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ChessV

. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

V. Reinhart wrote on Thu, Mar 30, 2017 01:42 AM UTC:

OK, thanks for answering. In a few weeks I might try ChessV.

I noticed the package includes Fairy-Max. Does ChessV and Fairy-Max share any code, or are they distinct programs?

Regards, :)

V. Reinhart wrote on Thu, Mar 30, 2017 04:05 AM UTC:

Thanks Greg,

I've already tried Fairy-Max, and I used it to estimate (or confirm) the value of a guard (Mann) by playing a few hundred (computer vs. computer) games. (For example playing games with an asymmetry of 2 guards against a bishop and a knight. I forgot the specific results but if anyone is interested i can dig it up easily)

I'm currently trying to setup a chess game with teams of Chess on an Infinite Plane at the chess.com website. I like the infinite board mainly because no software plays it yet. I know for sure all moves are from human play only.

(If anyone reads this and is interested please leave a comment.)

It won't be the same as "Kasparov versus the World" where 50,000 people participated. But help during the game from passers-by is allowed (joining one team or the other).

Thanks for your information. Once I finish some current games I'm in I definitely plan to try ChessV.

Cataclysm. Large board game with short-range pieces designed to be dramatic without being overly complicated or dragging on too long. (12x16, Cells: 192) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

V. Reinhart wrote on Wed, Apr 5, 2017 02:29 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

In the notes to this game, it says this game has rotational symmetry rather than mirror symmetry. That does not appear correct based on the setup diagram. Even the king and queen face each other, each sharing the same file as in classical chess. Was the graphic updated, or am I missing something?

It does look like an excellent large-format variant. Does anyone know if ChessV plays it (and if so, how well)?

Chess with Different Armies. Betza's classic variant where white and black play with different sets of pieces. (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

V. Reinhart wrote on Wed, Apr 5, 2017 02:30 PM UTC:

After reading these comments I became curious what graphic set is used for Chess with different armies (the version shown on this thread). I couldn't find out. Does anyone know?

V. Reinhart wrote on Wed, Apr 5, 2017 10:05 PM UTC:

Thanks Fergus,

It looks like there's a big set of Alfaerie graphics. I was looking for a war machine icon that I saw somewhere, and i was able to find it. In fact, there's a few versions. I appreciate it.

Thanks! :)

Cataclysm. Large board game with short-range pieces designed to be dramatic without being overly complicated or dragging on too long. (12x16, Cells: 192) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

V. Reinhart wrote on Thu, Apr 6, 2017 07:19 PM UTC:

Thanks Greg,

I just wanted to make sure I understood the defintion of mirror symmetry.

I definitely think multiple moves per turn is something to continue exploring (not necessarily in chess engines, but in the games).

I've thought about adding the feature to Trappist-1 (version of Chess on an Infinite Plane). It will help correspondence games go faster when only one move is played per day. Of course it also changes the strategy. The opening and mid-game will go-by faster, and then the final "clash" can be much more damaging.

Theres are some game notations on this site with double-moves, but all are very short (like 10-15 moves). But with a large format game I think it can work really well, and with Cataclysm, using it for selective pieces (just pawns) is a great idea.:)

ChessV

. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

V. Reinhart wrote on Fri, Apr 7, 2017 02:23 AM UTC:

I just installed chessV and I already really like it a lot! It uploads quickly, and installed with no problems. It seems like an awesome program. I like how games are categorized, making it easy to find games, and includes an index with each game's history. Great work! I'm gonna really enjoy using it!

(I also saw Aurelian's Enep on it too!)

The huygens chess piece (submitting to be catalogued in the Piececlopedia)[Subject Thread] [Add Response]

V. Reinhart wrote on Fri, Apr 7, 2017 03:07 AM UTC:

To Fergus, Greg, and all others concerned,

I would like to submit a piece to the CVP Piececlopedia, and hope you can add it to the catalog.

The chess piece is the Huygens and is played in Trappist-1 and can also be played in variations of Chess on an Infinite Plane .

Including this piece in Piececlopedia will help demonstrate that CVP remains focused on keeping the catalog up-to-date, especially with new pieces that bring new tactical concepts to variant chess games. The huygens is also a piece which is interesting to mathemeticians doing work in the field of game theory, including those who study chess games played on an infinite chessboard.

(Aurelian pointed out to me the YouTube video about Infinite Chess which has become widely popular among chess players. For those who have not seen it can view it here):

YouTube Video - Infinite Chess

Two graphics of the huygens are shown here. The first was designed by Fergus Duniho. Other details are below.

Name: Huygens

History: Named after Christiaan Huygens, a prominent Dutch mathematician and astonomer. Chess piece invented by vickalan, and was first used in mid-2016.

Movement: The huygens jumps prime numbers of squares in orthogonal directions (so jumps 2, 3, 5, 7, 11,...squares). It is sometimes played with a different minimum jump distance, so that it is not a close-attacking piece.

Note: One graphic of the huygens was designed by Fergus Duniho, and was originally specified as a king-bishop (from the Abstract Piece Set). It is also used as the huygens, such as in Trappist-1.

Thank you for considering this piece for CVP's Piececlopedia.

Marseillais Chess. Move twice per turn. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

V. Reinhart wrote on Fri, Apr 7, 2017 04:33 AM UTC:

Thanks Greg,

I think it was me who made the request (I was wondering about games with double-moves). A game with 23 moves is not really very long, so the double-move does shorten the game. (But it's not too short that the play becomes unfair or non strategic).

I did just recently upload ChessV so now I can do my own analysis. I might try to to do a study similar to what you just did.

Btw, 4 other games listed here lasted 4, 7, 19, and 13 moves. So I assume ChessV played better (like two equally matched opponents). The other possibility is that ChessV played worse, but worse in an equal way (but I doubt that).

One question: Why did the analysis take 12 hours? I know looking into the game tree takes many cycles, but that seems like a really deep analysis. Is that the normal time required to get best play from ChessV?

V. Reinhart wrote on Fri, Apr 7, 2017 04:52 PM UTC:

That's interesing. 12 hours is a big jump from the default value of 5 minutes (144x to be exact). But a small default makes sense, so you can play a fast game first, then set it to more acurate play later if you're ready.

When you did the 12 hour test, did you set the Minutes to 720, or did you just run the game "unlimited"?

I also like the 12x12 chess game option. That is a game I'm going to play and study. It's basically the same as chess but with 2 extra files or ranks around the perimeter. Therefore it represents an intermediate point between chess and chess on an infinite plane . One thing I've been curious about is if good play ever involves trying to go around your opponents pieces, and attack from behind. Obviously you lose tempo, but the advantage is the back is not guarded by pawns.

The huygens chess piece (submitting to be catalogued in the Piececlopedia)[Subject Thread] [Add Response]

V. Reinhart wrote on Fri, Apr 7, 2017 06:07 PM UTC:

Is the Piececlopedia database considered accurate? I did a search to see how often new pieces are added, or pages updated. For the last five years this is what I got:

New pieces: 0
Edited pages: 3

Is this right?

V. Reinhart wrote on Fri, Apr 7, 2017 07:50 PM UTC:

Thanks Ben, I appreciate the information. Can I submit the information (original post) to be added as an Article "The Huygens"? I checked the articles for other chess pieces, and there's 19 total, not including the "atoms". The newest article was written 19 years ago. About ten of the pieces have interesting but generic names, such as:

Furlrurlbakking
Forfnibakking
Fibnif
mAW
fFbW
Fibnif plus Rook
B4nD
N2R4
Forfnifurlrurking

I think the Huygens will add fresh new variety to the collection of CVP's articles. It will be one of the few pieces that is known by its formal name rather than a generic name. It will also be the first piece at CVP designed specifically to be played on on infinite chessboard (which is beginning to draw attention, even from non-chess players).

Infinite Chess on YouTube

Please let me know if the Huygens can be added to CVP's chess piece articles soon. If there's any other information you need about it please let me know.

Regards,

V. Reinhart wrote on Fri, Apr 7, 2017 09:35 PM UTC:

Oh, thanks Ben. I see the main heading for piece articles now. I also found this which appears to be a separate "archive" of some pieces (not sure):

http://www.chessvariants.com/d.betza/chessvar/pieces/index.html

Fergus, let me know what I should so next. The front page of CVP has a link "How you can help - Submitting content" I'm trying to follow the instructions the best I can. I hope the Huygens can be cataloged soon. One of the images originated from your work, and maybe soon it will be in a YouTube video about Infinte Chess with the Huygens"!

Name: Huygens

History: Named after Christiaan Huygens, a prominent Dutch mathematician and astonomer. Chess piece invented by vickalan, and was first used in mid-2016.

Note: One graphic of the huygens was designed by Fergus Duniho, and was originally specified as a king-bishop (from the Abstract Piece Set). It is also used as the huygens, such as in Trappist-1.

Thank you for considering this piece for CVP's Piececlopedia.

Best regards,

Maneuvering a Huygens on a Chessboard[Subject Thread] [Add Response]

V. Reinhart wrote on Sat, Apr 8, 2017 05:40 PM UTC:

A huygens is chess piece that jumps in the directions of a rook any prime number of squares. In this discussion, I also impose the limit that it has a minimum jump distance of 5 or more squares (as it is used in Trappist-1 ).

So this huygens jumps distances of 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97... and so on. Its icons are shown here:

Icon 1 - by Fergus Duniho.

Icon 2 - Scientific Version

Just like a knight sometimes has trouble moving to a certain square (like requiring 4 jumps to move to a square 2 squares up and 2 left), moving a huygens can also take a few jumps to move to certain squares. Moving an odd number of squares can be tricky if the number isn't prime, because the sum of two primes is always even (unless one of the numbers is 2, but the huygens here can't jump 2 squares). So in these cases, a huygens needs to make 3 jumps to get to a particular square.

When moving an even number of squares, I think it would usually take 2 jumps. But I don't know if there is a way to prove this for every even-numbered move. It is currently unknown if every even integer can be expressed as the sum of two primes. In the 1700's Christian Goldbach believed it was true but couldn't prove it. Today it is still an unsolved problem and is known as the Goldbach Conjecture.

So if you are playing a game of chess with the huygens, don't always assume that you can move an even number of squares in two jumps. There may be some rare cases where three jumps are required. But shorter moves are usually not a problem to figure out. Here's a summary I believe is usually true:
If the distance is prime (5 or more) the huygens can move there in one jump.
If the distance is even, the huygens can get there in two jumps (always or almost always true)
If the distance is odd and not prime, it will require three jumps
The list below shows how to do it for distances up to 40. This may not include every possible method for each distance. For some short moves, it is necessary to overjump the destination, and them move back.

(Move/Leap distances to make the move):
1 (5,7,-11)
2 (7,-5)
3 (5,11,-13)
4 (11,-7)
5 (5)
6 (11,-5)
7 (7)
8 (13,-5)
9 (5,11,-7)
10 (5,5) or (17,-7)
11 (11)
12 (5,7)
13 (13)
14 (7,7)
15 (5,5,5)
16 (5,11)
17 (17)
18 (5,13) or (7,11)
19 (19)
20 (7,13)
21 (7,7,7)
22 (5,17) or (11,11)
23 (23)
24 (5,19) or (7,17) or (11,13)
25 (5,7,13)
26 (7,19) or (13,13)
27 (5,11,11) or (5,5,17) or (7,7,13)
28 (5,23) or (11,17)
29 (29)
30 (7,23) or (11,19) or (13,17)
31 (31)
32 (13,19)
33 (11,11,11)
34 (17,17) or (11,23)
35 (11,11,13)
36 (17,19)
37 (37)
38 (11,11,11,5)
39 (13,19,7)
40 (11,29) or (17,23)

If anyone finds an error or a faster way for any of these moves please leave a reply.

About Game Courier. Web-based system for playing many different variants by email or in real-time.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

V. Reinhart wrote on Sun, Apr 9, 2017 01:40 PM UTC:

Agreed. I noticed the same thing.

Maneuvering a Huygens on a Chessboard[Subject Thread] [Add Response]

V. Reinhart wrote on Sun, Apr 9, 2017 01:49 PM UTC:

Is this maneuvering problem similar to the knight's tour problem (first discussed in the 9th century)?

About Game Courier. Web-based system for playing many different variants by email or in real-time.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

V. Reinhart wrote on Sun, Apr 9, 2017 10:31 PM UTC:

Yup, It seems to work now.

I was even able to add graphics to one of my recent posts.

Thanks Fergus!

Maneuvering a Huygens on a Chessboard[Subject Thread] [Add Response]

V. Reinhart wrote on Mon, Apr 10, 2017 09:44 PM UTC:

I've heard of some of those sequences, but not all of them. I had to look up the pancake numbers.

For example, for 4 pancakes, there's 3 ways it might be in an unorganized stack so that it requries 4 flips with a spatula to organize it (from large to small), 11 that require 3, 6 for 2, 3 for 1, and 1 for 0. So a 4 pancake stack gives a pancake sequence of 3, 11, 6, 3, and 1. (Or 1, 3, 6, 11, 3 in reverse order).

But I don't understand the pancake sequence that you showed. It's not a sequence for any stack of pancakes. Am I not on the right path to what a pancake sequence is? Were some pancakes burned and thrown away? Let me know!

V. Reinhart wrote on Tue, Apr 11, 2017 02:55 PM UTC:

That's funny. Pancake numbers can come from two ways: stacking them and cutting them! It's making me hungry.

I'll eat and then enjoy web-surfing to learn more about some of the other number sequences you listed!

Yáng Qí. Yankee ingenuity adds new power to Chinese Chess. (9x10, Cells: 90) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

V. Reinhart wrote on Wed, Apr 12, 2017 05:42 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

Merging Chinese chess with Western chess was a very ambitious thing to do (altering two orthodox traditions) but I think you've succeeded! I like how you took the plain round disks and replaced them with chess pieces that are easier to discrimate. Good work on this interesting variant!

Maneuvering a Huygens on a Chessboard[Subject Thread] [Add Response]

V. Reinhart wrote on Thu, Apr 13, 2017 04:22 PM UTC:

OK, today I'll study the lucky numbers, and the wierd numbers from George Duke. (Possible new chess pieces for large chessboards and infinite chess).

I like the Lucky numbers. Once a number is stricken from the list, it can never be added back. The lucky ones remain!

The huygens chess piece (submitting to be catalogued in the Piececlopedia)[Subject Thread] [Add Response]

V. Reinhart wrote on Thu, Apr 13, 2017 04:26 PM UTC:

Fergus, Ben, Greg, what's the normal amount of time for CVP to decide if material (such as below, which I also submited at "Post your own Games") can be added to the Piececlopedia or as a side-article?

I know you guys are working on the CKEditor. But the material I posted is pre-formatted, displays correctly, and is ready to go.

The only question is if Fergus is OK with the huygens having his "pyramid" artwork to be used as a piece shape. (If not, then the scientific design can be the primary piece shape).

The article I wrote is complete, but I would also be completelly fine with anyone adding to it, and then it being posted with two authors.

It's time for CVP to have a new piece added to Piececlopedia. It's been awhile since the last one!

Huygens. Members-Only A chess piece (the Huygens).[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Since this comment is for a page that has not been published yet, you must be signed in to read it.

The huygens chess piece (submitting to be catalogued in the Piececlopedia)[Subject Thread] [Add Response]

V. Reinhart wrote on Fri, Apr 14, 2017 04:30 AM UTC:

Hi Fergus, I'm sorry - I did recieve your e-mail this morning but didn't realize you had sent it. To answer your questions about infinite chess, there are currently a few games in progress and some of them are on public game forums. (One game is a team competition between two groups, with one move being declared about every two days). Infinite chess is also being discussed on math forums, because of how it affects the ability of chess to be analyzed by game theory, and chess-playing software.

I did delete your graphic from my submission, because I will of course respect your artwork if you don't want it used for the huygens.

I also added a mention of Hans Bodlaender, and a link to a page where he discussed infinite chess in 2001. (As you know Hans was very innovative, and it's good to see the current team of editors for CVP continue to carry on his tradition).

I understand that the Piececlopedia is for pieces with a long tradition, so I understand you may not want it included there. But I hope you will make the article about the huygens visible to the public, so that these pages continue to be useful to people who might want to learn more about Infinite Chess, and the pieces that are used with it.

As always, I really appreciate your support.

V. Reinhart wrote on Fri, Apr 14, 2017 04:28 PM UTC:

At one chess-playing forum, there are at least two games of my version "Chess on an Infinite Plane" being played. One of them is a team competition (3 players vs. 3 players). Another game in-progress is called "Chess on an Infinite Plane with Huygens Option" which is the same as Trappist-1 (a game described here at CVP).

Also, the huygens has received attention among the math community. An example is at the StackExchange Talk Forum, and also at the Talk Page of Joel Hamkins "A position in infinite chess with game value ω^4".