Check out Janggi (Korean Chess), our featured variant for December, 2024.

Enter Your Reply

The Comment You're Replying To
H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Jan 31, 2011 05:47 PM UTC:
Well, this is all speculation, so a bit pointless to argue about it. Fairy-Max is a weak engine, and in the mean time engines have emerged that beat it in Spartan Chess more than 95%. Fairy-Max would never discover what is the best opening line, as it has no memory of what it played in previous games, and its first few moves are drastically randomized, so it sometimes playes very poor moves (like 1.h2h4 in Mad Queen).

But that is not enough to neutralize the white advantage. In self-play Fairy-Max clearly favors white with about 53%. Apparently this is a very robust advantage, that is not really dependent on accurate play, provided black plays equally inaccurately. This is remarkable in itself. But there is no reason to assume that this would be completely different in an asymmetric game.

It could be that strategic insight on how to best build and attack Hoplite strictures could swing the advantage in either way, and that computers never would discover such things unless they are programmed in their evaluation. (Which requires them to become known first.) This is why I would like to see Spartan Chess be played seriously by Humans, for some time. But it is not easy to arrange that, and for now we will have to settle by having it played by 7 independently developed engines.

Edit Form

Comment on the page On Designing Good Chess Variants

Conduct Guidelines
This is a Chess variants website, not a general forum.
Please limit your comments to Chess variants or the operation of this site.
Keep this website a safe space for Chess variant hobbyists of all stripes.
Because we want people to feel comfortable here no matter what their political or religious beliefs might be, we ask you to avoid discussing politics, religion, or other controversial subjects here. No matter how passionately you feel about any of these subjects, just take it someplace else.
Avoid Inflammatory Comments
If you are feeling anger, keep it to yourself until you calm down. Avoid insulting, blaming, or attacking someone you are angry with. Focus criticisms on ideas rather than people, and understand that criticisms of your ideas are not personal attacks and do not justify an inflammatory response.
Quick Markdown Guide

By default, new comments may be entered as Markdown, simple markup syntax designed to be readable and not look like markup. Comments stored as Markdown will be converted to HTML by Parsedown before displaying them. This follows the Github Flavored Markdown Spec with support for Markdown Extra. For a good overview of Markdown in general, check out the Markdown Guide. Here is a quick comparison of some commonly used Markdown with the rendered result:

Top level header: <H1>

Block quote

Second paragraph in block quote

First Paragraph of response. Italics, bold, and bold italics.

Second Paragraph after blank line. Here is some HTML code mixed in with the Markdown, and here is the same <U>HTML code</U> enclosed by backticks.

Secondary Header: <H2>

  • Unordered list item
  • Second unordered list item
  • New unordered list
    • Nested list item

Third Level header <H3>

  1. An ordered list item.
  2. A second ordered list item with the same number.
  3. A third ordered list item.
Here is some preformatted text.
  This line begins with some indentation.
    This begins with even more indentation.
And this line has no indentation.

Alt text for a graphic image

A definition list
A list of terms, each with one or more definitions following it.
An HTML construct using the tags <DL>, <DT> and <DD>.
A term
Its definition after a colon.
A second definition.
A third definition.
Another term following a blank line
The definition of that term.