ColonelCrockett: I'm thinking if I can figure how the machine evalutes a position and then get the position so that I'm control of it that the machine can be beat because they don't think outside of their programming. This must be why Pythagoras' methods work so well for him. I haven't defeated SMIRF in a long time.

Walter Montego: seeing as the machine didn't stop the blocking of all those files I'd say you have already tested SMIRF's programming . . . I wouldn't begin to know how Pythagoras defeats SMIRF . . . I never have . . .

ColonelCrockett: Machines are overrated.

JinkyOng: people can be too. ;)

Walter Montego: The SMIRF offered a draw and I accepted. I wasn't able to see a way to profitably trade a Knight for a Pawn or two and try to get an attack going. I have the feeling SMIRF never would do that either.

So the game ended after 66 moves and no Pawns captured, nor a Pawn making a capture. I'll challenge SMIRF to another game in a few days. I'm thinking this game was a fluke, but there's something to thinking longer range even if it's just a vague plan in trying to beat a machine. We all know how much the nature of a game can change with the placement of even one Pawn.

Walter Montego: Machines have 1 constantly exploitable fault. They must make a move on each turn.

JinkyOng: Yes, now if I could just take advantage of this flaw. :)

JinkyOng: I guess, the point being, that each move made is an opportunity for the machine to make a mistake (or an iljudgement) rather a decisive strike (I think that machines tend to be defensive by nature ... the what-ifs are designed not to lose, rather than to win).

Ergo ... I am a machine ... which loses ... LOL

WhisperzQ: Machines don't think. They will overthrow a perfectly good line of play to gain 1 more point even if the replacement line is laughable. They drive halfway across town to save two pence on a fillup of gas, burning much more than that along the way.

JinkyOng: They drive halfway across town to save two pence on a fillup of gas, burning much more than that along the way.

Sounds like some poeple I know. ;-)

http://brainking.com/en/Tournaments?trg=14677&trnst=0&u=2644

http://brainking.com/en/Tournaments?trg=13972&trnst=0&u=2644

TheLamer: They haven't gone unnoticed, just not responded too. Least ways not until right now. Why should I lower myself to his level? I went to the link just now. I didn't see my name in those posts, but I had seen it somewhere else over there where he calls me a weak player and a few other things. He's entitled to his opinion of me. Unlike him, I never said I was all that good of a Chess player. Just because someone can play a game better than myself doesn't make them a better person. It just means they can play a game better than me. He even talks about his misadventures at the Run Around the Pond discussion board. We all know he never even played one game of it under his own handle, but he sure talked a good game of it. His well documented fear of losing any game prevented him from playing Ponds or Dark Chess. It is a shame too. I believe that Ed would probably be the best Dark Chess player of all if he'd just play the game. But as anyone that has played Dark Chess knows, you will lose a certain percentage of games from time to time no matter how well you play.

I just recently read all the posts on this board from it's creation until August 4th, 2004. How he was removed the first time as moderator is quite enlightening compared to how he reveals it on his web site. The first removal:
___________ _________ _________ ___________
Fencer 16. January 2004, 09:31:21
Hi Ed,
I don't like the way how you moderate Gothic Chess discussion board. There are currently 43 banned users and it is not normal. No other board has such problems. Moreover, even if you feel insulted by several other people, you cannot misuse the moderator function to solve your personal problems. A moderator must be kind of adaptable and show some basic diplomatic skills to do the job properly. I've been watching your activities for several weeks [or even months?] and, unfortunately, I don't think that you can moderate any BrainKing discussion board any longer.
I am taking over this board.
__________ _____________ ___________ __________
GothicInventor from the Gothic Chess site March 9th 2006
...so I left the moderator function of my own accord. I sent the message to Fencer myself. Subsequently, after several months, I was re-appointed moderator after whoever was in charge was removed, but I was acting in the capacity of co-moderator. I did very little moderation of any kind from that point forward. Again, a few months later, someone named "Bumble" then posted a comment one day saying "who wants to be moderator of this board", and that person took my place. There was no "ousting" of any kind as you suggested


This is not at all what happened. It is me that Bumble removed, not Ed. It was Fencer that Ed replaced as moderator when he came back the second time, not some other person. This happened way before I had ever played Gothic Chess or visited the discussion board. Somehow he got the moderator's job back a few months later. And again Fencer removed him after that time too. It is then that I was made moderator. On my very first visit to the discussion board! Fencer must've really been ticked off at Ed. When Ed was removed the second time there were no Global Moderators. July 9th, 2004 is when I became moderator. My first act was to unban everyone, including Ed. It is Fencer that banned him two more times while I was moderator. I only ever banned two people, danoschek and some guy that posted racial epitats about the losers of the world wars. I will continue my research of my own actions eventually. I learned a few things about people and moderating since those times. Ed's first banning caused a lot of trouble in the discussion board as he had a lot of friends get mad and flame the board as did his detractors. I generally let this go on for awhile. When I finally took sides with those that didn't agree with the game being patented, he went ballistic and got banned again. A few months went by in relative quiet as for some reason the groupies didn't do a "Bring back Ed" campaign this second time around. Then I started to get messages from Fencer to remove the ban on Ed. We sent a few messages about it and I did remove the ban. I also warned Fencer that Ed was trouble and I'd probably not survive as moderator. I was right, but not in how I thought I'd be. The global moderator's position was only a month or two old at this time. I was removed without any notice from them. I have posted at length about this on the BrainKing discussion board about a month after my removal last year. Ed's victory was a short lived one. Fencer abolished the Gothic Chess discussion board shortly thereafter and then removed Gothic Chess from the site completely.


If he wants to re-create history on his site, it is his prerogative. I am surprised that he's letting Thad have his say and that he is responding to Thad's assertions. I remember when Thad was one of Ed's supporters. It reminds me of the saying, "Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate."


Now that I've played a few games of Embassy Chess I can say the game is superior to Gothic Chess. Not by much, but it is a better game. I don't play the random version of it, so I can't speak for that version. I do know that if it wasn't for Ed and his intransigence over Gothic Chess, those two games would almost certainly not be on this site at this time.

Edit 3-17-6 After further research I have found I was wrong in some of my rememberances listed here. Fencer only banned Ed once while I was moderator, I banned him twice. And the guy with racial epitats was unbanned upon my ousting. I'm going to call it quits again as there's still another 14 pages for me to read.

I know this is off-topic but I just had to laugh when I read Trice's comments about "giving me bets to place round after round". It IS true that he gave me 6 bets for the first 6 round of this pond ( http://brainking.com/cz/Pond?bms=5&g=10 )
and when he saw he was at 30th place after round 6, he stopped sending me his bets. Sorry about this post not being related to 10x8 chess variants, but I just couldn't help myself.

Keep it nice.

I say this as I know there is alot of history and feelings.

Jules: Hi Jules, it was you and Pedro that replaced me as moderators of the Gothic Chess board, by the way. I don't have any hard feelings about it. The board wasn't in business much longer after that, a couple of months, say? And you both stayed on with its merged self here.

Previously I posted a message here asking for some common courtesies and to pursue the "Ed Trice thing" at the Ed Trice site.

I seems some of you can't do this so four messages have been removed either because they bring matters here from another site, are a slur on a person's character, or don;t make sense becuase another post has been removed.

No names named, but it will be apparent to you if your post is deleted. Continued actions such as these will result in more deletions WITHOUT notice.

WhisperzQ: Thanks!

HalfPawn: You must be a genius, being able to derive that most of the French chess players in the world disagree with Walter on that matter from that article and those posts. Almost of the same level as Trice.

Actually there is running an attempt to stimulate discussions on a restricted 10x8 variant by some provoking henchmen. Maybe that normal traffic in their genuine forum is vanishing, so several vasalls are trying to pick here to boost their theme that way again.

Here there are so many free nice 10x8 chess variants like Janus, CRC and MBC. I suggest to discuss here only games which are or could be supplied here.

HalfPawn: That is of absolute no interest for me, so as if you would report on a woodo-wally dice game.

TheLamer: Thus let us find more interesting themes. E.g. it could be very encouraging to find some sponsors to support some CRC events, or to motify some chess programmers to join a competition in writing 10x8 enabled chess programs and competing therein.

There is big life beyond woodo-walled license zones!

Anybody out there know an address or website that might sell Janus Chess sets? Since tournaments were run in the past, I would assume that there must have been a set available for purchase at one time?

In my view unless statistical results show that either white or black seems to have a big advantage, all the 10x8 variants are pretty much alike. Once past the opening phase the strategy and particularly the tactics of the games won't be all that different whether you play Gothic, Embassy or any other arrangement with the Marshall and Cardinal pieces. What variant a player prefers will probably just come down to their own personal tastes. Experienced Classical chess players may even prefer something like Janus chess or even Carrera's chess. They are very similar to good old chess and one's previous studies are easier to apply. Other more adventuresome types would probably like the more unique arrays found in Embassy, Gothic or even Grand Chess on a 10x10 board. In these variants you would have a harder time trying to apply variants of classical chess openings.

Some arrays of course will have flaws. One can picture trying to set up something even closer to classical chess like this array: CRNBQKBNRM. However the problem with this array is that when white play 1.f4 black's choices are already somewhat limited. Is he going to defend the a7 pawn which is undefended and already attacked on white' first move or try some other counterattacking idea? Regardless white seems to be already dictating the game. Change this array a little and say make it a game of Marshalls MRNBQKBNRM and maybe the array isn't so bad. The game in fact might be a lot like classical chess. Marshalls like Rooks don't have a big effect early in the game and the openings that develop might not be unlike those in classical chess just with the extra pieces and manouvering room.

It's hard to say if classical chess is quite ready to be supplanted yet, but it would be interesting to see more financial support of possible future alternatives. I guess Janus Chess had money behind it at least at one time and even attracted big name players to play in the events. Is this type of support still going on to any degree?

HalfPawn: So what?

HalfPawn: No, my message didn't say anything about you being a genius to be able to read the post.

HalfPawn: Sorry, an extra return slipped into the address when I edited it last ... fixed now.

Again apologies ... WQ :)

panzerschiff:
A booklet on Janus Chess is sold by Stephan Blasius, Lebacher Str. 30, 66606 St. Wendel, Germany, for DM 8, plus an extra amount for postage (Variant Chess mentions DM 3 for postage). Janus Chess sets are sold for over DM 100 by Schachhaus Madler, Wagenerstr. 5, D-01309 Dresden, Germany.

I found this at the Chess variants page.

HalfPawn: I can't read French, so how am I to know what the articles and posts say? The graphics look as if lifted right from another page, especially how it shows the board. It does have a little English. It makes a point about four files being the same as regular Chess and the other side's three being the same too. IF that's a selling point for the superiority of the game, may I point out that Embassy Chess is even move Chess like in its set up with five files on one side being the same as in regular Chess and three on the other side. Not only that, but with the King being next to the Queen instead of spaced once, you get a lot of the same threats and themes as in regular Chess.

Walter Montego: I think these tips in chessvariants.com are very old ,because we pay in € today and no more in DM. I never received a answer about my questions from Stefan Blasius or the owner of www.janusschach.de.
But I will contact tomorrow the Schachhaus Madler because of Janusschessboards and -sets will report here.

Caissus: Cool, I'm sure panzerschiff will appreciate it.

Yes, thanks for looking into that. I can improvise a Janus Chess set from among my Gothic, Omega Chess or Grand Chess sets, but it would be nice to have an actual Janus set. One of my weaknesses is collecting things related to my hobbies, whether it is chess books, I own about 2400 of them, or wargames, two or three hundred are in my closet. I also like naval history, but fortunately for my wife I don't have so much clutter in that area!

HalfPawn: I had this same problem and posted about it a few days ago. I suggested calling the side with the King and Queen; the Royalside, and the side with the Marshall and Cardinal; the Courtside. Royalside in honor of the royalty and Courtside in honor of the rest of the aristocracy. http://brainking.com/en/Board?bc=34&ngi=501381


I thought it was a sensible idea, but maybe you have one that'll work better? It seems easy enough to refer to the Royalside of the board and know which side you're talking about. Files A through E. And you can always just name the actual squares or files to avoid any misunderstanding or confusion if there's any doubt.

That post also had some comments about the naming of the pieces and the notation used on this site for the other games and for castling.

At least for castling you could use the terms "castle long" or "castle short". Referring to the board is more clumsy since you don't have the traditional Queen-side and King-side referral points. I guess we could borrow military terminology and use right or left flank.

panzerschiff: I like the term "flank", but the castling procedure for each "flank" would be different depending upon whether you are white or black, so actulally it probably doesn't work.

The problem I have with courtside and royalside is remembering which is which ... I know it has been explained and the explanation makes sense, I can jus never remember how it works ... old age I expect :)

WhisperzQ: You can just say the King's ending square. A royalside castle would be a "B-file" castle. Not too pretty, but there's no doubt as to where the King is going. Either way works and is easy to remember plus you could say them both to remove all doubt.

What I have trouble remembering is which gets the three zeroes.

WhisperzQ: Bobby Fischer had named castlings in FRC / Chess960 a-castling and h-castling. The WNCA has decided to name castlings from their target file c-castling or g-castling. To make it independent from the board size and different castling variants it could help to name it alpha-castling and omega-castling.

Walter Montego: What's wrong with left-side castling and right-side castling? Aside from not being very elegant.

Thad: Nothing as long as you remember White's left is Black's right. I think the naming of the Kingside and Queenside predates the notation and was the traditional way to describe it. If you have books old enough it will say Queenside castles or just castles if there's no ambiguity, instead of using the zeroes.

Since Embassy Chess is mirrored like regular Chess it is probably preferable to emulate describing like things in each game in a similiar way. Kingside and Queenside will work just fine too, but I think some people would rather not call them that seeing how the King and Queen are on the same half of the board. Hence other names being thought up. It sounds like Reinhard has heard of people that already deal with this issue in other large board Chess games that have castling or notation of a like kind. I think I'll stick with royalside or courtside and name the square if there's a doubt. Seeing how I just play on this site and the notation is not something I have to deal with at the moment, it doesn't matter all that much. I brought the matter up for those that might play off line or who write their moves down and take them to show someone away from the computer. I'll also have to keep the M and C straight if I do want to write a game down, least ways until Fencer changes it over.

Thad: To use piece related expressions like Queen side or King side to characterize the castling side in variants is not helpful at all. Be aware, that a Queen might have been captured or moved before a castling could be done. If then the Queen originally had been placed not the traditional side, it is hard to explain, what should be the Queen side. Thus in random games like Chess960 or Capablanca Random Chess such expressions will be avoided. Thus it is better to use neutral expressions like alpha castling O-O-O (remember a triangle) and omega castling O-O.

A very interesting interview of Reinhard Scharnagl is available! Unfortunatelly this is only in German for now, although it has been stated that an English translation will follow soon....

For all of you that don't know, Reinhard is the author of Smirf engine and you see one of his posts immediately below my post....