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Comments by HGMuller

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Что скажете? (Translations to Russian language).[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, Feb 4, 2024 07:07 AM UTC in reply to Diceroller is Fire from 06:50 AM:

Well, being creative is not the main requirement, and might actually backfire. There surely must already exist publications in these other languages about chess variants, which name many of the elementary pieces. It would be important to conform to these existing naming schemes, rather than create entirely new ones.


Steward. Omnidirectional Pawn.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, Feb 4, 2024 07:42 AM UTC in reply to Bn Em from Sat Feb 3 10:45 PM:

Indeed, it is quite amazing that two pieces with so few moves can force the bare King into a corner. They seem to cooperate very well when standing next to each other, as a self-protecting pseudo-piece covering 2 squares, leaving the King free to close off other escapes. But 8x8 is the largest square board where they manage that. The reverse piece, mFcW is even better at this, and can still force checkmate on 10x10. (But being effectively color bound, only for the pair on unlike shade.) It cannot self-protect, but is good at preventing the bare King to approach them, when standing next together. Ferzes would probably be even better at this, but cannot execute the final checkmate even when the bare King is cornered.

There indeed is a special version of the 2-vs-1 Applet that configures the piece move from the URL. The problem for having something similar for 3-vs-1 is not technical, but the use case. Two identical minor pieces are almost never capable of forcing the checkmate. So you would want to present the piece of interest with a partner that would allow it to force the mate. OTOH, you don't want the mate to be mainly the achievement of that other piece. (Like it would be when you pair it with a Bishop, which can force checkmate together with virtually any piece on any size board.)


Omega Chess. This preset for Omega Chess enforces the rules and spots check, checkmate, and stalemate.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, Feb 4, 2024 07:57 AM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from 07:43 AM:

Note that if you want to use the PTA to generate GAME code and custom piece set for a preset, you have the opportunity to still alter the suggested code after pasting it into the preset. In particular, when you want to use piece images that were not available in the PTA's table, you can pick some other image for them, and then change the filename of those in the custom set to that of the images you do want. You are not even obliged to use the custom set that is suggested by the PTA; it is just an optional service. If a piece set exists that has all pieces you need, you can simply use that in the preset, and you don't have to copy anything to the custom-set area. But you must make sure in that case that the pieces you did use in the PTA for generating the GAME code have the same ID as those in the selected piece set. This should not be a problem, as the PTA allows you to alter ID as well as move of the pieces.


Unnecessarily Complicated Chess. Members-Only Why do things the easy way, when doing them the hard way is so much more fun? (19x23, Cells: 423) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

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Diagram Editor with scalable graphics. An easy-to-use tool for drawing boards and pieces of any size and color.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Feb 5, 2024 08:46 AM UTC in reply to Bob Greenwade from Sun Feb 4 09:46 PM:

An asterisk in the FEN should give you a hole. There is no special convention for Brouhaha squares; These are normal squares, and just turn into holes when they get evacuated.


Omega Chess. This preset for Omega Chess enforces the rules and spots check, checkmate, and stalemate.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Feb 5, 2024 04:38 PM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from 12:37 AM:

You hit on a major bug in the PTA here. The GAME code generated by the PTA, for efficiency reasons, tries to perform all moves of the game except the last as the game notation specifies them, without any computation. Based on the idea that these moves were already checked for legality earlier, when these were the last move so far. But this does not work for moves with implied side effects, such as castling, e.p. capture and creating e.p. rights. So these moves are considered special, and a computation for them is done even when they are not last, to determine their side effect (like moving a Rook, or removing a Pawn).

The problem was that the Play-Test Applet, when generating GAME code, did not group the ifmW* initial push of the Omega (or Wildebeest) Pawn with these special moves. So their side effect of creating e.p. rights was computed only when they were the last move so far (enabling the highlighting of the e.p. capture in the move to come), but when the e.p. capture was actually played, that became the last move, and the e.p. rights the multi-push should generate were no longer computed, making the e.p. capture illegal.

I now fixed the PTA to also group the W* moves with the special moves. If you want to fix your preset, it might be easier to just modify the code you pasted in the Pre-Game section. Near the end this says:

def P cond #0 1 21;
def p cond #0 32 52;

The 21 here should have been 16, the 52 should have been 47. If you make these changes e.p. capture should work in the preset. I would have done it myself, but it appears that even editors cannot modify other people's presets.


MSshuka[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Feb 5, 2024 04:47 PM UTC in reply to A. M. DeWitt from 03:25 PM:

In Superchess QAD is called a Grand Duke.


Game Courier Developer's Guide. Learn how to design and program Chess variants for Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Feb 5, 2024 04:53 PM UTC in reply to Daniel Zacharias from 05:09 AM:

I suppose that 'moves more than once per turn' always means 'can move on after capturing', as making multiple non-captures per turn is indistinguishable from moving once, directly to the final destination. Even in the case of multiple capture it is a matter of taste whether you consider it moving more than once. (E.g. does the Ultima Long Leaper make one or two moves, when it jumps over two enemies?)

If it is expressible in XBetza notation, GAME code for it can be shown by the Play-Test Applet. But ths is probably not what you want.


Play Chess Variants with Jocly. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Feb 5, 2024 05:40 PM UTC in reply to François Houdebert from 04:52 PM:

Well, I just came back from Gran Canaria last night, so I can now do everything that required my PC again, including accessing my Linux VM with the Jocly code.


Omega Chess. This preset for Omega Chess enforces the rules and spots check, checkmate, and stalemate.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Feb 5, 2024 06:04 PM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from 05:45 PM:

Well, I have to thank you for spotting and reporting this bug!

[Edit] I have now also made the Play-Test Applet itself aware that the first 6 pieces in the piece table should be treated as Pawns, and should thus be e.p. capturable when they slide up to the enemy half with their W* move. So the e.p. capture there should also work again.


Interactive diagrams. (Updated!) Diagrams that interactively show piece moves.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Feb 5, 2024 08:32 PM UTC in reply to Bob Greenwade from Sat Jan 20 07:01 PM:

A suggestion/request/query regarding the pieceList function (see Embedding a Diagram in your HTML Page): could there be some way to toggle an option to show the promoted piece from each base piece? It seems to mee that it should be automatic when promoOffset > 0, though I may be missing something there.

If you click the base piece in the pieceList a second time it will show the promoted version. (And a greenish text above the board invites you to do this when you show the base piece.) This should be automatic when promoOffset > 0.

But as per a suggestion you made elsewhere, I have now already mentioned the promoted type directly in the pieceList, in brackets, also clickable for summoning its move diagram immediately. This should work both with betza.js abd betzaNew.js. (Refresh browser cache!) I only tested it on the former, though (for the Diagram in the Tamerlane Chess comments, where all non-Pawns are promoted types, which gave a very stupid pieceList).


Unnecessarily Complicated Chess. Members-Only Why do things the easy way, when doing them the hard way is so much more fun? (19x23, Cells: 423) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

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Interactive diagrams. (Updated!) Diagrams that interactively show piece moves.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Feb 5, 2024 09:00 PM UTC in reply to Bob Greenwade from 08:45 PM:

I did not take account of maxPromote, so it also wanted to promote non-promotable pieces to nonexisting ones. It should work now.


Unnecessarily Complicated Chess. Members-Only Why do things the easy way, when doing them the hard way is so much more fun? (19x23, Cells: 423) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

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Steward. Omnidirectional Pawn.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Feb 6, 2024 11:31 AM UTC in reply to Bn Em from Sat Feb 3 10:45 PM:

I don't suppose there's a way of linking to the 3‐on‐1 checkmating applet with pieces preselected?

I now set up a  3-vs-1 page that can be preconfigured in the same way as the existing 2-vs-1 page: just add a query string like ?betza=mWcF&name=Steward&img=steward . Unlike the 2-vs-1 page it displays the full statistics table; I think it is better to have the user see it grow to quench his impatience, as for 2-vs-1 it can take rather long.

Currently the page always uses a homogeneous pair of the specified type. This doesn't make it very useful, as there are only very few such pairs that could force checkmate. So perhaps we should make it possible to specify a second piece independently. We could then also link to it from Piececlopedia pages of other minors, selecting a suitable partner together with which it can force mate. E.g. for 'potent' minors it could be a Zebra, for 'semi-potent' minors a Camel, for 'forking' minors a Wazir (or if that is too weak, a Frog), and for minors that lack any useful properties a Modern Elephant.

The Steward is both forking (as only the capture is important for this property) and semi-potent (the W move can switch it attack by one orthogonal step), which is why a pair of them can do it. The mFcW is potent (it can switch its attack from c1 to a1 by moving from c2 to b1), and can thus in principle force mate together with any minor, provided the board is small enough. (The weaker the combination, the smaller the board has to be to drive the bare King into a corner.) With the caveat that is effectively color bound, so a color-bound partner should be on the other shade.

With color bounds it can often be the case that the mate can only be executed on a corner of a specific shade, which effectively makes the board look larger, and thus requires a stronger combination of minors for a given board size. With a pair of unlike mFcW the mate is possible in all corners, which is probably the reason that such a weak combination can still manage it up to 10x10.

 


Alfil. Jumps two diagonally. Arabic for the elephant.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Feb 6, 2024 01:38 PM UTC:

We don't seem to have a Piececlopedia page for the Modern Elephant (Betza FA); this 'Elephant' page is solely about the Alfil. While nowadays the FA is in much wider use than the A, so much that 'Elephant' has become more or less synonymous for Modern Elephant, and when you mean 'Alfil' you better say 'Alfil' if you want to avoid confusion.

What should we do? Create a new page for Modern Elephant, and link to that from the Elephant page? Or add a paragraph about the Modern Elephant here?


Checkmating Applet (3 vs 1). Practice your checkmating skill with fairy pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Feb 6, 2024 05:23 PM UTC:

I have now added checkmating paragraphs to the Piececlopedia pages for Ferz, Wazir, Knight, Dabbabah, Camel, Zebra and Phoenix, with links to a 3-vs-1 Applet configured for using these.


Play-test applet for chess variants. Applet you can play your own variant against.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Feb 6, 2024 08:52 PM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from 08:29 PM:

You should not use pieces with the same ID when making GAME code; Game Courier does not accept that. Change the ID of one of the pieces in the PTA before pressing the GAME-code button. Just type an ID not in use by any of the other pieces in the text entry under the table, and then click the move of the piece.


Interactive diagrams. (Updated!) Diagrams that interactively show piece moves.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Feb 7, 2024 06:52 AM UTC in reply to Bob Greenwade from 12:15 AM:

Immunity is not a property in itself, but just the absence of contagion for all captures of that piece, even when other pieces might suffer contagion (which again is a particular form of automatic promotion on capture) when capturing some victims. It seems to me that the move-dependent immunity that you want can already be achieved by specifying promotion to the contageous victim for the capture of it in the captureMatrix, and then exempt the move that you want to have immunity through an apostrophe.


Play-test applet for chess variants. Applet you can play your own variant against.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Feb 7, 2024 06:55 AM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from 05:14 AM:

Flexible castling is nothing else but multiple castling moves with different ranges on the King. E.g. KisO2isO3isO4. It is not a special way of castling, such  as fast castling or free castling would be. So it has always been supported, ever since a notation for castling was added to Betza notation.


Play Chess Variants with Jocly. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Feb 7, 2024 09:17 AM UTC in reply to François Houdebert from 08:11 AM:

I think it should be possible to control the size of the promotion panel in the view file for the game. I remember I have seen that once. Unfortunately I don't remember where. Probably in a variant with lots of choice.


Manticore. (Updated!) Moves one space orthogonally, then slides outward as a Bishop.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Feb 7, 2024 01:51 PM UTC in reply to Bn Em from Sat May 7 2022 04:18 PM:

@Fergus: I tried to add a section about checkmating to this article, but when I use the 'edit contents' link for editors, and try to save it, I run into the error message "file not found".


Intersection Chess. Members-Only Chess variant with boards overlapping each other. (8x8, Cells: 192) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

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Play Chess Variants with Jocly. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Feb 7, 2024 03:58 PM UTC in reply to A. M. DeWitt from 03:28 PM:

It is a bit strange that this test is made in the game-specific model file. It would be much more logical to have it in the chess base model, which also keeps track of the noCaptCount, and compare it to a variable moveLimit that by default would be 50, but could be changed in the game's model file.

This 50-move stuff was a weak spot in Jocly anyway, as the noCaptCount was not reset on Pawn moves before I fixed that.


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