Hi to all!
I believe in CRC! It's allligned on Bobby Fisher ideas!. I've discussed it on http://forum.fide.com/viewtopic.php?t=684
I hope that the filtering (and/or pondering) of unwanted positions has to be done very soon!
Bya at all!

Hi Caissus, who declared that 'standard'? I have seen some very different icons. Overmore the Queen still is not sybolized (which is good so) by a hybrid piece symbol combined from rook and bishop.

Your pieceset is nice,Reinhard.But I personnally would prefer to play with standard pieces like here:
Link

Hi Caissus,

I think you would have seen my two symbols for Janus/Archbishop and Chancdellor. I have tried for long to find some distinct but gait associating icons. So the Janus is symbolized by crossed swords to point to the main moving directions and the enhenced power in short range.

I have bought my pieces here:
http://members.aol.com/DreierR/
and my 8x10 board at:
http://www.schachdepot.de/germany/home.htm
If not available you can make the board yourself,and also the chancellor. Pics at: http://caissus.gmxhome.de/Schach.htm

They accept www.paypal.at - not the most beautiful chess set in the world, but for about 39 euros, shipping included, it´s jours. For paypal you just need an Austrian giro account.

without a credit card a little bit hard ...

Do you prefer Janus over GothicChess.org ?

if someone knows if it is possible to get a janus board/figures in köln or bonn please tell me! i will stay there from 02.-07.12.

My wife and I, we want to buy a Janus board and (Janus)chessmen to play at home, but we cannot find it in France.Perhaps it's possible in Germany or in USA...If somebody knows this please send a message to us.

The Smirf beta program has been updated to 0.7.2. I noticed that the logic when to use O-O-O or O-O is inverted in Janus Chess then normal. So I had to implement some additional changes ...

in FRC and CRC O-O is not always the short variant, same for Janus chess (I prosume). But if you target really to the side with less squares to be made empty the probability to have them empty earlier might by higher.

or 0-0-0, any statistics ? I catch me always using the short variant. It doesn´t bother me, just an observation.

To discuss the method patent property of Gothic Chess is misleading. The 10x8 chess scene is not visited that dense by users. So it would be counterproductive to insist of that patent to be ok or not or whether it would make sense to establish a game patent at all. I do not intend to patent my random 10x8 variant, because I am convinced it would be making that subject even unattractive. And I am not willing to invest a lot of time in discussing questions of patenting games. But Ed Trice has made his own decision on Gothic Chess, and obviously it has been possible to get such a game patented in the USA. So live and let live.

If you mean me, no, it plays on a planet of its own. Smirf alrady participated this year.

well put. Are you considering entering your prog in the Gothic computer championships?

In the country of my home, namely Germany, also, there is a truly huge discussion about not really complex patents (I didn´t say GC wasn´t complex) in the heavy internet users´ community which mainly consists of university students of young age, argueable the potential users of Gothic Vortex, despite patent laws are much different here. There will always be a way to play the game wihout caring about the patent, just because, for example, birds chess can lead to GC. The Gothic Chess Federation should see that as a good chance for even more popularity and via this way more sales of Gothic Vortex. My father is a patent attorney (not for informatics or chess). In a small talk he said to be rather sure to get a patent applied, he was not so sure about the chances of keeping it if anybody invests into a struggle. But, as said, the rules are much differnt, not comparable ... and the US economy is known to be innovative.

Sumerian, in a randomized version, even if you have setups identical to gothic chess, it won't infringe the patent because it is a different game arrived at randomly and you are not calling it or representing it as gothic chess. You could just add a rule like "if a player does not move a pawn or knight within the first 5 moves, that player loses the game."

(participant of the Gothic Chess World Championship)

... by Smirf 0.7.1 ... :-)

(Smirf is now able also to play Janus Chess)

[Event ""]
[Site ""]
[Date "2004.11.26"]
[Time "21:38:47"]
[Round ""]
[White "Smirf 0.7.1"]
[Black "Smirf 0.5.3"]
[Result "1-0"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rnbqckabnr/pppppppppp/0/0/0/0/PPPPPPPPPP/RNBQCKA
BNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.d4 d6 2.g3 Nc6 3.h3 h5 4.Bxc6 bxc6 5.Af3 Bd7 6.Axh5 g6 7.Af3 Bf6 8.c4 d5
9.Na3 e6 10.j4 a5 11.i4 Ng7 12.g4 j5 13.Be3 jxi4 14.hxi4 Ni6 15.Qc1 g5 16.Nh3
Ae7 17.Ag1 Rb8 18.Ni5 Rh8 19.j5 Nh4 20.Nh3 Rh6 21.i5 Rh8 22.j6 ixj6 23.ixj6 Rj8
24.Aj4+ Cg7 25.Axg7+ Kxg7 26.j7 Ad6 27.Rj2 Ni2 28.Cg2 Nh4 29.Ci3 Qh8 30.Bxg5
Bxg5 31.Qxg5+ Kf8 32.Ch5 Ni6 33.Cxh8+ Rxh8 34.j8=C Nxj8 35.Rxj8 Rxj8 36.Qxj8+
Ke7 37.Qxb8 Ah2+ 38.Ke1 Axg4 39.Ng5 e5 40.Qxc7 Af6 41.Nf3 exd4 42.Qxa5 Ke8
43.Qa8+ Ke7 44.Rd1 Ai3 45.Qg8 Bg4 46.Nxd4 Ag2+ 47.Kd2 Ae4+ 48.Kc1 Bd7 49.Ndc2
Be6 50.cxd5 cxd5 51.b4 Axf2 52.Rd4 Kd7 53.Nb5 Aj6 54.Qb8 Ai7+ 55.Rf4 Axf4+
56.Qxf4 Ke8 57.Qd6 f5 58.Qxe6+ Kf8 59.Nd6 Kg7 60.Nxf5+ Kh7 61.Qh6+ Kg8 62.Qg7#
1-0

Reinhard.

There is a possibility to preview the uncomplete SMIRF program. But without having license keys it will only show a limited amount of its power, and it will often demand for looking into the license dialog. But who is willing to thest it nevertheless, see at: http://www.chessbox.de/beta.html Project Chronicle 2004-Sep-29

Width 10, height 8, yes variants, including random start positions if you like, and another program named ChessV even in the other row. Both have their advantages and can play a lot.

I'm not sure what all this stuff means, but I'd certainly like to play 8 X 10 variants on my computer. Is that what this stuff does?

<well here is that part of code, with comments in mixed German and English, which creates FEN for FRC 1...960 or CRC 1...48000. The filtering of unwanted positions has to be done later. The castling rules are comparable to FRC, I do not know, what I shoul show additionally to that.

// Genese FEN-String normal (>=0) Capablanca (<0)
const char *CFig::GetFen(int nr)
{
// 0 ==> Capablanca generic Positioning

// knight distributions over 5 free squares
static const int knight_pos[10] = {
3, // xx---
5, // x-x--
9, // x--x-
17, // x---x
6, // -xx--
10, // -x-x-
18, // -x--x
12, // --xx-
20, // --x-x
24 // ---xx
};

// lösche den Ausgabebereich komplett
int pos = TXT_LIM;
while (--pos >= 0) { FenZone[pos] = '\0'; }

// wurde Capablanca Figurset verlangt ?
bool istCRC = (nr <= 0);

if (istCRC) {
// Vorzeichenwechsel beim CRC
nr = -nr;
// decide whether the queen should be set 1st
bool q_first = ((nr % 2) != 0);
nr /= 2;
// set the 1st piece by dividing 5 on bright
// (targeting at first row, white side)
PlatziereInFen(nr % 5,
q_first ? (DAME_SYM ^ TOLOW)
: (ERZBISCH_SYM ^ TOLOW), 0);
nr /= 5;
// set the 2nd piece by dividing 5 on dark
// (targeting at first row, white side)
PlatziereInFen(nr % 5,
q_first ? (ERZBISCH_SYM ^ TOLOW)
: (DAME_SYM ^ TOLOW), 1);
nr /= 5;
}

// set the bishop by dividing 4 on white fields
// (targeting at first row, white side)
PlatziereInFen(nr % 4, (LAEUFER_SYM ^ TOLOW), 0);
nr /= 4;
// set the bishop by dividing 4 on black fields
// (targeting at first row, white side)
PlatziereInFen(nr % 4, (LAEUFER_SYM ^ TOLOW), 1);
nr /= 4;
// set the queen or chancellor on a free field
// dividing 6
PlatziereInFen(nr % 6,
istCRC ? (KANZLER_SYM ^ TOLOW)
: (DAME_SYM ^ TOLOW) );
nr /= 6;
// calculate knight positions by nr and set them
pos = knight_pos[nr % 10];
for (int bit = 5; --bit >= 0; ) {
if ((pos & (1 < bit)) != 0)
PlatziereInFen(bit, (SPRINGER_SYM ^ TOLOW));
}
// set the remaining pieces, rooks and king
PlatziereInFen(2, (TURM_SYM ^ TOLOW));
PlatziereInFen(1, (KOENIG_SYM ^ TOLOW));
PlatziereInFen(0, (TURM_SYM ^ TOLOW));

// generate the resulting FEN line
int breite = istCRC ? 10 : 8;
char *pC = &FenZone[breite];
*pC++ = '/';
for (pos = breite; --pos >= 0; ) {
*pC++ = BAUER_SYM ^ TOLOW;
}
for (pos = 4; --pos >= 0; ) {
*pC++ = '/';
*pC++ = (char)('0' + breite % 10);
}
// große Buchstaben
*pC++ = '/';
for (pos = breite; --pos >= 0; ) {
*pC++ = BAUER_SYM;
}
*pC++ = '/';
for (pos = 0; pos breite; ++pos) {
*pC++ = FenZone[pos] ^ TOLOW;
}
*pC++ = ' ';
*pC++ = WEISS_SYM;
*pC++ = ' ';
*pC++ = KOENIG_SYM;
*pC++ = DAME_SYM;
*pC++ = KOENIG_SYM ^ TOLOW;
*pC++ = DAME_SYM ^ TOLOW;
strcpy(pC, " - 0 1");

// liefere den neuen FEN-String zurück
return FenZone;
}

// platziere Figur an vorgegebener freier Stelle
// (falls Color <0 gewählt wurde, ist diese egal)
void CFig::PlatziereInFen
(int nrFrei, char zeichen, int feldCol = -1)
{
// Suchschleife über den FEN-String
for (int pos = 0, frei = 0; ; ++pos) {
// falsch farbene Stellen überspringen
// (Perspektive Weiß, Grundreihe von links)
if (feldCol >= 0 && !((feldCol ^ pos) & 1)) {
continue;
}
// setze auf das erste so gefundene freie Feld
if (!FenZone[pos] && nrFrei == frei++) {
FenZone[pos] = zeichen;
break;
}
}
}

Have you written the lines of code to program the setup positions and how to castle? Once it is complete, with your permission the host of this website could make it playable on this website.

CRC (or if you like it: FullChess) is not intended to undergo Ed Trice's GC patent, but it would like to give its fascinating 10x8 board possibilities to everybody. Thus it tries to avoid conflicts with the Gothic Chess starting array by demanding at least three differences in White's base line. I am not demanding more differences. They might be but there is no need to be more distinct. Only very few from the 48.000 initial unfiltered arrays are that related to GC to be therefore excluded. Most of the missing arrays are kicked off only because of having uncovered pawns.

That's good that you have come up with rules. But shouldn't having all but 3 positions similar to gothic chess still be sufficiently different than gothic chess?

Are we calling this CRC or FullChess?

I would love to play the game on this site.

CAPABLANCA RANDOM CHESS (2004-Nov-26) Proposal

This definition of CRC should cover the following goals:

a) creating an interesting drosophila for chess programmers
b) using Capablancas 10x8 Chess board geometry
c) using Capablancas piece set (incl. archbishop and chancellor)
d) applying rules aligned to Fischer Random Chess
e) avoiding conflicts to any claimed patents

The CRC rules are:

a) creating a starting position (one of 48.000):
1) the bishops have to be placed upon different colored
squares; same rule applies to the implicite bishop pieces:
queen and archbishop (aligned to FRC)
2) the king always has to be placed somewhere between the
rooks to enable castlings (aligned to FRC)
3) use only such positions without unprotected pawns (Chess)

b) describing a method of generating starting positions on
free squares by using a dice or random number generator:
1) select queen or the archbishop to be placed first (2x)
2) place the selected 1st piece upon a bright square (5x)
3) place the selected 2nd piece upon a dark square (5x)
4) one bishop has to be placed upon a bright square (4x)
5) one bishop has to be placed upon a dark square (4x)
6) one chancellor has to be placed upon a free square (6x)
7) one knight has to be placed upon a free square (5x)
8) one knight has to be placed upon a free square (4x)/2
9) set the king upon the center of three free squares left
11) set the rooks upon the both last free squares left
12) this establishes White's first row, the Black side
has to be built up symmetrically to this
13) place ten pawns similar to traditional chess in a row
14) skip this position if it has unprotected pawns or not
at least three positions in line 1 differently filled
compared to Gothic Chess, this finally gives about
21.259 distinct starting arrays.

c) nature of (asymmetric Fischer-) castlings:
1) castlings are (like in traditional chess) only valid
if neither the affected king or rook has been moved, or
there would be a need to jump over any third piece, or
the king would be in chess somewhere from his starting
position to his target field (both included). Therefore
all squares between king and its target square (included)
have to be free from third pieces, same applies to the
way the rook has to go to its target square.
2) the alpha-castling (O-O-O, White's left side):
like in FRC the king will be placed two rows distant
from the border (here c-file) and the rook at the next
inner neighboured square.
3) the omega-castling (O-O, White's right side):
like in FRC the king will be placed one row distant
from the border (here i-file) and the rook at the next
inner neighboured square.

d) performing castlings:
within a GUI try to move the king upon the related rook
or at least two squares into that direction; manually:
1) move the king outside of the board
2) move the rook to its end position (if need to)
3) move the king to his end position

e) extended FEN encoding:
1) the extended FRC-FEN could be used as a base
2) 'a'/'A' are used to identify archbishops
3) 'c'/'C' are used to identify chancellors
4) '9' is used to mark nine empty fields
5) '0' is used to mark ten empty fields
6) if a castling enabled rook is not the most outer one
at that side, the letter of his file has to be placed
immediately following his castling marker symbol, where
'q'/'Q' are used for the alpha-, 'k'/'K' for omega-side.

f) engine notation rules for castling moves:
According to UCI convention the castling moves should be
written by using both coordinates (source and target field)
of the involved king. But there are castlings, where the
king does only one or none simple step. In that cases the
castling should be distinguishable by appending a 'k', like
already practized in promotion moves to make them unique.
Overmore an engine should accept O-O or O-O-O (no zeroes),
but only use them, when the GUI would demand for such a
less precise notation.

Ah! The formula!

Indeed, you are right! It proves that you have read my proposal, thank you! I will correct that mistake at once, that is because a German is using English ...

Well i'm seing something wrong here.......

At your site you have that CRC positions should obey to this rule:
c) compared to the initial array of GC at least three squares have to be differently filled;

And now you are saying:
Skip this position if it has at least three positions in line 1 similar to Gothic Chess.


2 things i see wrong:

1)You should replace "at least" in what you wrote here, with "at most". At least 3 means: 3 or 4 or 5 or....10. At most 3 means: 3 or 2 or 1 or 0. So you should obviously skip positions which have 3*** or 2 or 1 or 0 squares filled differently. So you should replace "at least" with "at most".
***=actually the 3 is wrong also and this is my second note.


2)You should replace at most 3(having already corrected the "at least" with "at most"), with at most 2. At your site you say that a position should be legal only if it has at least 3 squares differently filled. That means if it has 3 or 4 or 5 or...10 squares differently filled, it is legal. So it is illegal only if it has 2 or 1 or 0 squares filled the same. So we should skip those positions, so we should skip every position that has at most 2 squares differently filled.

(Regards, Solve a!=b!c! if you remember me...)

It needs to add a matching FEN string to the PGN like:

[Event "Casual Game"]
[Site "BrainKing.com (Prague, Czech Republic)"]
[Date "2004.03.22"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Pioneer54"]
[Black "tangram"]
[Result "1-0"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rjnbkqbnjr/pppppppppp/0/0/0/0/PPPPPPPPPP/RJNBKQB
NJR w sKQkq - 0 1"]

1. f4 e6 2. Nd3 Ng6 3. g4 Bh4+ 4. Bf2 Jj6 5. Ng3 c6 6. i3 Bxg3 7. Bxg3 Ji8
8. f5 d6 9. fxg6 hxg6 10. e3 Bi6 11. h4 e5 12. Ja3 f6 13. Nxe5 fxe5
14. Qxf8+ Kxf8 15. Bxe5 Jh6 16. Jj3 Bh7 17. Rf1+ Kg8 18. Jc4+ Kh8
19. Rf8+ Bg8 20. Jxg6# 1-0

CAPABLANCA RANDOM CHESS (2004-Nov-26) Proposal

This definition of CRC should cover the following goals:

a) creating an interesting drosophila for chess programmers
b) using Capablancas 10x8 Chess board geometry
c) using Capablancas piece set (incl. archbishop and chancellor)
d) applying rules aligned to Fischer Random Chess
e) avoiding conflicts to any claimed patents

The CRC rules are:

a) creating a starting position (one of 48.000):
1) the bishops have to be placed upon different colored
squares; same rule applies to the implicite bishop pieces:
queen and archbishop (aligned to FRC)
2) the king always has to be placed somewhere between the
rooks to enable castlings (aligned to FRC)
3) use only such positions without unprotected pawns (Chess)

b) describing a method of generating starting positions on
free squares by using a dice or random number generator:
1) select queen or the archbishop to be placed first (2x)
2) place the selected 1st piece upon a bright square (5x)
3) place the selected 2nd piece upon a dark square (5x)
4) one bishop has to be placed upon a bright square (4x)
5) one bishop has to be placed upon a dark square (4x)
6) one chancellor has to be placed upon a free square (6x)
7) one knight has to be placed upon a free square (5x)
8) one knight has to be placed upon a free square (4x)/2
9) set the king upon the center of three free squares left
11) set the rooks upon the both last free squares left
12) this establishes White's first row, the Black side
has to be built up symmetrically to this
13) place ten pawns similar to traditional chess in a row
14) skip this position if it has unprotected pawns or at
least three positions in line 1 similar to Gothic Chess,
this finally gives about 21259 distinct starting arrays.

c) nature of (asymmetric Fischer-) castlings:
1) castlings are (like in traditional chess) only valid
if neither the affected king or rook has been moved, or
there would be a need to jump over any third piece, or
the king would be in chess somewhere from his starting
position to his target field (both included). Therefore
all squares between king and its target square (included)
have to be free from third pieces, same applies to the
way the rook has to go to its target square.
2) the alpha-castling (O-O-O, White's left side):
like in FRC the king will be placed two rows distant
from the border (here c-file) and the rook at the next
inner neighboured square.
3) the omega-castling (O-O, White's right side):
like in FRC the king will be placed one row distant
from the border (here i-file) and the rook at the next
inner neighboured square.

d) performing castlings:
within a GUI try to move the king upon the related rook
or at least two squares into that direction; manually:
1) move the king outside of the board
2) move the rook to its end position (if need to)
3) move the king to his end position

e) extended FEN encoding:
1) the extended FRC-FEN could be used as a base
2) 'a'/'A' are used to identify archbishops
3) 'c'/'C' are used to identify chancellors
4) '9' is used to mark nine empty fields
5) '0' is used to mark ten empty fields
6) if a castling enabled rook is not the most outer one
at that side, the letter of his file has to be placed
immediately following his castling marker symbol, where
'q'/'Q' are used for the alpha-, 'k'/'K' for omega-side.
(Because of the three black fields a1, c1, e1 which are
candidates for the queen's starting position, from White's
view the left alpha-side is more related to the queen
than the right side, according to the naming conventions
within traditional chess, and the majority of starting
positions will have the queen at the left alpha-side.)

f) engine notation rules for castling moves:
According to UCI convention the castling moves should be
written by using both coordinates (source and target field)
of the involved king. But there are castlings, where the
king does only one or none simple step. In that cases the
castling should be distinguishable by appending a 'k', like
already practized in promotion moves to make them unique.
Overmore an engine should accept O-O or O-O-O (no zeroes),
but only use them, when the GUI would demand for such a
less precise notation.

Describing a method of generating starting positions on
free squares by using a dice or random number generator:

1) select queen or the archbishop to be placed first (2x)
2) place the selected 1st piece upon a bright square (5x)
3) place the selected 2nd piece upon a dark square (5x)
4) one bishop has to be placed upon a bright square (4x)
5) one bishop has to be placed upon a dark square (4x)
6) one chancellor has to be placed upon a free square (6x)
7) one knight has to be placed upon a free square (5x)
8) one knight has to be placed upon a free square (4x)/2
9) set the king upon the center of three free squares left
11) set the rooks upon the both last free squares left
10) this establishes White's first row, the Black side
has to be built up symmetrically to this
11) place ten pawns similar to traditional chess in a row
12) skip this position if it has unprotected pawns or at
least three positions in line 1 similar to Gothic Chess,
this finally gives about 21259 distinct starting arrays.

On CRC: there are about 21259 selected positions from 48000. You seem to forget that Archbishop and Queen has to be placed on different colored squares by CRC rule. See for this also at: [http://www.chessbox.de/Compu/schachcrc_e.html]


Chess960 has been invented by Bobby Fischer and you should not change its rules because of respecting its inventor. The unprotected pawns there are a more cosmetic problem than in CRC where are more heavy sliding pieces. See Japanese Shogi having always three uncovered pawns at the beginning but nevertheless was played for centuries.

I think an interesting variatino would be Capablanca chess with a random starting position following the rules of Fisher random chess. That kind of chess is best suited to match play rather than single game play because white could have an advantage in the first move.

Another note:

Why is it in Chess960 that none of the positions having an unprotected pawn is excluded?

I have seen the book on your website, but I do not know german so I cannot read your book :)

I did not know you were the one who named FullChess. This is a great name for CRC.

You keep saying 48000. My calculations are:
5 bishop x 5 bishop x 8 Q x 7 A x 6 C x 10 ways to put 2 knights in 5 sqaures x 1 K and 2 rooks = 84,000.

When I play this at chess clubs all I have with me is the set and a die. A computer and program are not with me. It is very practical to use something simple like a die.

Well Smirf GUI is a great tool to have those positions generated. Moreover it can create all of those 48000 basic positions, which number is also identifying the selected 21xxx. There is a bidirectional identification of number and position as is in FRC, where I standardized all 960 arrays. Do you know my (German) book on FRC?

Well, Ed Trice is selling 10x8 chess sets, but I think most people - especially in that context - will use computer assistance. Thus Smirf is a good tool. It would be very frustrating to have a lot of manually dice rollings to end up often in an unwanted position.

Those 48000 numbers already are standardized.

FullChess has been my proposal to rename FRC. But Mr. Schmitt decided for Chess960, which is not a bad name at all. So I took back that proposal and gave it a new meaning to cover several 8x8 and 10x8 Variants within one engine and GUI. And the most creative part within that approach is the CRC invention. So why not use the name "FullChess", which has not existed before I created it?

Reinhard.

Subtracting some positions makes it more difficult over-the-board to generate a position. Using all 84,000 it can be done with only 1 die. Roll for both bishops, then for the king. If position has an unprotected pawn, all pieces would have to be placed again.

There definitly should be a standard that everyone uses so that there is more collectivity and the game can grow faster.

As for a name, Fullchess is a great name if it has not already been taken for 8x8 :)

To 1) interpreted as near to normal FEN as possible:
'w': white side to move
's': symmetrical (Janus) castlings (using b-file instead c-file)
'K': white (classical) King side castling (to i-file) possible
'Q': white (classical) Queen side castling (to b-file) possible
'k': black (classical) King side castling (to i-file) possible
'q': black (classical) Queen side castling (to b-file) possible
'-': no e.p. capture square active
'0': no move done for 50 moves draw count
'1': current move number

To 2)
I have definded that variant myself. So I decided when having a pool of 48000 positions to select only the most stable ones. I think 21xxx should be sufficient.

The name:
I called it CRC (Capablanca Random Chess) but I am open for good proposals. My original programming approach was called "FullChess", how about that?

Reinhard.

1. What does w sKQkq - 0 1 mean?
2. I never knew it called for A and Q on different colors and all pawns must be protected. Looking on chessvariants.com, bird's chess has A and Q on the same color. In Chess960, sometimes you can get a start where a pawn is not protected. Who decided the standard should be with these two rules?

If someone is going to market this game or popularize this game, there must be a good name for it. Fischer random's name was changed to chess960 and fullchess. It should not have a name which is gimicky like random, super, etc. It also should not have a chess player's name in it. Cassius suggested chess21000. Prehaps Chess21k. Does "hybrid chess" make it sound too much like a variant?

Hi all 10x8 interested people,

I just have decided that Smirf will also support Janus Chess with its different symmetric castlings. This will extend the FEN string slightly the way I have suggested with an additional 's' for to state the presence of symmetric castlings. In that case also an Archbishop 'A' will be displayed as Janus 'J'. The FEN string then looks like the following one:

rjnbkqbnjr/pppppppppp/0/0/0/0/PPPPPPPPPP/
RJNBKQBNJR w sKQkq - 0 1

The Capablanca Random Chess also demands for Archbishop and Queen to be placed on different colored squares and for the avoiding of uncovered pawns. Thus about 21000 positions will result.

Reinhard.

And you can play also with ChessV and Zillions. Not very strong,but you can play.
Nothing will remain as a comuter free zone in the future.

Random 10x8 chess with a chancellor and archbishop would definitly be neat. Chess960 cuts out the analyzed openings so memorization of openings is not required. Ed Trice has said that gothic chess does not yet have a large opening book, but it is quickly becomming very large. Gothic chess, although more exciting with the two additional pieces, could suffer the from the same problems as classical chess is.

I guess random 10x8 has the best of both world with the chancellor and archbishop, and not having pre-planned openings.

Why is it that some programmers have said that programmings castling rules is difficult. Fritz has said they won't put Chess960 in their program because it is difficult. Yet other programmers have done this like Chess V.

By the way, my calculations are 84000 for random 10x8 with bishops on different colors and the king between the rooks. How did you guys come up with 2000?

As for janus chess being computer free, I can already play janus chess with gothic vortex. All I have to do is rearrange the setup. The only thing is that the castling is slightly different.

Hi Caissus,

you are pointing to a direction which is not quite wrong. The argument has been, that Janus Chess would be a computer free zone and any thus Janus Chess aware computer programs would be negative. This has been told to me in a very harsh and insensible way, instead of honouring to be asked for a comment in that approach. I easily could have avoided any contact to that people, but instead I have been that polite to ask them for their thoughts on that. But my will to cooperate therein so has not payed at all.

Reinhard.

To play additionally Januschess with the Smirf would be nice,of course.
But which people from Germany have reacted negative? The Januschessfederation? And why?

Hi Caissus,

I had been in connection with some Janus relevant german people, whether to enable Smirf to also play Janus Chess, but the reaction has been very negative.

To enable Janus Chess for playing will mean to extend the understanding of FEN strings targeting to also support the different symmetrically castlings.

I do not know whether there has been already proposals in that direction, but I would suggest to simply add a preceeding "s" before the castling block of a FEN string. With that it would be able to send an information to the engine to generate symmetrical castlings instead of the standard assymmetric castlings. (This would also give new possibilities to 8x8 chess.)

How do you think about that problem / suggestion?

Reinhard.

Hi Caissus,

I see, your example is probably Janus Chess. Janus Chess has a different Queens side castling than canonically understood for chessboards 10x8 or 8x8. But except of this feature the just rebuilt Smirf GUI will support Janus PGN inputs, if the appropriate FEN is included (J will be interpreted as A, Archbishop).

See the following transformed PGN

[Event "Casual Game"]
[Site "BrainKing.com (Prague, Czech Republic)"]
[Date "2004.08.07"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Caissus"]
[Black "EdTrice"]
[Result "*"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "ranbkqbnar/pppppppppp/0/0/0/0/PPPPPPPPPP/RANBKQB
NAR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.e4 Ac6 2.Ng3 Nd6 3.Ac3 Ng6 4.Nb3 e5 5.f3 b6 6.Be2 Ah6 7.Be3 Bg5 8.Bxg5 Axg5
9.Ah3 Axh3 10.ixh3 Nf4 11.d4 Nxe2 12.Qxe2 f6 *

Reinhard.

Thanks Reinhard, I have sent the pgn-file as PM in your messagebox:-).I hope if Fencer reads this notes he will perhaps enhance the pgn-code.

Hi all,

I forgot to mention, that Smirf is able to add comments to such games and will reformat the PGN when writing it itself:

[Event "Casual Game"]
[Site "BrainKing.com (Prague, Czech Republic)"]
[Date "2004.07.15"]
[Time "??:??:??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "tangram"]
[Black "nstre"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Annotator "?"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rnbqckabnr/pppppppppp/0/0/0/0/PPPPPPPPPP/RNBQCKA
BNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.d4 Nh6 2.Nh3 i6 3.i3 Bi7 4.Bi2 d6 5.c4 f6 6.d5 c6 7.Nc3 e6 8.e4 e5 9.f3 c5
10.Af2 a6 11.O-O Af7 12.g4 O-O 13.Nj4 g5 14.a4 Nd7 15.Ne2 Nf8 16.Cg2 Ng6 17.Bd2
Nj5 18.Bh3 Nh6 19.Ni2 Nf4 20.Nxf4 gxf4 21.Ah4 Ag5 22.Be1 Cg7 23.Axg5 Cxg5
24.Ng1 Qe8 25.Bi2 Bd7 26.h4 Cg7 0-1

Reinhard.

Hi Caissus,

Still I have not received a PGN file. So I tried to find one hier at this site. As I prosumed the local PGN file is not obeying the PGN format in two points: a) the game lines are not limited to about 80 chars each, b) the initial GC FEN string is missing.

If you would insert the matching FEN string [FEN "rnbqckabnr/pppppppppp/0/0/0/0/PPPPPPPPPP/RNBQCKA
BNR w KQkq - 0 1"] (should be a constant for GC) and also enter line breaks Smirf is able to read such files.

ne converted PGN file would then look like this:

[Event "Casual Game"]
[Site "BrainKing.com (Prague, Czech Republic)"]
[Date "2004.07.15"]
[Round "?"]
[White "tangram"]
[Black "nstre"]
[Result "0-1"]
[FEN "rnbqckabnr/pppppppppp/0/0/0/0/PPPPPPPPPP/RNBQCKA
BNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1. d4 Nh6 2. Nh3 i6 3. i3 Bi7 4. Bi2 d6 5. c4 f6 6. d5 c6 7. Nc3 e6 8. e4 e5
9. f3 c5 10. Af2 a6 11. O-O Af7 12. g4 O-O 13. Nj4 g5 14. a4 Nd7 15. Ne2 Nf8
16. Cg2 Ng6 17. Bd2 Nj5 18. Bh3 Nh6 19. Ni2 Nf4 20. Nxf4 gxf4 21. Ah4 Ag5
22. Be1 Cg7 23. Axg5 Cxg5 24. Ng1 Qe8 25. Bi2 Bd7 26. h4 Cg7 0-1

Maybe it would be a good idea to convice the site owner to enhance the PGN compatibility in the both mentioned points.

Reinhard.