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)
Zoznam diskusných klubov
Nie je vám dovolené písať správy do tohto klubu. Minimálna úroveň členstva vyžadovaná na písanie v tomto klube je Brain pešiak.
bengood24: You might be right, but I want it clarified. And it doesn't awswer the other questions seeing how this is a turned based site to begin with. One should say what is meant, or explain what they are saying if they're not going to use the standard or accepted terminology. Whether or not JinkyOng is Bobby Fischer has nothing to do the name of the variant on this site or one that I'm familiar with. Fischer Random Chess is the name of a game that is on this site. My Random Chess is not. Also, there's no live play on this site for those time controls, so a location would be needed to play it. If there is such a location on the internet, two other things could have been done. Supplying the link to play and also posting at that location a desire to play someone with those time controls. Neither was done and now the offer to play has been withdrawn. What's the point?
And again, if it is Fischer Random Chess this is the wrong board to be posting to play that game and it belongs on the 8 × 8 Chess variants discussion board.
MRC to me = FRC to everyone else of course. My offer was to play 'FRC' on ICC giving odds of 10 to 2 for anyone who was doubting who I am. The doubts are posted to this board, so I'm answering them on this board. Other ICC games of mine have been posted elsewhere on here, and I already crushed someone in FRC here at super slow time controls. I beat your 'unbeatable' player on here at his own 10x8 game, many times. Who the hell else could I be?? Look moderators, not 1 curse word or religious reference or conspiracy claim. No just spare me from the weakies who reply with their own crazy accusations.
JinkyOng: Being able to beat him at his own game just proves that he's not the best player of it and that you can play it better than him. It doens't confirm or deny who you might be. I told Ed a long time ago that as soon as someone really good learned to play these games he wouldn't be the top player. He also has a tremendous advantage over most people at his game. The long lead time of playing it and studying it. His skills at computer programming and understanding the value of the pieces on the larger board. His familiarity with the icons used here. His motivation for winning. Playing it and defeating him playing it speed style is something, but it doesn't prove that you could beat him playing turn based or over the board in a slower paced game. Does his site have longer time controls? He can still play here, but his game isn't on this site any more. Embassy Chess or Capablanca Chess would be the same game, but he would lose his advantage in the opening playing those games. He used to brag about how well he'd studied the openings of his game. I think this is one of the reasons Fischer came up with his random Chess set up, to curtail the book players from winning the game in the opening.
Zmenené užívateľom SMIRF Engine (19. apríla 2006, 00:00:19)
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!
Don't tell me why I came up with the game then talk about me in the 3rd person. Anyone who talks about me in this way will be ignored, starting with you.
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.
About 2 days ago all were requested to end the speculation on who JinkyOng is ... so far as we are all concerned (and this also applies to the person himself) he is just another cyber entity ... here he is NOT Bobby Fischer, he is NOT Tom Cruise and he is NOT Ed Trice (was going to add another but thought better of it).
If people wish to give out personal information that is their perogative ... and if they wish to categorically state that they are a particular person and prove it then so be it, but continued allusion or speculation with be dealt with with the editor's (and co-editor's) pen(s).
Thank you for now bringing this back to being discussions about 10 x 8 chess variants.
tenuki: After he moved his Cardinal in move 17 to F7 was it all over for him, or did he have a way out of it? Before or after that move? I tried a few things after the move and it looks like you had the game sewn up with the Cardinal moved to F7.
It turns out that 100 square Gothic Chess was written about in a letter by Capablanca to someone in 1935, according to Edward Winter. He was still calling the Chancellor the Marshall and the Archbishop the Chancellor back then. This board was set up exactly like Gothic Chess only it was 10x10 in dimension and not 10x8. Capablanca said he did not like the 10x8 version since "the Bishops strike through to the Rooks". So it looks like he examined but rejected Gothic Chess. Does this mean it cannot be patented? I think 10x10 Gothic could be played here anyway.
JinkyOng: The Chess variants website has a lot of information about Capablanca's Chess. Apparently he made four or five versions of it on different sized boards with various rules. Even the Marshall and Cardinal have had different names. They have a photograph section of some sets too. Here's the link:
http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/capablanca.html
After the description of Capablanca Chess there's related links and games. They have a 10 × 10 set up and a 10 × 8 set up that can be played. I think Grand Chess is a better game than the 10 × 10 Capablanca Chess and it uses the same pieces. I like the 10 × 8 version of Embassy Chess the best so far of the games that stay closer to regular Chess.
whew, my opponent and I both played "decent" Gothic Chess in this game but it didn't amount to much when I made a severe blunder on my 22nd move. The position was arguably won by me until I blundered (but in Gothic that doesn't mean a whole lot, the "technical win" is difficult to judge). Irregardless of the negative result I enjoyed the game immensely and had alot of fun playing it.
Marfitalu: An approximate value that I always liked to use was 9 for the queen 8.25 for the Marshall 7 for the Cardinal 5 for the Rook 3.25 for the bishop and 2.75 for a Knight. These weren't mathematically calculated values, but just what I felt from the 20 odd games I played on the mindsports site when they ran their cyber world championship events. Also in Grand Chess you might keep in mind that the above values might be modified somewhat since the pawns might be worth a little more in that game since they can queen faster. Maybe a premium of 1.15.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the nimble Cardinal probably outshines the Marshall at the beginning of this game, even though the latter is theoretically the stronger piece.
Marfitalu: If you read back through the archives of this board you will also find a great deal of discussion on this matter in relation to "Gothic Chess" a similar variant no longer played on this site.
I put "piece values" into the search box and this is the best of what was found ... if you read them then you will see that each fits into a general discussion going on at the time which may be of interest too. You will find that this will nearly all relate to Gothic Chess and you should be aware that the person "Grim Reaper" is the inventor of said variant and his RL name is Ed.
Marfitalu: I will do a calculation at night of "safe-Check" pieces values and also for Reinhard's approach pieces values for Grand Chess..... Later....
great??! Where can humans go now? I get suspicious when I see a patzer move or two and then perfect super computer play thereafter in its characteristic mysterious, clueless (to a human) strategy. Then I check the players stats and see something like 19-0-1. I've been accused myself and then put on someone's no play list. Well I do have a 2200 plus uscf over the board rating I tell him and occationally put together good games by random. But to no avail. The suspicion is always there as we nuke suspected centaurs and computers. Are the upper ranks filled with those who sneak a peak ("just a little is okay, my ego is so fragile") at their computer when the going gets tough? Oh well, its the bane of postal\internet chess.
iceninejkw: It is true that there are some players here who use computer programs to make there moves. Some like SMIRF Engine are open about it and use the opponents they find here to fine tune their program, others do it to seek an advantage. This is a point which is often discussed on all chess internet sites at some time or other and there is little that can be done to stop it ... sometimes it is recognisable (by a good discerning player - that is NOT me) and other times it is like you say, someone just "sneeking a peek". I think the majority of the discussion on this site has been on the "Chess" board but it crops up from time to time everywhere.
You will also find that this is not restricted to chess eitehr, apparently there are some pretty good checkers and backgammon ones out ther too but I play neither of those games.
iceninejkw: I think most people believe all computer programs play at a very high performance level. This is true of the strongest of the strong chess engines, but it is not the case for programs designed by hobbyists. My guess is that SMIRF plays maybe at the "1700 level" if it were to compete with tournament players who are very good at tactics. On GothicChessLive, SMIRF is rated 1697 after 19 games, and it lost most of them.
From July 11-September 3 2006, SMIRF had a total of 4 wins and 15 losses. SMIRF had 0 wins and 6 losses against the Gothic Vortex program. SMIRF only beat Twirling_Fern (1425), duethought (1301), and elamin(1342, lost 2 games). The following human players have defeated SMIRF: M_Tal(1937) who is "Chicago Bulls" here on BrainKing, Kerberos (1780), BloodOfBulls(1845) and Cartaphilus(1934). The point is that humans can still beat chess engines that play variants and chess variant programs are not capable of "perfect super computer play" as was mentioned here. Chess variant programs still do not grasp strategy, and humans can "win easily" without having to do much calculation once such errors are played. For example, how many of us smile when we see someone play pawn to a4 then Rook to a3 against us in chess? We pretty much know we will win, but did we calculate everything out to the end of the game? No, there is no need. Similarly, we smile when we watch programs make bad trades, or fail to protect their king, or castle right into our upcoming attack, or open up the game when it should try and keep things bottled up, and so on.
iceninejkw: And there's always Dark Chess. Machines aren't playing that game very good and it's hard to get outside help on the internet as the board is kept dark until the game is over.
SMIRF Engine: I have been given a position with neighbouring Bishops as white in this game: http://brainking.com/en/ShowGame?g=1930943
Do we know if Fencer was planning to implement the new rule or not? I don't feel right about playing on with an unfair advantage, unless I'm allowed to count it as a slice of good luck. Other games on this site involve luck don't they? ;-)
SMIRF Engine: It is interesting that you say there is no advantage in this case. I will not look too closely at your analysis, as only one move of the game has been played so far, and (again!) I don't want to have an unfair advantage, this time by knowing about SMIRF's understanding of the position. This still leaves the question about the rule. Can Fencer or anybody tell me if it will be implemented?
Reinhard, Good to hear from you anyway. I see that SMIRF is still playing some games here. How long do you let SMIRF think about each move? Is it closer to a couple of minutes or a whole day? The choice would surely affect its playing strength. Also, are you still working on improving its playing ability?
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
For those interested in watching computer programs fight it out, here are the last 6 games played between SMIRF and Gothic Vortex (where Vortex won 6-0). I don't think people are aware how strong Vortex really is, it was strong to being with and it has been vastly improved in the last few months. In one of these games Vortex announced mate in 143! Since Reinhard was operating his own SMIRF program, he can tell you all about it.
Zmenené užívateľom SMIRF Engine (20. septembra 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.
Zmenené užívateľom SMIRF Engine (20. septembra 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.
Just so you know, Gothic Vortex is still 32-bit, not 64-bit. At one time, Ed Trice tried a parallel-processing 64-bit version, but after making too many changes (new piece values, new searching, parallel code, 64-bit code) it was impossible to debug. Ed reverted back to a 32-bit single CPU version and just improved the evaluation function. Ed no longer has a 64-bit compiler, and he will be making future versions of Vortex under Mac OS X.
There is no "professional team" that works on Gothic Vortex. It is just Ed. Several people did contribute PUBLIC DOMAIN code to the project, and they are given credit in the program "about box". But clearly Ed does not employ Eugene Namilov, Marc Bourzachutsky, and Andrew Katach! Gil Dodgen ported the Crafty search engine to the 80-bit world, and Ed threw out the Crafty evaluation function and made a Gothic Chess evaluation function. Sounds simple, but it was a lot of work, 98% of it done by two people, in their spare time.
And, the "size" of Gothic Vortex is mostly due to graphics. All of those pictures in the about box, especially of the 6'5" blonde model with her legs so long, coupled with the marble board pattern at 24-bit color take up a lot of space. The size of the Gothic Vortex search engine is not more than 24K larger than the Crafty DOS search engine, making it under 100K.
You and Ed discussed the speed differences in your hardware when you played on GothicChessLive. He had a 2.4 GHz system, you have a 2.0 GHz system, which is only a 20% difference. Such a difference is insignificant.
Ed rewrote Gothic Vortex to search for attacks, and this is purely a software innovation. Still, this does not mean Vortex is perfect. M_TAL on GothicChessLive.com beat the new Vortex 2 times (after losing a few games). You will remember he was ChessMaster1000 on here, as well as WhiteTower, ChicagoBulls, and maybe 1 or 2 others. While these were game/15 minute controls (rather fast) you have to give George credit for slugging it out and coming on top.
It is my hope that we will not longer see on German discussion boards your posts saying "..and here SMIRF beats that former #1 program, Gothic Vortex..." when you are really running your program against the FREE version of Vortex that only does 7-ply searches and moves in a fraction of a second. I think it's obvious now that the Gothic Vortex program is much stronger than the free version.
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.
I think this was enough for an "odd mention" of a 10x8 variant that is not available on BK. I recommend to continue this discussion somewhere else (PMs?).
This post is just for informational purposes only, and doesn't apply to any one person, program, or game. I think most of us are aware that the 6-piece tablebases for 8x8 chess are completed. This was a massive undertaking, and a DISTRIBUTED project that covered many years, and many computers being used in parallel to complete the task. As for 10x8 chess variants, only the 5-piece tablebases are completed. Just so everyone knows, the branching factor for 10x8 board with the 2 new pieces is just gigantic when compared to 8x8 chess. For example, the 4-piece tablebase set for 10x8 with the Chancellor and Archbishop takes only 26 minutes to compute. The 5-piece set required 34 days! The ratio of time involved was more than a factor of 1800! Also remember the longest 5-piece 10x8 win is 268 moves (not plies) which is longer than the longest 6-piece tablebase win (262 moves) for 8x8 chess.
The 6-piece tablebase set has not even been started, nor does it make sense to begin. The time scaling for its completion will be roughly 75 (number of squares on which to place piece #6) x 2 (each "distance to win" must reserve 2 bytes whereas the 5-piece set only needed 1) x 343 (this times as many more tablebase slices to solve) = over 50,000 times as long as the 5-piece set. These numbers are mind boggling. The 60 gigabyte 10x8 tablebases are all that exist. There is no "1 terbayte" set anywhere. The average tablebase file for the 6-piece set will be 75 x 2 = 150 times the size of the 5-piece files. So, they will be about 300 GB each. This mysterious "1 terabyte" that was mentioned before would only be the size of 3 files, if they were completed (and they are not.) Everyone is probably aware that you have to solve the non-pawn files first, such as King + 2 Queens vs. King + 2 Queens, King + 2 Queens vs. King + 1 Queen + 1 Chancellor, King + 2 Queens vs. King + 1 Queen + 1 Archbishop, etc. Even if these tablebase files were completed, totalling about 1 TB, they would be statistically of no help whatsoever during the coarse of a game between 2 programs.
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.
SMIRF Engine: Now an interesting thought,harking back to a previous post, is that many would consider the consultation of these tablebases (for either 8x8 or 10x8) to be acceptable if they were in a book (some book!) but not if they are in a computer ... this is a dilemma (and argument) which I wonder will ever be resolved.
ChessCarpenter: This mind numbing, brute force number crunching is the complete antithesis of why I play games. There's not an ounce of romanticism or sportsmanship to it. I suppose it has it's place in the realm of theory and understanding of games without chance in them. I'm glad to hear the numbers are so large as to make it more or less impossible to know every single outcome possible. There's other ways to do it besides knowing every move possible. A set of rules for each group of remaining pieces might use less memory, but I have the feeling that's not the case in this instance. Have you tried this approach? And then there's SMIRF Engine's point about just what good will such tables be if the game is already decided when it gets to that point? It's amazing that just having the extra 16 squares and the addition of four pieces on the board makes the numbers get so much larger. Regular Chess itself has very big numbers when one wants to count all the moves possible. What about the 10 × 10 board for Grand Chess? It uses the same pieces as Embassy Chess. Will the number be slightly more, or lots more? I'm thinking lots more. Though the restricted Pawn promotion might keep it down more than the unrestricted Pawn promotion of Embassy Chess.
What's a Chancellor and Archbishop? There's no game on this site with those pieces. Do you mean the Marshall and Cardinal or Janus? They are not new pieces. They're more than 100 years old.
Walter Montego: Two of my favorite endgames on the 10x8 board are Archbishop vs. Bishop + Knight, which is a mate in 202 for the Archbishop, shown here:
Incredibly complex endings that really let you appreciate whatever your favorite 10x8 game is that gets you to these points. Even more interestingly, programs cannot play these endings properly without these precomputed tablebases. Strong human players have a better chance of winning the endings more rapidly than programs that do not have the tablebases, another one of the ironies of the world of computer programs.
(skryť) Hrajte hru v reálnom čase! Pri odosielaní ťahu si spoločne so súperom nastavte možnosť “Potiahnuť a ostať tu” a priebežne obnovujte stránku klávesou F5! (TeamBundy) (zobraziť všetky tipy)