach more squares with its Bishops, so it deploys to the third rank almost in every case. The natural 5...Bg7 seems better.

6. Ag1h2 e7e6

Another shallow search error. 6...Nf5 is much better. The intention is to play ...Nd6 if provoked with pawn play later, perhaps hitting on a white Bishop on e4 if white traded pawns via a push to e4 and bishop recapture. Black also has a counterplay trap: 6...Nf5 7. g4? Bh4! hitting on the white Chancellor. No matter where the Chancellor moves next, 8...Ng3+ is deadly.

7. Ni1j3 Ag8e7?

I like making the exposed Black King a sore point after an e-pawn push. 7. b3 intending the flank Bishop check with 8. Ba3+ would work good for white. After 7. Nj3 Black should simply play 7...Be7 to clear off f6, prepare ...Nf5 and ...Ng7, deploy a better pawn perimeter, and only then, castle.

8. g3g4 Bf6g7?!

There is nothing wrong with white's 8th move, but black should have played 8...Bh4 for some slight counterplay.

9. Bh1f3 f7f6

On 9. g5 black gets the upper hand with 9...Nf5 10. Bf3 h5! After white's 9. Bf3, black has to be careful about castling. 9...0-0 10. g5! Ng8 11. e4! dxe4 12. Bxj7+ Kj8 13. Be2 does leave black with a tough choice. 10...Nf5 leads to the same attack for white. Black's 9...f6 is not best, as the odd-looking 9...Nj5 may do the trick! White can't provoke with 10. i4 since ...Nh4 trades knights favorably. If 10 g5 to cutoff the Queen/Archbishop combo on the dark diagonal, then ...h5 solves all of black's worries (10. i4? hxi4 11. hxi4? Rh8! 12. ixj5 Rxh2 13. Nxh2 Af5 looks odd, but black is better.)

Nice analysis, but what about 15.Ai3 ? Is it a good move or black has a defence? Difficult to answer i know, as there are millions of options but my instinct,without doing any analysis, says that there must be a defence.

But i think it's better for G.V not to take the Archbishop. With this move i gain 2 VERY IMPORTANT things: The open j file that is a "killing" file for black and the open d1-j7 diagonal, which is a "killing" diagonal too. I think these 2 worth way more than my Archbishop. Does newer versions of G.V play this capture too?

Taking the Archbishop leads to a "Mate in 10" announcement when I let Vortex run overnight.

Vortex 1.0.7, which has not been released yet, will not take the Archbishop after only 20 seconds on my 2.8 Ghz computer.

The move 15...exf4! wins for black.

15...exf4 16. Bxg4 fxg4 and white's position is becoming exposed faster than any attack will come forth.

Vortex 1.0.7 or newer, will be the engine that Gold and Nuclear version will have?

Without doing any analysis OTB but only OMB(over my brain), why white has to play 16.Bxg4 and not 16.exf4 ? What black should play after 16.exf4 ?

What about the KC tourny?

I am also curious about the tourney. Will it be held there again soon?

How does a person go about obtaining permission to hold an OTB Tournament;and perhaps becoming a Director? Is this possible for,say VA where I live?

Email me your address Ted, I will send you all the information in the mail. My email is GothicChessInfo@aol.com.

It looks like 17...i6?? was the collosal game-ending blunder. I cannot get my version of Vortex to play this move when I let it play Black. 17...h5 offers the best shot at holding the draw, since after the white Bishop retreats to set up a check by eventually revealing the Rook, the black king has ...Ki8 and then the new retreat square ...Kh7 with the h-pawn pushed.

I will have a new version of the opening book ready by Monday which will allow the program to evade this danger, as well as play some of your outstanding moves for white in the event the positions ever come up.

Nice game George!

<Gothic Vortex thinks about 17...Rg8 for 28 seconds searching up to 9 plies, and then has a fail low to this (+217 -> -30) so it turns to 17...i6 after 48 seconds. And it shows a +135 score after 1:25 for 17...i6 at 9 plies.

My version of Vortex shows 17...i6 through ply 5 (0 seconds) and switches to 17...Rg8 on the next ply. It finds a mate in 9 due to all of the check extensions at only ply 10, so it switches to 17...h5 and sticks with it. Through ply 12 it thinks it can force a repetition draw, but at ply 13 it sees white can still break through and win material, but the play is much more complex and would be hard to find.

Instead of 16.Bxg4 if white plays 16.exf4, black has 16...j5! which seems to hold. White can continue to be coy and let the Archbishop hang even further, but the threat of ...jxi4 starts to take steam out of white's attack. If black gets in ...jxi4 then a follow-up ...h5 would be very strong. The reason is, if white takes the en passant capture with gxh6 e.p., black still has the knight to recapture with ...Nxh6 since white did not play Bxg4.

Vortex Gold had a page missing, as George reported. It is up now.

Is there such a program like chessbase for gothic chess?

Yes. The Nuclear Version of Gothic Vortex will have it first, with over 4,000 games linked to the graphical user interface. As you look at any position during your game or just enter moves in human vs. human mode, it will build, on the fly, a dynamic list of every complete game that had the same position with the same side to move. You can then consult these games with one mouse click, and play through those games, with the list still being built dynamically as you do.

I think a "middle version" between Gold and Nuclear might have to be created. Perhaps a "Gold Plus" will be Gold + the database feature.

Is it possible to unload the engine? Sometimes it's hard to not use it when it's available with just one click. I keep my chess engines including Fritz8 in a seperate place named mind viruses :)

What about a database program without the engine (and a little cheaper) ?

I like GothicChess very much , thanks Mr. Trice.

You mean just sell a gui that does not play Gothic Chess, but has a complete database of the games?

Guess I would have to call that Gothic Vortex Copper Edition :)

Yes, Something like chessbase is a very useful tool. It could be free if you like :)

OK, you pay my developer the $60/hour times the number of hours he works on it, and I will release that version for free.

Deal?

Oh my god, I wish I was a programmer, I wait for a (non free) copper edition,please release it :)

I am thinking if we do release such a version, it will be no more than $10.

fariborz2.. and you too can become a programmer.. actually I think that price Ed quoted.. was awfully fair..

It is still "vaporware" though... that project has not officially started yet.

I always thought people would prefer an engine to play against rather than a collection of games to browse with no opponent.

Not really, there's Chessbase Light, which is free, and then there's the full Chessbase with more capabilities - surely you could do the same, I mean Chessbase's success proves it can be given away for free in a cut-down version...

For those looking for "checkmate puzzles", take a look at the new Gothic Chess article on Chessville, now online at:

http://www.gothicchess.org/chessville/ches
sville_3.doc

or click here to download it as a word file.

The version of vortex that was recently uploaded to "softlookup.com" accidentally has my super-strong version of the evaluation function, but it has the old opening book.

If anyone wants to try this one out, better get it fast!

click here to go to their download site

Well i download it, but the file size is the same with G.V 1.03, so it's the old one:-(

George I don't know why you are equating file size with the program being the same. Even if I add 300 lines of code to the program, it won't change its size once I compile it.

This change was more subtle than that, a new "pruning mechanism" that generates fewer positions in the game tree, but also evaluates the positions better. It plays R + P vs. R + P 10,000 times better than the old Vortex program.

1st article, about 2 Megs

2nd article, 224 K

3rd article, 284 K

There are many different people who enjoys chess in different ways. I'm just an old man who regret old days when there was no computer. Now I can't tolerate clock pressure in OTB games and want to enjoy CC. But unfortuanetly chess engines spoil it.
As you called a tool (which is more valuable for me than an engine) a copper edition , I said to release it free , just a joke :)

I enjoy GothicChess and fortuanetly have found some old friends to play it.
Again Thanks Mr. Trice for inventing it and your hard effort on a silicon monster (although I hate engines)

Who you callin a ****?

Well it is still possible to outdo the silicon machines. here is my chess game against the Deep Thought computer from 1989:

Ed Trice vs. Deep Thought

You can replay this and enjoy!

<>Well it is still possible to outdo the silicon machines. here is my chess game against the Deep >Thought computer from 1989:

Well this is not something i would say a right logic:-)

You have beaten (with an amazing way i can say) a computer at 1989 and you say: IT IS STILL possible to beat the machines.
Since your win was at 1989 you can't conclude from this, that it is still possible. It's obvious i think....

Although i should note, that i don't disagree to the statement about if or not is being possible to beat now the machines.

Two different things, when I play online chess some people cheat , they can give it enough time and with a little intelligence of their own, anti-computer play doesn't work.
I dislike to play with a computer because it doesn't have soul. I can't talk with it, its tactic is perfect, we can't get drunk and play all the night :)

I meant it more like "computers can be beaten", there are not invincible. For example, you beating Vortex :)

ughaibu, I have placed you on hide for your obscene post. If you delete or edit it, I will unhide you.

Thad

<>I meant it more like "computers can be beaten", there are not invincible. For example, >you beating Vortex :)

Well 2 things:
I'm not beating Vortex since i only beat it with white and i lose with black, so we are somewhat even.
And Vortex has a long way to travel at the magic world of Gothic Chess, to be able to reach the level that Chess-engines are today. I could grab some wins from Fritz 1.0 and early versions of Chess Genius, but with todays development and hardware it's almost impossible. I can't win with any way Deep Fritz 8 at quad! The same i suppose will be with G.Vortex. At 8-9 years i wonder if i could still have any wins.


Speaking about your game with Deep Thought at 1989, we should note the following things:

7...Bxf3 was a bad move from D.Thought.
All todays commercial top engines(Shredder 8/7.04/7/6, Deep Fritz 8/7, Fritz 8/7, Hiarcs 9/8, Junior 8/7, Chess-Tiger 15/14, Chessmaster 10000/9000/8000, Gandalf 5, Ruffian 2.1.0/2.0.2) as also ALL free today engines suggest 7.Bxf3 as a bad move IMMEDIATELY and play 7...Nf6 instead.
Shredder 8 for example gives 7...Nf6 a +0.14 only for white while 7...Bxf3 a +1.03.

8...Qxd4 was an awful move according to all todays programs. And they realise it IMMEDIATELY. Shredder 8 for example gives 7...Qxd4 a +1.78 for white in 30 seconds and after 2 minutes a +2.09, while 7...Nf6 a +0.91. A huge difference for those who know. And while 7...Nf6 is almost steady as plies increase, the 7...Qxd4 has a big fail low. Deep Fritz 8 has a little problem on this as it does 19 seconds to realise it's a bad move. Very soon (50 seconds) it sees that it loses.

All this on a poor PIV 1500 MHz. When we speak about 3.2GHz or quads then it's a matter of seconds to see the truth.

These things show that the days that computers was material hunters, belong to the past. Sometimes even todays computers show from where they've come from and play for material but this is happening very seldom.