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)
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mahavrilla: Even though this site has been bringing other non-chess games to this site, the site owner at heart is a chess player (as the 34 chess variants on this site can show)
So a good chess variant probable has a very good chance of being brought here. Does anyone have a good link to some good rules for the game?
Anybody like to try it the old fashioned way with notion by email or email on this site? I have not played a complete game although had seen a few games scores that were posted by Bruce Harper.
mahavrilla: Sadly, I don´t think so, lately Brainking is only hosting no-brainers (Dice Chess, Behemot Chess, Ludo, etc) or member´s inventions which mostly are boring or flawed (one side has huge advantage)...
Anybody have a chance to try out Seirawan chess? I know it is an 8x8 variant technically, but it does use the B+N and R+N movers found more frequently in 10x8 or 10x10 variants.
Paladin is another name for a B+N mover at least according the the http://chessvariants.org website. Having a R+N mover at the edge or close to the edge of the board would avoid having a couple of pawns unprotected at the beginning of the game, which is one criticism that Janus chess and some other 10x8 variants recieve.
I think the chess variants site also has in the zillions of games engine a big board variant that does use two R+N movers, but I can't remember its name. I think traditionally it has been more typical to mix the two pieces like in Embassy or Gothic Chess rather than having two of the same. Carrera's original 1617 suggestion contained an array similar to Janus chess, but had the R+N mover on the same side of the board as the king. More recently Aberg's variant of Capablanca Chess has used a similar arrangement, but with free castling. (The king and rook can interchange with each other anywhere along their castling path.) However Janus chess seems to work pretty well and maybe a variant with two R+N movers would as well.
Changing the subject slightly, In my view variants the 10x8 variants that move the minor pieces in closer to the middle of the board have sharper and more concrete opening play. Where the minors are further from the center like in Embassy or Gothic chess you often have to spend another move to have them properly developed, which slows the opening play down somewhat.
I once heard about a game called "Palladan Chess, I believe. It was set up the same as Janus Chess except for having two Arhcbishops (Januses) it had two Chancellors (Palladans).
mahavrilla: O-O (two "O" symbols) will bring the King on the second square from the right side. O-O-O (three "O" symbols) will bring the King on the third square from the left side. The involved Rook will be placed then at the King's inner neighbour square. This is similar to how castling is performed in traditional chess or in Chess960.
mahavrilla: Here on BrainKing, the number of running games (see http://brainking.com/en/Statistics?p=2):
67. Janus Chess 120 73. Embassy Chess 96 117. Capablanca Random Chess 41
mahavrilla:How does one generate an acceptable random position in Capablanca chess without a computer?
I suggest using a standard 6 sided die.
First place all pawns on the 2th (7th for black) row. Then fill the first (eight for black) row using the rules below.
First place the a bishop on a white square using the following technique. Roll the die. If you roll a six, re-roll (keep re-rolling till you don't roll a six). Count that many white squares from the left and place the bishop there. Do the same thing for black squares.
Now we are going to place the queen and the archbishop. One of them has to be placed on a white square, the other on a black square. Roll the die; if you rolled even, the queen goes on white (and the archbishop on black), otherwise the queen goes on black (and the archbishop on white). Roll the die, re-roll a five and a six. Count that many white (or black depending on the odd/even roll) squares from the left, skipping squares containing a bishop, and place the queen. Do the same for the other coloured squares and the archbishop.
You now have six unoccupied squares left. Roll the die. Count that many unoccupied squares from the left. Place the Chancellor on this field.
Roll the die again, re-roll on a six. Count that many unoccupied squares from the left, place a knight here. Roll again, re-rolling on a five and a six. Count that many unoccupied squares from the left, place the other knight here.
You know have three unoccupied squares left. Place the king in the middle of the three. Place the rooks in the remaining two.
This requires at least 8 throws of the die, and 10.1 throws on average.
mahavrilla: there is no identified K-side. As in traditional chess the King is moving to the c-file when castling O-O-O (three squares from a-side) or he is moving to the i-file when casting O-O (two squares from j-side). The involved rook will be placed upon the kings' inner neighbour square. Thus the resulting castling positions of K and R are identical (seen from outer sides) as known from traditional chess or from Chess960 / FRC.
Walter Montego: Thanks! I recommend reviewing last game: Embassy Chess (panzerschiff vs. tenuki) which involves a knight sacrifice with black pieces at an early stage of the game.
Congratulations tenuki on winning the Second Quarter 2006 Embassy Chess tournament. Wow, that can take some time, can't it? I'm glad I set the playoff to two wins. Three can take along time.
Walter Montego: You wrote: "It's way too much trouble for me to try to play through it at home without a 10 × 8 board and pieces."
You could download a Donationware version of SMIRF from http://www.10x8.net/down/SmNewSetup.exe. This will give you the cance to cut and paste the PGN and to replay it at the SMIRF GUI then.
SMIRF Engine: Did SMIRF win this game? The link no longer has a game board that I can play through to see how the game was played. Is there another place or link for that? It's way too much trouble for me to try to play through it at home without a 10 × 8 board and pieces.
Walter Montego: Hi Walter, before executing 24.Nxe5 SMIRF calculated in 08 min 28.4 sec on level 13 with the first to be tested move (intermediate best candidate) within this level an advanrtage of 2.496 pawn units, if White would proceed with this suggested move. But the question concerning a move 29 is unclear to me.
SMIRF Engine: I hadn't thought of using a program to check the moves. Thanks for entering it in. After the 29... P-J6, how does SMIRF have it scored? Is this the evaluation? 08:28.4 (13.01=) +2.496 Is this before move 24, or after move 29?
SMIRF Engine: That's all right Reinhard. I sometimes am on the winning side. :) I played through those moves and it looks like Black would get a Rook and I'dve taken a Pawn and a Bishop. All those pieces would be lined up on C7 too.I didn't think of this line that your program did, but when I finally gave up trying to find a move I rationalised going for it as I'd at the least just be down the exchange of a Rook for a Bishop and I have his King exposed with me also having a passed Pawn. With SMIRF's moves I'd have the Knight on G6 too and he wouldn't be easily dislodged.
All these pieces can get quite overwhelming looking for moves. I imagine with a clock running it'd sort out the masters in a hurry.
Walter Montego: Hi Walter! After about ten minutes of thinking the current SMIRF Engine is regarding your opponent White to be about 2.5 pawn units better and would be expecting:
Here's the game after my opponent's 23rd move. I took the Pawn with the Knight and left the Rook for the taking. Lots of things can happen. It went the way I was planning, but I'm not sure if my opponent had better moves or not. He didn't take the Rook right away as he must've saw that I had some serious threats coming. The Rook was indirectly guarding my action on E5 with a threat of moving to D8 if lots of trades started happening. So he took the Knight and I took the Bishop. Then he took the Rook. I took the Pawn on C7 throwing a check on his King. I think I had 'im beat at this point, but he could just move his King instead of taking the Bishop with his Marshall pinning it there for my Pawn to do the deed. What do you think?
Beren the 32nd: Apologies, although it seems no-one has pointed out my mistake. I get those clever sisters confused sometimes. It is Susan's younger sister, Judit, who is the best female chess player ever. Susan is just as famous though. So you don't have to be playing in super GM tournaments to quickly learn the rules of GC and then give Mr T a good beating. There's hope for us all.
tenuki: Thanks for the link. We cannot say too much about GC on this site can we? But your link led me to this link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_Chess, which although it is about GC, actually contains some great insights into the differences between 10x8 chess and standard chess. To top that, it also has an annotated game where the best female chess player ever demonstrates her enduring talents by trouncing Trice at his own invention! Susan, please give up beginners chess and promote the adult version: 10x8 chess - thanks in advance.
SMIRF Engine: Thank you for this detailed news, and good luck with Octopus. I think quite a few people here will be interested if you give us an occasional update on how it is going. All the best!
Beren the 32nd: well, I posted following to one interested person:
well, because of series of attacks against my SMIRF project in some fora I decided to no longer publish my web site as it has been done. May be it would be redesigned as a closed shop site providing special users with access rights. But at this moment it has been closed and redirected to:
OCTOPUS is proceeding very slowly. I have not that much time and motivation. Moreover I am actually rethinking a combinatoric and recursive TSP solution covering more than 30 points in all symmetric and even strange cases.
Octopus will have a different floating piece evaluation depending on the average of empty squares and two parts of constant individual piece values: a static part and another part related to the board's emptiness.
It seems as if there would be a UCI engine first, which then would be not at all Mac specific, that is, it could be compiled for PC, too. But because I do not want to publish it because of missing 10x8 supporting GUIs, there might be the chance of releasing it to some selected testers then.
(It will need to also write an own 10x8 / 8x8 UCI GUI later what I will do for the Mac then.)
There would be a note then at that blog how to contact me for participation. But I am unsure, whether that could happen still in 2007.
Moreover I currently do no longer provide English translated pages at the web, because no English speaking chess pro- grammer had followed my bilingual approach all that time.
As this board has indeed been a bit dead I'll post a recent Embassy Chess game: Embassy Chess (Walter Montego vs. Beren the 32nd) My honourable opponent was playing better than me, probably even up to move 34, when I suddenly had a forced win despite having less material. For someone new to 10x8 chess, the end of the game might be worth looking at. It's a good example of going in for the kill with all your pieces. Also note the 'pins' involved.
jerom: I think he means log on there at the "o'clock" time ... say 4:00pm, 5:00pm, 6:00pm etc rather than randomly at say 4:23pm, 5:17pm, 6:49pm.
In any case this is the sort of discussion which would best be undertaken by private mesages in future please, particularly as it refers to another website.
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