ChessCarpenter: As interesting as the games are, links to the the site referenced are consiered inappropriate on this site. In future please refrain from sending patrons from this site to there.

Thanks you.

After some time that i had to concentrate on some reading/studies i'm free to post again:-)

Some short notes:
ChessCarpenter:
M_TAL on GothicChessLive.com beat the new Vortex 2 times (after losing a few games).

A few = 1 :-)
Against the new G.Vortex i have 2 wins and one loss, yet i have the feeling that i will lose every single game i will play against it....
It has become VERY strong indeed!


You will remember he was ChessMaster1000 on here, as well as WhiteTower, ChicagoBulls, and maybe 1 or 2 others.

I was never WhiteTower....
Just Chessmaster1000->Pythagoras->Chicago Bulls
while initially when i came here, as a pawn, with a restricted number of games i could play, i played the Gothic Chess games of my father's account (WhiteShark).....


WalterMontego:
What's a Chancellor and Archbishop?

Chancellor=One meaning:the chief minister of state in certain parliamentary governments, as in Germany; prime minister; premier.
Archbishop=a bishop of the highest rank who presides over an archbishopric or archdiocese.

LOL! :-) Nice to see you again.....

Since i'm a poor Pawn and can't edit my post please instead of the wrong </b> that destroys the appearance of my post, put a </i> instead....

Anyone up for a game or two? I've posted sixteen, open to all in the waiting games area.

And just for you George, they're Fischer Clocked timed. :) Take a pair and let's duke it out.

Anyone read the latest:
http://www.gothicchess.com/Fischer_Karpov_Match_01.pdf

pawnme: I just read it - what a waste of time.

Pedro Martínez: The effort or the event?

Personally, I would love to witness such an event. I just don't think Fischer is the right opponent for Karpov, as much as I would love to see him play once more.

For those on slow Broadband or dialup ... the file is 22M.

I've heard rumour that Susan Polgar is the second alternative to Fischer.

An interesting read: scroll down to Oct 12th in the blog. http://www.susanpolgar.blogspot.com/

Have from Ed Trice that Susan is indeed the alternative to Fischer.

There exist a Gothic Chess game Ed vs Susan, have
only the first moves

1. d4 h6 2. Nh3 g6 3. g3 d5 4. Nc3 c6 5. e4 dxe4 6. Bxe4 Qxd4 7. Cd3 Qf6 8.Cd8 Ng7 9. Bf4 Nd7
10. Qxd7 e5 11. O-O-O

Interesting, that in 10x8 Chess, since there are
more pawns, there are more possibilities for a gambit - a player can sacrifice two pawns for
attack.

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.

SMIRF Engine: CRC is without doubt the highest form of serious chess, and special variants like Gothic or Embassy are only subsets of CRC.
Reinhard, i like your research in this difficult area and wish you all the best!

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.

What is CRC exactly?

Nevermind I see now Capablanca Randomized Chess.

I have just created a Capablanca Random Chess tournament (Capablanca!). Single elimination. 1 win match. 7 days per move and standard vacation. Only rated players.

http://www.gothicchesslive.com/all-players-games.php
gothic chess is a nice variant to! maybe some people want to join the site?

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.

sorry, but I am not a server, I just play there. so I can`t.

is there any voulenteer for gothic chess? it is free for an account!

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 ...

I did not refused it, I am a player there, not a programmer! maybe I can ask the server there? but forgot his E-mail!

or do you mean, enter at full hours?

jerom: that is what I have said.

I can`t enter the whole day (day-time not night-time) because of my school! but for the rest looks fine!

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.

WQ :)

WhisperzQ: C'mon, this board was dead before this exchange :)

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.

Beren the 32nd:
Wow! Impressive, Beren, congratulations!
And against a strong opponent as WM!!! Double congratulations! Very nice.

Does anyone know of any news in the world of 10x8 chess? How is SMIRF progressing, for example?

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:

=> http://web.mac.com/rescharn/

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.

Best regards,

Reinhard Scharnagl.

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!

Our friend Grim Reaper (Ed) sent me this link:
http://www.gothicchess.com/bk_archive.html
for games of brainking to reproduce.
Enjoy!

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.

Beren the 32nd: Yes, I forgot to post that link too (it was posted in The Chess Club fellowship some time ago)

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.

Embassy Chess (Walter Montego vs. jindrasek)

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?

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:

08:28.4 (13.01=) +2.496 24.Nxe5 (Bxe5) Bxd1 25.Mxd1 Ae6 26.Ng6 Mf7 27.b6 Bd8 28.Nb5 Na6 29.j4 j6

SMIRF Engine: Sorry, Walter, you have been the one with White!

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.

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?

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: So this means that SMIRF had White ahead when he took the Pawn with the Knight? Maybe there's hope for me yet. :)

That game is still running. It might be interesting to read about it at:
http://gothicchess.blogspot.com/2007/09/vortex-vs-smirf-blog-game.html

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: Well, SMIRF won that game, this has it been in PGN:

[Event "Longtime 10x8 Game"]
[Site "GothicChess.BlogSpot.com"]
[Date "2007.10.07"]
[Time "00:25:48"]
[Round "Blog-Game-1"]
[White "Gothic Vortex"]
[Black "Smirf MS-168i"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Annotator "RS"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rnbqckabnr/pppppppppp/10/10/10/10/PPPPPPPPPP/RNBQCKABNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1. Nh3 g6 2. d4 Nh6 3. g3 c6 4. Bf3 Na6 5. Bf4 f6 6. Be3 Qb6 7. Nc3 Qxb2 8. Cd3
Qa3 9. Ne4 Qa5 10. d5 Qxd5 11. Cxd5 Axd5 12. Bxh6+ ixh6 13. Nd6 Cxd6 14. Bxd5
Cxd5 15. Qxd5 cxd5 16. Af3 e6 17. O-O b6 18. Ah4 j5 19. Ni5 hxi5 20. Axi5+ Ke7
21. Axh7 Rj6 22. h4 Nc5 23. h5 g5 24. h6 Ba6 25. Ag6+ Kd6 26. e3 Be2 27. a4 Bf3
28. Rh2 Be4 29. Ah5 Bxc2 30. a5 Rb8 31. axb6 axb6 32. f4 Bh7 33. fxg5 fxg5 34.
Af7+ Kc6 35. Rc1 g4 36. Ag5 Rj7 37. Af4 Rg8 38. Ah5 Rj8 39. Af7 Ra8 40. Rd2 j4
41. Ag5 Be4 42. Rg1 j3 43. i3 Be5 44. Ai4 b5 45. Ah5 b4 46. Axg4 d6 47. Rdd1 b3
48. Ah5 b2 49. i4 Rji8 50. Kh2 Rah8 51. Af7 Bf6 52. Axh8 Rxh8 53. i5 Ri8 54.
Ri1 Bxj2 55. Rj1 Bg5 56. Rxj3 Rxi5 57. g4 Ri6 58. Rjj1 Rxh6+ 59. Ki2 Bf3 60.
Rb1 Bxg4+ 61. Ki1 Ri6+ 62. Kh1 Ri2 63. Rj4 Bf5 64. Rb4 Ne4 65. Rxe4 Re2 66. Rb4
Bxb1 67. e4 Bxe4+ 68. Kg1 b1=Q+ 69. Rxb1 Be3+ 70. Kf1 Rf2+ 71. Ke1 Bxb1 72. Kd1
Bd3 73. Ke1 Rf1# 0-1

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.