HalfPawn: As far as I know I am no longer welcomed at gothicchesslive. During the last big GC event there end of 2005 there have been difficulties to rebuild broken games, if both players would not sufficiently cooperate. I preferred to resign then instead to play endless kindergarden games. My attempt to make a proposal how to fairly handle such unlikely situations had been ignored. Instead I have been called someone, who would leave tournaments, if it would not go his way. The truth is, that any victory or loss is losing any worth, if not gained fairly. That is also the reason, why I have resigned some games here at brainking, even though mostly having advantage.

My SMIRF has been available unrestrictedly until end of March. Everybody was able to test and compare it with his own program. That has not been possible for me. No actual 2006 version of ChessV or Gothic Vortex could be used by me for testing purposes. This is showing to everybody, where the fear is residing.

Pythagoras: "For example and since you are the only one that can test it, how it can do against Spike 1.1 at CRC?"

P.S.: Everyone could download SMIRF and test it, it is not restricted until the end of this month.

Actually I do not play much 8x8 games against other programs. But because of the results from some special test sets, SMIRF's 8x8 strength seems to be somewhere around 2600 Elo.

Actually SMIRF has come to a stage, where a complete redesign would make sense. But there are very few fans supporting the SMIRF project but much more critics. So I am unsure to take that task.

Pythagoras: Indeed SMIRF still is a beta. Because it is my first playing serious Chess program, there still a lot of weaknesses are within it. Watching the SMIRF project one easily could notice that progresses will be made. But SMIRF's strength actually is already sufficient to fear no 10x8 opponent program. Thus it is not on SMIRF to change its evaluation model.

Pythagoras: Sometimes captions will give you a hint. Here: if "dumb" moves are sufficient to start a discussion on piece values, it would obviously make more sense to discuss other programs instead of SMIRF, discovering SMIRF being that superior.

HalfPawn: Let's watch again average piece value proposals. There are two known relevant number sets: a) within SMIRF, b) within Gothic Vortex.

For me it seems to be better implemented acually within SMIRF, watching such games like: http://www.exactachess.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=498#498

HalfPawn: There are different opinions to piece average exchange values. Current SMIRF values will equalize: R+B+P/3 == Q, so it will depend on additional positional effects, whether such a trade will be recommended or not. To call such trades "dumb" is without any argument. Normally such a trade is not deciding the outcome of a 10x8 game.

P.S.: Another proof for the experts being here. If you really should be interested in testing the real SMIRF, you simply should play serious games with it.

HalfPawn: Maybe, what time frame? But no sorrow, current private beta version probably will not been given to download as done prior, and the spreaded version will expire end of March. Up to now only 10 Euros have been donated for my SMIRF GUI + Engine as a donationware. So there could not be a huge user crowd after this month. If SMIRF, it must have been an old version. Current SMIRF would have played much superior and surely won.

Beren the 32nd: It depends on ...

In 10x8 chess (especially in Capablanca Random Chess) there are games more often than in traditional chess, where castling could be skipped. Eventually it could be a small help to decide, by looking, where your King would have less near (developed) opponent pieces. But that will be only one hint.

Pythagoras: Well, I am almost tired to repeat myself. You should actually know, what turns me down.

Pythagoras: If you really would be able to clearly win as you claim, you should do it in a fair way. Else nobody will understand your strange behaviour.

Pythagoras: That must have been a very tired wish ... facing SMIRF's huge advantage.

Beren the 32nd: The game was played with a very long thinking time. Nevertheless the time moreover had been extended by automatic vacation. When additionally noticing, that Pythagoras played other games during that 'vacation', I preferred to terminate that game by resigning. Even though his behaviour is conform to brainking rules, I am not motivated to continue games under such conditions. So you have the chance to gather points by following his example.

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

CryingLoser: I cannot remember the Queen being called BishopRook. I prefer uncombined names for the new pieces. It is important for me to have abbreviating letters and distinct symbols, best remembering somehow their gaits.

I would prefer to keep the established abreviations C and A. But I would like to use one of the names introduced by its early inventor Carrera: Centaur (but for N+R) and Archangel (for N+B), to avoid confusion with bishops.

See also for my suggested symbols at http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capablanca-Random-Chess .

Thad: Ed Trice is a very strong player, I am sure. And I never would make an attempt to challenge him playing myself, because I would not have any chance.

I never have hidden the fact, that I use a (self written) program to improve it by playing some games here. Moreover I renamed my membership to underline that fact, and hope to have played games only when being invited to.

So it will be no problem for me, when SMIRF loses a game. The reasons for being not always successful are differing, and mostly changed beta versions are involved to gather appropriate experiences. Thus there is no need at all for SMIRF to become a number one here, whereas I am of course happy to succed with it from time to time.

But other players feel uncomfortable when not being top, thus searching reasons for to prove being misplaced or misestimated. But the solution to climb any ladder successfully is simple: try and improve and try, and you will find your place in every ranking system.

HalfPawn: gameid=444 Well, SMIRF has lost a game in 109 moves. So what?

HalfPawn: No, that is not what I said. And I also did not mention the argument, that a want-to-be-no-1 has to win against the de-facto-no-1.

Moreover, what the design of a ranking has to do with ChessV is not clear to me. ChessV two times was afraid to continue a match against my SMIRF engine in a world tournament by blocking the reentering of broken matches, which could not be continued otherwise. That makes me leave that tournament being unwilling to participate in such kindergarden quarrels.

P.S.: Anyone, who is interested in this, could download ChessV and SMIRF (beta) from http://www.chessbox.de/Compu/schachsmirf_e.html and start to gather own experiences in having one play the other (but be aware to use a non expired testing key set, which is bundled with SMIRF beta).

HalfPawn: SmirfEngine was rated 2253, and GrimReaper was rated 2241!

Well indeed, not to be the number one might be something not easy to bear. But as SMIRF already has experienced, there also is a life beyond being the leader of the pack, even without reinventing a rating scheme to one's taste.

Reinhard.

HalfPawn: Different people - different opinions. But I experienced, what has happened, and I know, what I have suggested. A lot of postings there are not trying to solve any problem, but instead to establish a one-sided view, which seems to be more important to them, than to describe a how-to continue. I hope you have also seen there my first posting from Dec 31 2005, and how it has been ignored without establishing any alternative. In my opinion the organizer of that event should have been more interested to describe a workable way out of that conflict much earlier than to simply put pressure on me. Thus for me it looked like that solving the problem has had no priority, but instead to make a "bad boy" out of me.

HalfPawn: There are detailed answers on that somewhere here. But again in short: it has been impossible to reconstruct a broken game exactly as it has been when breaking, e.g. the timing is hardly to reset. And you cannot do it alone without the cooperation of your opponent. My opponent has not been willing to cooperate as need be, especially when the reconstruction had failed because of an input error, which unfortunately cannot be corrected simply at that online server. Having had the choice to celebrate endless quarrels or to terminate, I chosed to avoid additional quarrels. I also tried to propose a modus operandi how to handle such situations. But it has been ignored. Instead pressure has been put on me. Because of that has been not helpful at all to rebuild broken games, I left the tournament.

HalfPawn: My statement has not been directed against you personally. Nevertheless I am angry about that silly rumouring there.

ChessV and SMIRF are currently able to be downloaded and tested. So everybody could investigate pros and cons of both programs. Having matching feedbacks would be fine.

HalfPawn: Probably not. Smirf has got some little cosmetic changes in its editor view, the engine itself is nearly the same now, but has been compiled with MS VStudio instead of the Borland Builder. ChessV already has been changed during the tournament. Seeing its new release date there must have been some additional changes, but I do not know their details.

Watching the discussions at the GothicChess forum I am shaking my head, seeing what is said about imputed reasons for me to quit. I have explained it sufficiently, but some people insist in their wrong view. So what?!

Two examples of SMIRF's actual strength:

[Event "10x8 Bird's Array Test (20 sec/move)"]
[Site "CHESSBOX-BIG-XP"]
[Date "2006.02.08"]
[Time "09:09:22"]
[Round "1"]
[White "ChessV (Version 2006-Jan-13)"]
[Black "SMIRF (Version MS-150)"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Annotator "RS"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rnbcqkabnr/pppppppppp/10/10/10/10/PPPPPPPPPP/
RNBCQKABNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

{The time limit has been passed.} 1. Nc3 g6 {(09.02=) -0.205} 2. Nb5 Na6
{(09.02=) +0.197} 3. f4 d6 {(10.00) +0.695} 4. a3 Qxb5 {(08.01=) +3.973} 5. Ae3
Nh6 {(08.04) +4.605} 6. a4 Qh5 {(08.02) +4.947} 7. h3 Nb4 {(07.35) +5.115} 8.
c4 Ng4 {(08.01) +6.758} 9. a5 Nh2+ {(09.00) +9.285} 10. Kf2 Nxj1 {(07.49)
+9.365} 11. Nj3 Af6 {(08.02=) +8.963} 12. g4 Qj5 {(08.02=) +9.252} 13. a6 c6
{(07.42) +9.055} 14. axb7 Cxb7 {(08.01) +9.727} 15. b3 Axa1 {(07.15) +15.65}
16. Ba3 Qj6+ {(08.02=) +16.49} 17. h4 Ad4 {(08.04=) +16.41} 18. Be4 Axb3
{(07.03) +16.82} 19. Cb1 Ac5 {(08.01) +16.57} 20. Axc5 Cxc5 {(09.00) +15.95}
21. d3 Bd4+ {(08.01) +18.19} 22. Kg2 Qi6 {(08.03) +18.19} 23. e3 Qxi2+ {(07.31)
+20.28} 24. Kg3 Bxg4 {(06.03=) +M~005} 25. exd4 Ch5# {(03.00?) +M~001} 0-1

[Event "Janus Chess Test (20 sec/move)"]
[Site "CHESSBOX-BIG-XP"]
[Date "2006.02.08"]
[Time "10:24:53"]
[Round "2"]
[White "ChessV (Version 2006-Jan-13)"]
[Black "SMIRF (Version MS-150)"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Annotator "RS"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rjnbkqbnjr/pppppppppp/10/10/10/10/PPPPPPPPPP/
RJNBKQBNJR w sKQkq - 0 1"]

{The time limit has been passed.} 1. e3 e6 {(09.02=) -0.143} 2. Bf3 Nd6
{(09.01) +0.049} 3. Ja3 h6 {(09.01) +0.162} 4. Nd3 Ja6 {(09.00) +0.139} 5. Ng3
Be7 {(09.00) +0.451} 6. Jb1 Nc4 {(08.03=) +0.750} 7. Be2 d5 {(08.14) +0.785} 8.
Ne5 Bh7 {(10.00) +0.779} 9. e4 Bxe4 {(09.15) +1.113} 10. Nxe4 Jxe4 {(10.00)
+0.621} 11. Nxc4 dxc4 {(09.20) +0.514} 12. c3 Jxb1 {(11.00) +1.080} 13. Rxb1
Ni6 {(10.18) +0.932} 14. b3 Qi8 {(09.34) +1.410} 15. Rc1 Ba3 {(09.03) +1.184}
16. Bxc4 Jxc4 {(10.01) +2.459} 17. Qxc4 Bxc1 {(11.00) +2.348} 18. Qb5+ Kf8
{(11.00) +3.012} 19. Qb4+ Kg8 {(11.00) +4.453} 20. a3 Rd8 {(10.09) +7.594} 21.
a4 Bxd2+ {(08.00?) +M~???} 22. Ke2 Qd3+ {(04.00?) +M~???} 23. Kd1 Bxc3+
{(03.00?) +M~???} 24. Kc1 Qd1# {(02.00?) +M~001} 0-1

SMIRF could be downloaded at: http://www.chessbox.de/Compu/schachsmirf_e.html

Regards, Reinhard.

Hello friends of Chess960, 10x8 CRC and other FullChess games,

the new SMIRF Beta has been cleaned from old ballast, and its editing surface hopefully has been redesigned a little bit more clearly. Moreover now a STL DLL is no longer used in this package.

Download could be done via http://www.chessbox.de/Compu/schachsmirf_e.html .

The engine itself has not been changed much. But for those, who have missed the last updates, progresses in 10x8 chess nevertheless should be noticable.

Best Regards, Reinhard.

cpaul_d2004 + tedbarber: There is already an attempt to have an english CRC page on Wikipedia. But maybe I will translate the German page myself. Then it might have been more clear, that the intention to create CRC primarily has been to keep computer chess programming interesting. Originally I had not thought about the question, whether it could be interesting to human players too. As experienced from Gothic Chess and since short from Embassy 10x8 chess of course could find interested players. But it is the lack of tradition which prevents it to be widely accepted. Mabye we have to wait another hundred years ...

cpaul_d2004: The problem may base in its historical roots. Also the fact, that 10x8 chess is not played that much than 8x8 chess, might have lead to a lack of experiences compared to the claimed importance of underlaying ideas.

My arguments are more intended to enhance the distinguishability of pieces' symbols. Still symbols unnecessarily seem to be very related to Knight and Bishop, which is of no benefit for 10x8 chess at all.

See also my (German language) article in Wikipedia http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capablanca-Random-Chess about CRC.

Thad: For CRC I made (once upon a time) the proposal: A = Archangel (two swords as symbol, as defending the paradise) C = Centaur (tower upon a horseshoe) with its horse nature downside. This could be seen within SMIRF or at: http://www.chessbox.de/Compu/schachveri1_e.html

Fencer: Your internal view to this is quite correct of course. It works on your site. Nevertheless it is very important (especially during the early stage of a new variant) to avoid misunderstandings. Isolated solutions could lead to strange formalism like in Janus Chess (which has been out of our responsibility), where its castling move encoding has been defined contradicting to e.g. the Chess960 or CRC view. Thus it is important to learn about differences, whether they have been caused by another view (which then should be discussed and solved), by misunderstandings (which should be early cleared), or simply by the stage of realisation. Of course I am also not hesitating to modify my SMIRF implementation, if there would be a need to. There finally should be an exportable compatible solution for Embassy everywhere. Thank you for showing your good will!

redsales: please do not forget, that the Embassy Chess implemetation is not yet completed here. Let me mention some points to this:

a) there are other piece letters used: M for Marshall (=C Chancellor in CRC), C for Cardinal (=A Archbishop in CRC or =J Janus in Janus Chess),
b) the castling moves should be encoded as O-O-O for the b-side (Queen side) castling, O-O for the h-side (King side) castling,
c) in the PGN setup X-FEN there should an 'm' be used preceeding the castling information to symbolize the mirrored King's target fields at castlings.

ChessCarpenter: I do not want to bore the members of this site by addressing details, which are unkown here. But one point indeed seems to need clarification. This is concerning the repeated assumption, it would have been easy there to continue a broken game. This has not been the case at all within the GC tournament. The missing of a publised how-to for such occurences has lead to unnecessary quarrels and offendings. Imagine how frustrating it is to argue through such stressing situations using a foreign language to rebuild a game, where your opponent is blocking, moreover even not having a game notation at his hands.

Why there has not been provided a documented modus operandi for such cases? I finally have worked out such a rule set and tried to suggest that at the GC forum. The result of that approach has been a threatening to be excluded from GC live, which helped not at all to have broken games fairly rebuilt.

Fencer: Thank you for your words, but to avoid misunderstandings: Ed for sure had to be interested to have his event completed, but finally put too much pressure on me. The main problem had been, that it was completely left to the participants, how to reconstruct a broken game, having no assistance by the system for that, which moreover was crashing at e.p. captures. Nevertheless the participants knew about that and thus should cooperate appropriately during such reenterings. Thus the reason for my resigns mainly had been the behaviour of a special participant during such repair situations.

ChessCarpenter: I have commented all this where it belongs to: in Ed Trice's GC forum. There is no need to repeat the discussion here. If others may think to have the right to retard games, I am convinced to have the right to resign. I have no motivation to play kindergarden games, mainly caused by a system, which does not allow to simply reenter a broken game and by players, when endlessly worrying about seconds, where time frames cannot be rebuilt exactly at all.

P.S.: Who is interested in details should inspect http://s13.invisionfree.com/Gothic_Chess_Forum/index.php (GC forum), or otherwise write to me directly. You will find there, that I have tried to suggest a hopefully fair modus operandi for such situations, which ignoringly has been answered by even more pressure on me, what lead me to disengage at GothicChess.

Pythagoras: I wonder about that. It should be:

User=Test Smirf free until 2006-01-31
KeyGUI=5f9a33eb eabba58e
KeyEngine=14d91d36 ca3fcd96

There might two things happened:
a) you have not initially deleted the outdated key,
b) you have not got the most actual files.

P.S.: Smirf Engine has been updated to version 1.47 fixing an error in MBC promotion piece codes.

At http://www.chessbox.de/Compu/schachsmirf_e.html there a new beta version of SMIRF (free usable in January) could be downloaded. It should be able to also play MBC now, but it of course needs test reports. The necessary new PGN still is different from Brainking's for MBC, where some matching changes might be helpful and warmly wellcomed.

Pythagoras: There still is some time needed. After a lot of unproductive quarrels end of last year I had serious trouble with my PC. Now I am nearly finished with reinstalling systems, development tools and backups on a very changed hardware, which is not at all faster than before for current SMIRF, but prepared for multiprocessing (2 core).

Pythagoras: Congrats to those, who selected this interesting chess variant CRC by their votings! ;-)

Now I wait when and where to propose my Taboo Chess idea.

You will find the result of the voting at:

http://www.chessvariants.org/contests/10/finalvoting.html

Thanks to all, who participated in this voting!

Reinhard.

naughtypawn: No, I don't know any European sources for that, but that does not mean that they would not exist. But maybe following Caissa page could give you some additional ideas: http://www.spezialschach.de/ or also Dr. Henk van Haeringen's Superchess page http://www.superchess.nl/

There have been some questions on that, so I will repeat here, what I have written in Ed Trice's GothicChess forum:

Nobody has expected, that GothicChess Online would provide a perfect system environment. Well, there already have been some experiences with interrupts. And even when now the extrem bug related to e.p.-captures was new in its extension, so all have been aware of the necessity, to occasionally reconstruct chess games from their beginning. Insofar Ed Trice as organizer is not to be burden with that.

But it could not be, that attempts to reconstruct broken chess games (as far as possible) will end in personal attacks. I am neither able to guarantee an exact reestablishment of the timings, nor to exclude mistakes during the reentering of a chess game, especially if the other side is not disposing on own game notations. Such mistakes could be quickly corrected by starting another attempt to reconstruct the chess game. But it will make no sense to decline a new effort of reconstruction but instead to vituperate ones opponent or to pressurize him by any other mean.

Now there different allegations are to be read. Things I imagined to be cleared for long actually are excavated again. Too bad. Also one is trying to constrain me by a threatening banishment to tolerate such effrontery. One time I bite the bullet, however a second time is really too much in this event. SMIRF has been prepared for long for this tournament, today this program is stable and effective. Thus a surrender of any further partcipation is bitter. But regrettably I cannot dwell on such an attempted extortion. I rather terminate my engagement for GothicChess.

In the case that I really am the bad boy, as which I have been pictured in different postings, all should be sincerely happy on my retirement from this tournament. Whether now all SMIRF results would be canceled or the outstanding chess games would be judged as been lost is left to the organizer Ed Trice. If you favor the opinions of given teammates SMIRF anyway would not have had any chance for any more scored point. It does also not matter here, how I would valuate this.

I had considered to propose the suggestion to have another person continue playing SMIRF instead of me. But after the last e-mails I received I do not see any tangible sense even in that variant.

Reinhard Scharnagl.

The final voting has been opened at http://www.chessvariants.org/contests/10/index.html#finals . May be, you could find a variant of your taste, and then vote for it.

Reinhard.

There already again is a renewed beta 1.34 engine of SMIRF at
http://www.chessbox.de/Compu/schachsmirf_e.html

SMIRF's GUI now is able to use four languages: Eng/Ger/Fra/Swe

Regards, Reinhard.

Walter Montego: The current published version of SMIRF is beta 1.33. Actually a new version is about to be completed supporting then 4 languages Eng/Ger/Fra/Swe. You are right, actually at games with fixed starting arrays like traditional chess, you could vary played openings by stopping the engine's thinking suddenly by hand. I myself use to test the engine by playing CRC, there will be always new situations. Of course the opening behaviour is seriously influenced by the playing version, because mostly the evaluation function or something else will have been slightly changed (and improved as I hope).

ColonelCrockett: It is planned to build in a kind of initial randomizer. Actually in the starting stage suggested shown optimal moves are not fixed and often exchanged. So stopping the engine manually could also produce a kind of move distribution. But after the first opponent's moves SMIRF is mostly within a new game line. Playing CRC or Chess960/FRC will generate different games simply by selecting randomly a mostly different starting array.

WhiteTower: Until now there is not a single move precalculated or stored in SMIRF.

dokesa: Have you ever tried SMIRF? It has no opening libraries at all. So it must be very easy for you to beat it in CRC. ;-)

Reinhard.