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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At http://www.chessbox.de/Compu/schachsmirf_e.html there is a free SMIRF version to be downloaded, which might work also under Linux Wine or Mac Crossover. Maybe some are interested to get some experiences. Feedback at best to my email address.
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: 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: 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.
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.
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:
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.
jerom: well, as I have told before, it is hard to meet there someone. There is no jour fix, where attempts to find other player could be bundled. I suggested to enter at full hours, but even you refuted such a simple proposal ...
jerom: Because it is hard to meet there someone, I would suggest to try a logon there at full hours. The chances will grow then to find there more than only yourself.
CryingLoser: Thank you for this comment. But I simply have tried to publish a downwards compatible extension to chess to give a durable drosophila to chess programming. If it should be detected to be interesting and playable also for human players, the better it is. In any case 10x8 chess will become more and more interesting to the public, simply because Chancellor and Archbishop are the logical completion to the traditional chess piece set. This is, because the three basic piece gates of Knight, Bishop and Rook therein are completed by all their paired combinations.
CryingLoser: Of course it is interesting to read that top players are interested in playing such 10x8 Chess games based on Capablancas extended piece set. If Mr. Fischer is remembering his own invention Chess960 (he himself has named it "Fischerandom"), he should be highly interested in playing CRC (Capablanca Random Chess). But as usual sponsors have their influence in the variant selection for attractively honoured chess match events.
ChessCarpenter: Indeed such table bases are of noticable theoretical interest, and usually a good marketing argument, too. ;-) My opinon on such tables is, that they should stay away from valued games. Moreover, most games, wherein ever table bases could be successfully used, were already decided before that stage has been reached. Nevertheless having such tables could be of remarkable productive usability for answering questions of endgame theory. Thus the place for using them should be in post game analyses only.
ChessCarpenter: Hi CC. I am not sure, what this discussion should be good for. My informations have been different to yours, but being the same concerning the multiprocessing version. The 64 Bit version nevertheless seems to be at hands as to be seen in that link to the Vortex order offer. If the speed difference (and its not mentioned big RAM size) would be without influence on the game results, then the question would be, why to use that then. If Vortex really should have gained its last six victories using a 32 Bit engine, that would find my full respect.
All that does not change the fact, that the amateur one man project of a multivariant SMIRF engine actually could not defeat current Vortex playing under those conditions. Nevertheless it is true, that the improved SMIRF has won those mentioned games against available prior versions of Vortex, where there also has been one newly installed only time limited Gold version, which has been the number one last year.
But those wins have been mentioned not to claim SMIRF now to be the number one program, but to underline its made progresses and also to provoke the releasing of a free testing version of the new Gothic Vortex program, which I still have not at hands, whereas SMIRF indeed is available in a free basic donationware version to everybody, which program could be used for testing and comparing purposes simply by giving it a plus of actually about 60% time.
As long as there is nothing comparable from Vortex to be downloaded, nobody but the purchasers of the new Vortex program would be able to test both engines playing Gothic Chess under equal conditions. But a test also should include a competition on 10x8 Capablanca Random Chess, Janus and Embassy. To focus merely on Gothic Chess is not appreciating SMIRF's 8x8 and 10x8 multivariant abilities.
Ändrat av SMIRF Engine (20. september 2006, 10:19:35)
swordswisher: "Same program?" Put that question to those, who could answer it, because that seems to be highly relevant for you. I myself do neither own the current Gothic Vortex program offered there nor the one, which has been used at the matching online server. Moreover, even a 60GB table base size could be called huge. Table bases always are growing, so it is recommended to characterize their size rather by their logarithms. Thus from 32GB upwards their log is nearer to 1TB than to 1GB, and thus it makes sense to talk of Terabyte sizes.
Ändrat av SMIRF Engine (20. september 2006, 08:35:50)
ChessCarpenter: SMIRF has been improved as shown in its game against the renewed ChessV http://www.gothicchesslive.com/javascript/game.php?gameid=1606 . Despite of playing some interesting games there against the rewritten Gothic Vortex, its actually betas seem to be unable to dominate therein. Vortex currently has been rebuilt as a 64 Bit program and uses a matching high speed hardware. This and the lack of a freely available Gothic Vortex program, which would be reflecting its new abilities, make it difficult to compare those programs under equal conditions.
Despite of that Gothic Vortex relaunch done by a professional team and those used different technology, my first written amateur chess engine SMIRF clearly has shown its underlying intelligence. Be aware, that in those games a 60KB sized SMIRF multivariant engine without any opening library was facing a huge specialized system consisting of a nearly 8MB big program and an almost Terabyte sized set of looking up tables.
Now SMIRF needs to leave its first extemporized structures and to be rewritten in a second rethought amateur approach, which will need a lot of my rare spare time. Actually an X-UCI engine twin of SMIRF is planned to be written for to enhance SMIRF's testability using common 8x8 UCI GUIs.
Remember, there is a free download possibility of SMIRF's basic donationware version at: http://www.chessbox.de/Compu/schachsmirf_e.html , showing that SMIRF just has won a main prize in the latest C++ programming contest sponsored by Borland.
Beren the 32nd: a) I did the analysis from an already passed starting position, where the suggested 'best' move moreover has not been selected. Thus I have not seen any problem to post it now. b) When SMIRF is playing here, the selected time depends on what I intend to test. That also means, that always changing releases and betas are playing. But normally SMIRF is not thinking longer than two minutes for a move. Nevertheless, if opponents take some days a move, SMIRF also will get the chance to think about up to 15 minutes. c) SMIRF has become a donationware in its basic version according to the rules to a Borland sponsored programming contest, where it just has won one of the prices. It still will be improved, but it needs to be rewritten completely - it is my first playing chessprogram yet. But first I try to finish a UCI engine twin to SMIRF, hoping, there will be a matching UCI GUI supporting 10x8 chess too one day. Download at: http://www.chessbox.de/Compu/schachsmirf_e.html
JinkyOng: I don't know, who you are. I am someone of actually few, who still are respecting R.J.Fischer. As an example I wrote a book on FRC in my German language, promoting his ideas. Who ever you might be, acting like a stealth bomber, you will have to live with being misunderstood.
Are you still talking about the Marble Roll Contest, MRC? What is the whole peekaboo good for? And why starting an 8x8 discussion in a 10x8 variant forum? Is that a promising way to find a real strong blitz opponent in a 10x8 slow chess department? Nothing but humbug!
Walter Montego: Walter, the current speculation seems to be to regard "Jinky Ong" to be Bobby Fischer. In opposite to that I tried to stop that speculation, giving hints, why I cannot agree with that presumption.
Walter Montego: Actually I regard "Jinky Ong" to be a parallel identity of someone well known. If it would be someone else than Fischer, who would benefit from such a speculative discussion?
If it would be Bobby Fischer, he would be intelligent enough to hide any associations between that artificial person and himself. But here there are too many obvious 'evidences':
a) Jinky Ong locates himself at Island;
b) his pseudonym could directly be related to R.J.Fischer;
c) he is imitating parts of Fischer's behaviour and vocabulary;
d) he is declaring to be the GothicChess No. One, defeating 'weaky' Ed Trice.
If I had to decide, who would act like that - Fischer or Trice - I rather would chose Ed.
Pythagoras: In any case "Jinky Ong" is by no means a randomly chosen name.
P.S.: 'Jinky Ong' is the name of a Philippine girl, who had been supposed to be Robert J. Fischer's daugther, which has been reported as denied by her mother.
Caissus: Exactly as Beren the 32nd already has stated, there have been some positions, where a pair of Bishops was targeting the opposite King and King's Pawn. Actually I have not stored the numbers, sorry.
Beren the 32nd: Well, the advantage exceeded 1/2 pawn unit, but still sank, when calculating longer and deeper. Normally the advantage should be around 1/4 pawn unit, which seems quite normal and acceptable.
Because it is too risky to move Queen or Archbishop that early cross the whole board, it seems to be sufficient to separate the bishops. Moreover there have been only few such extreme starting arrays, so the added rule hopefully should be sufficient to limit possible starting advantages. Now there still are 12118 different starting arrays.
Thus the current SMIRF download also gives now the modified SMIRF beta with engine 1.59.
After experimenting with CRC for several months I detected that there could be some special positions, which might be too advantageous for white. They belong to a subclass of positions, where the pair of bishops is neighboured. Thus I as the author have decided to add the following selection rule: 'positions with neighboured bishops have to be avoided.' There 12118 positions still are remaining.
HalfPawn: "I don't understand." That is explaining a lot.
"You say SMIRF is the best." Where did I?
"You say SMIRF fears no 10x8 program." A program is a piece of software. To compare software efficiency, the technologie of used hardware should be at a comparable level. Moreover 10x8 is not only Gothic Chess. Do not mix up Ed Trice with his program. How can I trust a person, who does not care on his announcement to send me a maximum license? Why should I help a person to promote its top product, whereas I am multiply banned and attacked?
"But you won't play against the new version of Vortex." Where did I have taken that position? Who are you, to try driving me to a decision?
First it should be clear, that it has been HalfPawn, which introduced that question here, to provoke a matching discussion and probably to raise traffic in the GC forum.
The goals of Gothic Vortex and SMIRF are very different. While Vortex is trying to accumulate everything like information and hardware power to maximize its GC ability, SMIRF is trying to cover a lot of functionality with as few means as possible. This reflects a different philosophy on how a chess program should work.
Now to ask simply, which program would play better Gothic Chess, stems out of Ed Trice's world. Whereas I would like to also focus on SMIRF's playing multivariant ability.
Thus my conclusion is, it seems to be a very central point for Ed to have the NUMBER ONE Gothic Chess program. According to that he is interested to prove that from time to time, to use it as an additional marketing argument. But one problem is then, that there is a lack of relevant opponents to make Vortex' victory as big as possible. So he is inside a dilemma to make GC attractive for other programmers but not to make his 'patent' on it less important.
The current discussion is a result of the wish to celebrate such a show down again. HalfPawn does his job here as an agent provocateur. It is on me to decide whether to participate in that spectacle or not. In any way it could be no motivation for me to simply serve Ed's vanity.
Pythagoras: Personally I think, that huge engame tablebases would not significantly decide the outcome of a game. Maybe 0.1% of all games could benefit. But to demonstrately use them is an indicator of panic.
Contrary to that big opening books normaly have a huge influence on chess games. But listen, it is very important to first develop a kind of intelligent playing program, relying on its own. Chess knowlegde should be the (timely) last thing to be added to a chess engine. SMIRF is not at all in a final development stage. Thus it would be much too early to implement such moves. Programs, which play badly without opening books, have been "completed" too early.
Actually I have an idea, where the difference in SMIRF's playing strength concerning 8x8 and 10x8 could be caused. It has to do with the method I reuse cached data in SMIRF. So I have some ideas how to improve SMIRF one more time - so I hope.
Ämne: Re: Machines that play Gothic Chess as compared to other Bird's Chess variants set ups
Walter Montego: Ed Trice actually is coquetting with his huge tables and a 64 Bit multiprocessor engine. He must have seen a real necessity to pimp up his Gothic Vortex program. The truth is, SMIRF's engine actually measures only 60 KB and Gothic Vortex's persistant data probably about 10 GB or more. That is as if in a battle one SMIRF soldier has to face about 175,000 Vortex enemies, additional CPU difference still ignored. So there must have been a tremendeous panic after being beaten one single time by SMIRF.
Pythagoras: Well, Comet and Arasan seem to be well fitting opponents. Thus negative experiences using SMIRF should give hints, where it needs to be improved.
Pythagoras: "Halfpawn: ... There is only one way to tell which program is the best. ..."
Because he wanted to find out, which program would be best, I suggested CRC. Of course alternatively every variant, one program of both is able to play, could be examined one after the other.
So get well, Pythagoras, I hope for you to be ok soon!
HalfPawn: There is only one way to tell which program is the best. Play a match.
If you will inspect Chessvariants.com, you will notice, that nearly all accepted 10x8 Chess variants based on Capablancas extended piece set could be regarded as a direct or mirrored CRC starting array, even Gothic Chess and Embassy. To investigate, which 10x8 program is playing best, thus playing CRC would be the ideal method.
Despite Ed Trice has announced half a year ago in his GC forum to send me a maximum time frame license for Gothic Chess, until now nothing such has ever reached me. So who could benefit from SMIRF only playing GC?
Ed has tried to convince other programmers to establish a common protocol to enable 10x8 chess programs to play automatically games. But he ignored some proposals to specify it in a more general way to make it usable for all 10x8 variants, not only for Gothic Chess. It has been obvious, that he was fearing his Vortex to be challenged within a playground without his huge opening library at hands.
Facing an already strong SMIRF he changed the conditions of his tournament, no longer offering a big price money. Even if a possible Iranian participant would have played then, he as a winner could have spent the money e.g. to the US Red Cross, obeying the rule, that the money has not been allowed to go to the Iran.
Pythagoras: Well, my current SMIRF MS-158 is again noticable stronger than the still to be download version MS-156. Real fans could make a serious project donation e.g. via PayPal to get a permanent key, of course valid also for coming versions. So additional testing is not at all absolutely impossible. I would suggest a testing at least with SMIRF's preset "rapid" timing. Playing Chess960 games would be a fair approach.
HalfPawn: You can't declare that you are the winner of a game because at the break it has a better score. Did I? All I said was, that SMIRF has no need to fear such programs.
You lost every game to Gothic Vortex except for one So what? And have you ever noticed, that Gothic Vortex had used up to the 5 fold amount of time compared to SMIRF in the two GC forum games? And have you compared the development time being put into those programs?
Pythagoras: Time control was 10 seconds per move with 256 Hash for both
Well, SMIRF is not a blitzer by design. Nevertheless it cannot stand against such 8x8 programs yet, even version MS-158. Remember, it is my first approach. I am already happy to gain such advantages as against you. ;-)
SMIRF+UCI: Already I have so much ideas and improvements in my head, that I would not yet need help for that. Nevertheless I could use extern experiences and strength estimations. It seems more important (if I would do anything big at all), to make SMIRF 64 Bit aware. That is not easy because its GUI is built with Borland Builder, which is still not supporting 64 Bit for C++.
HalfPawn: "Since you "ran away" from the tournament, ..." No, it has been no tournament, because its rules were not sufficient to cover the raised problems. Instead of completing the rules, pressure has been put on me. So the only method for me to end this chaos had been to resign.
... you should challenge either ChessV ... so is it still alive? On its sourceforge site forum posts will not been answered at all.
... or Vortex ... As a reaction of a current posting of Ed: "You are mentally ill"? Well, the world is obviously strange.
... it was announced that there is a 64-bit parallel processing version of Gothic Vortex ... Well, so much power seems to be necessary to beat a new born single CPU 32-Bit amateur program SMIRF.
Pythagoras: Most programs playing Winboard or UCI base on open source activities of many years by many people. Thus the level to be noticed as a relevant program is very high now. Nevertheless SMIRF is a completly genuine approach it probably would reach a level of about 2600 Elo now after 3/2 years of serious development, divided between GUI and engine. The whole scene currently is talking about rybka, so no interest is left for 8x8 and 10x8 combining approaches. Seeing SMIRF's 8x8 abilities seperatedly would do harm to its new concept.
I have not the time, to develop a competitive UCI GUI covering 8x8 and 10x8 chess, moreover seeing no other writers intending to release GUI-less 10x8 engines.
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