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?

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

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

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

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

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?

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

<>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?

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

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.

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

<>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?

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? 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.

<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".

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.

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.........

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

certainly you mean, since he is the Alpha and the Omega,
an according opinion is to be found at GothicChess.Org also ...~*~

Thanks danoschek, but I wanted to make sure EdTrice saw it. :)

this is a link to the discussion board "other chess variants" ... ~*~

I have been designing a new variant of Capablanca's Chess: RACK Chess. Click on the above link for all details or click here if you just want to see the opening setup. You might want to read the Gothic Chess long answer for comparison, if you have not already. Need I add that my variant will not be patented? :)

If the Omega Chess board makes the queen more powerful than in chess, why does the "safe check" procedure reduce the queen's value? Are you saying that larger boards make pieces more or less powerful?

Well i quickly calculated the values of some of the pieces for Omega Chess according to the "safe check" procedure.

So i calculated that:
Pawn= 1.00 (Definition)
Knight= 1.96
Bishop= 2.99
Rook= 5.00
Queen= 7.99.
(I've done this very quickly and it is possible that it's wrong but i will check it tomorrow).
I don't have time for calculating the Wizard and the Champion but perhaps i will do it tomorrow.

These values differ from that on strategy tips at Omegachess.com.

But i think that their values for some pieces are wrong. Giving the queen a 12 is something that i can understand since the 10x10+4 board makes the Queen even more powerful than in Chess, but not 12 Pawns! It's way too much. Also the Bishop it's not possible to be 4 Pawns while Knight is 2 Pawn-points, since the 10x10+2 board is not enough for this. If this was right then 2 Knights would be equivalent to one Bishop but this is obvious false.

on top of topic and not lazy . 0:) . indeed I took the first chance to
creating a gothic DanoGambit from scratch, here a link to the game -
just for your interest - as seamly, please no analysis yet during its progress ... ~*~

The piece values in Omega Chess (Don't its claims about evolution sound similar to Gothic Chess's?), another large board variant, are given on this page. The values seem confusing, for example, the bishop is described as "4 points. This is a hard call since the size of the board increases the range and power of the bishop..." But in Gothic Chess, I thought the larger board was supposed to reduce the power of every piece? How were the Omega Chess values calculated?

compared to regular chess programs on sophisticated development stages
- but as it's the less spread gothic variation and sort of exclusive (handsigned ?)
it will find buyers for sure - I set my limit for gamerstuff to $50 though, a principle. ~*~

"discussion about Gothic Chess,games.tournaments,related intrests,or to find new opponents"
all seems reasonable to me.

... now isn't that a much nicer deviation from the board's topic? ;)

mainframe toss!! LOL:)
bet theres a few who could enter that!!

Car racing too!

when computer's start boxing...I'll watch!!
my personal preference is one on one matches against "people" jmo

I think Ed means the current version isn't as high-end as the next one - maybe proven by your wins? ;)

OK 10$ is nothing.

But to understand better:
You are talking about an updade and about a high-end version? The updade will be different from this high-end version? And what are the differences?

And you say: "those who buy Vortex now will get......of $10".
I guess you mean: "those who BOUGHT Vortex OR who will buy it now, will get......of $10"
Right?

I played my second game against Gothic Vortex 1.0.3, this time with black, and had an unexpected win. And yet not only this, but for the first time i totally outplayed Vortex with black pieces. The final blow is nice again.

The game was at 1 minute per move for G.V 1.0.3 and 40 minutes for 40 moves repeating, for me.

G.V 1.0.3 Vs George

1. d2d4 Ni8h6
2. Ni1h3 c7c6
3. g2g3 d7d5
4. Bc1f4 f7f6
5. Qd1d3 g7g6
6. Nb1c3 Nb8a6 (Here white seems better....)
7. a2a3 j7j6
8. Bh1g2 Na6c7
9. f2f3 Bh8g7
10. Ag1f2 Ag8f7
11. O-O Nc7e6
12. Bf4c1 f6f5
13. Bc1e3 Bg7f6 (Now white king should start feeling uncomfortable)

14. Ra1d1 i7i5! (I forget the castle and instead start an attack)

15. Qd3d2 g6g5
16. Nc3a4? (What a total waste of time.......)

16...b7b6!?
17. Na4c3 (What did this Knight achieved?)

17...Ce8g7
18. Rh1g1 Cg7i6
19. Af2h1 j6j5
20. a3a4? (What G.V wanted to do with this? A counterattack while my attack is miles ahead? Very bad move!)

20...j5j4
21. b2b4 i5i4
22. Nh3f2 Nh6j5

23. f3f4?? (G.V gives me the diagonal i like and at the same time paralyses the battery Q+B at c1-j8, removes it's Queen of the game and makes a competely crambed position for white so white has to sacrifice a Knight in order to have some play at the queenside but it's pointless as the game is in white's kingside.)

23...g5g4
24. Nc3xd5 c6xd5
25. Bg2xd5 Bf6xj2+! (Now the problems begin for G.V. I was not sure if it was a good move, it was just a speculative move from my side, since i saw that after ...i3 white would be in troubles anyway.)

26. Ki1j1 Nj5i3+!
27. h2xi3 j4xi3
28. Nf2xg4 (Desperation, but i don't see anything else as Cj4 is crushing.)

28...Ci6j4
29. Ng4i5 Bj2i1+
30. Ni5j3 i4xj3
31. i2xj3 Af7xj3
32. Ah1xj3 Cj4xj3+
33. Kj1i2 Cj3h2+
34. Ki2xi3 Rj8j3# 0-1

Will these new features of Gothic Vortex, be included at the free upgrade to Gothic Vortex 1.2 after world championship? Does really the upgrade will have the stunning new graphics and 3&4(&5) endgame tablebases? This would be nice......

Any news from your computer opponents at the world championship? Do they have come closer to G.V? Hope we will see some good matches.....

If it can find fail low moves sooner it will play stronger and additionally more fair, since in the above game i used 32 minutes for my first 38 moves while G.V used 58 minutes for the first 37 moves, due to the many fail low it had. While it was supposed to use 1 minute per move (mean value i believe).

The new version of Vortex makes use of an "incremental hash table". It stores some of the "deep danger" from the previous search, so on its next move, it can find the "fail low" type of moves much sooner. Much of the play for Black is improved with this technology. It sees the danger, on average, 2 plies sooner, since "it" makes a move, "you" reply, and the "worse" positions for it saved from the previous search are hit without having to evaluate the positions or call the move generator. This makes the nodes/second creep up gradually as you play the game.

It is a very impressive win, combining strategy and tactics in the perfect way to defeat the software. Bascially, George got into a strong position, sacrificed material, then created a position where the program had so many legal moves, the game tree basically exploded, and it could not search very far at all.

A subtle way to win, and very hard to do!

After many months without Gothic Vortex (from March) i have registered it yesterday. And immediately played one game.

The game was at 1 minute per move for G.V 1.0.3 and 40 minutes for 40 moves repeating for me. I won the game with an impressive way as always(not so impressive this time).


George Vs G.V 1.0.3

1. f2f4 Nb8c6
2. g2g3 d7d5
3. Ni1j3 g7g6
4. c2c3 Bh8f6
5. d2d4 Ni8h6
6. h2h3 Nh6f5
7. Ag1h2 h7h5
8. Bh1f3 Ag8i6
9. Ce1g2 O-O
10. e2e3 Ai6j5
11. i2i4 Aj5g8
12. Cg2g1 Nf5g7
13. Rj1i1 Bf6xj2
14. Ri1i2 Bj2f6
15. Cg1i1 Qd8d6
16. Nj3i5 j7j6
17. i4xh5 j6xi5
18. Ri2xi5 g6xh5
19. Kf1f2 Bc8f5
20. Ci1j3 Rh8h6
21. Qd1j1 Ki8h7
22. Cj3j7 Bf5d3
23. Ah2j4 Bf6xd4
24. Qj1i2 Ng7i6
25. Ri5xi6 Bd4h8
26. Qi2i5 Ce8f6
27. Ri6xh6+ Cf6xh6
28. Cj7j8+ Kh7g7
29. Aj4xh5+ Kg7f8
30. Cj8xh8 Qd6f6
31. Ah5xf6 e7xf6
32. Bf3i6 Kf8g7
33. Ch8j8 Ag8h7
34. Bi6xh7 Ra8xj8
35. Bh7xd3 Kg7g8
36. Qi5xh6 i7xh6
37. Nb1d2 Rj8j3
38. h3h4 1-0

Just ask the person who wants to play white to play 1. d4 2. Nh3 3. g4 4. g5 5. Cf3 6. g6 7. gxf7 8. Cxf7+ and 9. Ng5+ and the player with black makes the moves 1...Nh6 2...i6 3...Bi7 4...Nj5 5...Bj6 6...h6 7...Axf7 8...Kxf7 then you can each play whatever you want from there. If there are any questions about the notation, just play through my game with WhiteShark and make those same moves, up to white's 9th.

ok Ed...I'm game! I'll take black...if anyone wants white.
play this straight thru?

I would like to see players volunteer to play from this starting position:

1. d4 Nh6 2. Nh3 i6 3. g4! Bi7?! 4. g5! Nj5 5. Cf3!! Bj6
6. g6 h6 7. gxf7 Axf7 8. Cxf7+! Kxf7 9. Ng5+ !?! ∞


EdTrice vs. WhiteShark

I sacrificed a good amount of material early on to force a win from a great distance. The question is, can black find a draw from here?

Replay this game, see if it is adventerous enough for you, pair up, and play it out. Let me know if any of you are interested in doing so.

If anyone has analysis on this position, I would appreciate seeing it.

<every board should have a separate backstage lodge - you know, like
in muppets show, the two grumbling granddads making snide remarks
so everybody has the choice whether to read - sometimes I even would ... >:) ~*~

Oh humorless one that was a joke. Making light of a sensative subject it's called,

no one is banned or hid.
not even you,purple.

Me too both ways.