Comments by CarlosCetina

Nicholas: OK. The porcupine icon is beautiful! I already could access the
rules. All is right. The scheduled date for beginning the tourney is
February 1, but after Greg's desires, perhaps we will need to postpone it
a while, since... who will make the icons he likes? How much time it will
be required?

By the way, I'm nothing obsessed with this issue and I'm willing to abort
it at any time.

Charles: Thanks for participating. The idea is that each person brings only
one game.

Joe: I hope you help me at this point for clarifying the things in benefit
of Charles Daniel. Thanks!

In 2008-04-15 Gary Gifford said regarding CC: 'Because the Pawns are very different from Fide-pawns, I think the pre-set would be better if Pawn graphics were replaced with one of the many King-like graphics. If I played this game I would constantly be battling my mind's desire to see the Pawns as Pawns.

'On a similar note, the Knight piece is not a Knight, so a different graphic to remind us of this would be good.'

For these reasons I edited in 2008-11-09 this preset which is what we should use.

In 1998 I named the CC's knight as 'sissa'. The simplest way to describe its movement rule is (according to me) this:

Sissa moves each time as Rook AND Bishop following a movement pattern of the form nR+nB or nB+nR, where n is any whole number.

nR+nB means 'first n squares like Rook followed by n squares like Bishop';

nB+nR means 'first n squares like Bishop followed by n squares like Rook'.

Then, if for instance n=5, sissa MUST MOVE 5 squares as Rook followed by 5 squares as Bishop or viceversa.

There is no restriction on the movement direction of the second stage respecting to the first.

Sissa doesn't leap. All squares it passes by must be empty.

I'm withdrawing not only of this thread/tourney but also of this website.

I have just realized that what I need is to try Chinese Checkers. So you
all will can find me playing it at http://www.gamesforthebrain.com

fergus-cvgameroom-2012-116-101

mgawalangmagawa-cvgameroom-2012-113-540

mgawalangmagawa-cvgameroom-2012-113-580

Regarding the "Person Information page" issue, you are right: I wrote the URL wrong. But I have another problem that I will explain tomorrow.

In the three cases mentioned the pages are incomplete. It appears only the
board to the left side; above side the “play.chessvariants.org” logo
joined to the banner promoting Game Courier; below the board the “Click
here to view, print or download the image shown above” link; that’s
all. There are no buttons nor boxes nor nothing else.

I suspect this is relationed with the fact that I have none registered
email address since when I launch an Open or Personal Invitation the pages
are similarly incomplete and at the bottom say: “Although you are a
registered member of chessvariants.org, you have not provided us with an
email address for you. You cannot use this script to play games by email
until we have an email address on record for you.”

Now then, the other problem I have is that on the
"http://www.chessvariants.org/login/change_email.php" page, appears
deployed “the chessvariants.org” menu  covering the box in which one
have to write the new address.

That "phenomenon" also occur in many other pages of this website such as
- http://www.chessvariants.org/onthese.html
- http://www.chessvariants.org/index/whatsnew.php
- http://www.chessvariants.org/alphabet.html
- http://www.chessvariants.org/help.html
- http://www.chessvariants.org/onthese/award.html
- http://www.chessvariants.org/rindex.html
- http://www.chessvariants.org/index/listcomments.php?sortbydate=1

And in all and each of the GC's logs when I do click on them either as
visitor or as user.
I do not think this is because the computer I use since I access the
internet from various cyber cafes. What do you think?

I'm using regularly Internet Explorer version 8.

I'm now able to register my email address at the change email page but, since there is no "before address", when I click on the Confirm button it appears the message:

The code failed to decrypt to the email address you wanted to change to. If you sent multiple email change requests, only the latest one will work. Please be sure that you followed the link from your very latest request to change your email.

string(32) "ߦ� �rCDO;uҪ/I��3o > 1�� f�:z;�"
string(24) "[email protected]"

Therefore the address has not been duly registered and still does not appear in my Person Information page. I wonder if you or David Howe could make that record directly without my intervention.

The good news is that at least we can already play our Episcopal Chess game!

OK. The email address has been successfully registered and now appears on
the Personal Information page. Thank you very much for everything.

By the way, some days ago I was analizing theTrascendental Chess preset and found it has a bug. I think it is due to an error in the code box that it has written there this setup:8pppppppp32PPPPPPPP8.

Thanks Peter.

I will follow your statement as the right viewpoint in this issue. However I wonder why the preset's program did not prohibit that double capture if it has reinforced the rules.

I made these two moves to test the preset:

1) C h5-f7;f7-h7 by capturing two pawns (f7 and h7)

2) C h5-f7;f7-h9 trying to capture the g8-advancer after capturing the f7-pawn

The preset's program allowed the first and banned the second.

Perhaps Antoine Fourrière may have something to say since he was who reinforced the rules.

There are certainly similarities between RC and WC. The agreement that Nicholas, Jotchen and I have taken regarding the knight is to move it like in WC; then I agree with the knight on h6 is checking the king.

The fine point of the matter is the case of the pawn on d5. What you say,  "the rules only specify that the King is exempt from the rule that attacked spaces don't exist for pieces, not that it's attacks on spaces do not make them non-existent", is exact but it does not refute White's argument.

There are two opposite arguments:

1) From Red viewpoint it's check because e4 is inexistent;

2) From White viewpoint it's not check because e4 is existent.   

Like an arbiter, I would give the reason to White because the status of the board [regarding existency or inexistency] is changing move by move; after Red move 22... fxd5, White faces a NEW situation in which he sees there is an adversary pawn placed on e5, and sees there is an intermediate square between that pawn and his king. In other words, is the viewpoint of the player to move will determine the legality or illegality of a given move.

If we admit the opposite viewpoint, where is, what is the relativity concept of this variant?

We should view this matter like something that happens at two different levels or planes of reality: the first would be the "players level", a virtual field; the second, the true reality, that we all see as viewers, as spectators.

Let's call them

VP = virtual plane
RP = real plane

At RP the board is physically existent and formed by 64 squares that always are existent.

At VP both players see two different things. Red sees that he is checking White's king; White sees that the pawn is not checking his king.

Let's suppose h6 is empty, that is, White's king is not checked by any other piece.

White's turn to move. Since he sees his king is not checked, he makes any normal move.

Then comes Red's turn to move. Although he sees that his pawn is checking the king, he cannot make anything because in this variant the object of the game is to checkmate the advesary king, not to capture it; Red cannot force White to move his king from f3!

What Red must make is with the participation of his remain pieces to put White's king in a position such that from White's viewpoint White's king be checkmated, such that White admits that condition.

We all that enjoy living at the RP what is what we see? The pawn is not checking the king.

Regarding the knight way of movement, as Christine points out there are three ways of describing it. Which of them we will choose? I'm definitively inclined to adopt the way that Charles suggested, mentioned at his first comment: to move the piece like if the action were a drop placing it directly on a square (1,2) away from the "origin square", regardless of whether the intermediate squares are or not existent.

I know this also raises a cloud of questions but we can go solving it gradually.

I'm going to email Kevin asking for his viewpoint. Searching by the Net I found his email address: [email protected]

I have just emailed to Kevin. Waiting for his reply. Sorry for we have been missing to the co-inventor Lee Corbin.

Christine: The ways of describing knight's move are 4 because also is possible one to the side then two orthogonally up.

Jeremy: to me also sounds pretty weird the fact that Red can not force White's king to move away from f3 [assuming h6 is empty]. I have no the guilt of things are different from the relativistic viewpoint. When one runs at a speed close to that of light it happens very weird things like the dilation of the time, lenght contraction and mass increase. But, of course, I shall adopt and fulfill the rules that arise from this discussion.

Fergus: Your inference, "it is only empty spaces that cease to exist when attacked" is very important. In the case of facing rooks, bishops or queens they are considered to be adjacent occupying existent squares, so the player to move may capture his counterpart.

Then, there are 4 persons agree [Christine, Fergus, Charles and me] in moving the knight like a true knight by dropping it directly to the (1,2) square if this is existent and, in the contrary case, to follow moving like nightrider until it lands on an existent square.

If on d5 were placed a bishop or a queen instead of a pawn, from White's viewpoint would be check and White would be forced to move his king away from f3.

Do you see the difference?

Right. 

I have no heard any comment from you about the metaphoric idea of seen this variant like something that happens at the same time at two levels.

The arguments you have been wielding hold and are quite valid at the RP.
The case we are analizing shows clearly the existence of the VP, that is, the relativistic concept of this variant.

The dispute is centered in the status of e4. It is inexistent for Red, existent for White's king [emphasizing ONLY for White's king not for his remain pieces]. This difference of viewpoints is a reality from the RP. We all that view the things from the RP must be fair with both players.

Speaking in general, we should state a rule for this variant that says something like this: if a piece with a ferz or wazir capturing range is distant from the opposite king two squares [on the RP], then the relation/situation among them shall not considered like check.

Therefore, in this only case we would have to accept the pretty weird case [as Jeremy says] that despite a player sees he is checking the adversary king, he cannot make anything. If we introduce a new category of checks, Red could say White: "cuasi-check" or "semi-check".

"We should view this matter like something that happens at two different levels or planes of reality: the first would be the "players level", a virtual field; the second, the true reality, that we all see as viewers, as spectators.

"Let's call them

"VP = virtual plane
"RP = real plane

"At RP the board is physically existent and formed by 64 squares that always are existent.

"At VP both players see two different things. Red sees that he is checking White's king; White sees that the pawn is not checking his king.

"Let's suppose h6 is empty, that is, White's king is not checked by any other piece.

"White's turn to move. Since he sees his king is not checked, he makes any normal move.

"Then comes Red's turn to move. Although he sees that his pawn is checking the king, he cannot make anything because in this variant the object of the game is to checkmate the advesary king, not to capture it; Red cannot force White to move his king from f3!

"What Red must make is with the participation of his remain pieces to put White's king in a position such that from White's viewpoint White's king be checkmated, such that White admits that condition."