Comments by crazytom

In these four games, I count three moves of the type in question: 6. dxc3 in Svidler-Anand, 25. bxc3 in Leko-Kasimjanov, and 50... hxg6 in Morozevich-Adams.

If your friend considers every word on the Internet to be inherently untrustworthy, you might try the local library. Just about any book on chess should contain either the rules or records of games, and you won't have to dig through very many games before finding examples.

There are a couple of points where the wording could be improved. 'If it steps on an opponent piece it is captured and is permanently off the board' seems to imply that the moving piece is captured, rather than the opposing piece. Also, the phrase 'your other Mook' in the description of seeing red could be taken to mean that one must have two Mooks in order to see red.

[2005-11-14: I've edited this table after the recent and long-dreaded demise of the Black army in Gifford-McElmurry. Just a few minutes later I'm already feeling withdrawal and hoping the last few games will be assigned soon. Has anyone heard from Fergus lately?]

I've been keeping track of the results, and I think the following is correct, although it's possible that I've made mistakes. The last column is the Buchholz-Solkoff tiebreaker, which is guaranteed not to break ties when the tournament is complete.

64 games have been completed, and 14 (listed below) remain.

Alice Chess

• McElmurry-Duniho

Chess with Different Armies

• Duke-Joyce

Extinction Chess

• Madsen-Duke

Hostage Chess

• Duke-McElmurry
• Duniho-Fourrière

Marseillais Chess

• Fourrière-Nelson

Maxima

• Joyce-McElmurry

Rococo

• Duke-Lavieri

Switching Chess

• Carlos-Joyce
• Duke-Strong
• Fourrière-Madsen
• Henriksson-Nelson
• Kaufmann-Gifford
• Lavieri-Duniho

There are several points where the rules need clarification:

• What is the definition of 'forward' for Pawns and Squires? The definition that seems most natural doesn't satisfy the statement that a Pawn has three forward directions to choose from.
• Regarding promotion, what exactly is meant by 'any higher-ranking piece'? My guess is Queen, Rook, or Templar. Certainly promotion to a second King would change the game drastically. But can a Pawn promote to Squire? Can a Pawn or Squire promote to Obelisk? If so, how does that Obelisk behave, given that it is outside of its Home Territory?
• Is promotion mandatory when a Pawn or Squire enters the opponent's Home Territory? If not, is it mandatory when it reaches the opposing King's starting hex?
• How does a Templar move? There seem to be two contradictory statements: 'The Templar is a combination of the traditional Knight and Bishop.... The Templar moves three spaces diagonally, or two spaces forward and one to the side.' Which of these is correct?
• Can a Queen, Rook, or (maybe) Templar make a 'null move', traveling all the way around the board and returning to its starting space?
• Is the King really in Exile only when forced out of its Home Territory?

Hey, what happened to all the comments from the past two days?

I like the inclusion of the Wazir, Ferz, Camel, and Elephant. These pieces form a natural sequence: two Wazir's moves at right angles make a Ferz's move, two Ferz's moves at right angles make a Camel's move, and two Camel's moves at right angles make an Elephant's move. That makes me wonder, though, whether the Trojan Horse should contain a Bishop instead of a Knight. Or maybe I just think that because I missed the Bishops while playing Shatranj recently.

Speaking of which, the inclusion of drops will of course prevent the game from ending in a long slow war of attrition.

I would probably play quite badly at first, but I'd love to try this game.

Of course, chess on a Klein bottle has got to be at least as cool as chess on a sphere, right?

The link on this page to the GCT1 game logs appears to have an incorrect tournament filter, and produces an empty list of logs.

Here is a working link.

• If the nickel comes up heads, we believe the written rules, which have consistently indicated that Rococo's Long Leaper moves and captures in the same way as Ultima's Long Leaper.
• If the nickel comes up tails, we believe the testimony of the game's inventor, Peter Aronson, who has consistently indicated that Rococo's Long Leaper moves and captures in the same way as Ultima's Long Leaper.
• If the nickel balances on its edge, then we'll have to think of something else. Pistols at dawn?

I think we need to start teaching topology in elementary schools.

I also like the more minimalistic look of Michael's board. I don't think I would have any trouble playing on this board. I can see where Fergus is coming from, though; I wouldn't call them optical illusions, but in some parts of the board the patterns formed by the triangles are noticeable. Some of these patterns have their own kind of beauty, and to my eyes they don't obscure the squares, but I can easily understand how some people could find it hard to play on this board, just as others find it hard to play on the Smess-style board. My own opinion is that Fergus's board is more fun to look at, but Michael's would probably be easier to play on.

As I write this I've just noticed Fergus's recoloring of Michael's board, which I like very much. The checkering helps a great deal (more than I expected), the texture gives the board life, and the colors are very well chosen. And it preserves the elegant simplicity of Michael's design.

If there's any interest in yet another StIT board, I think it would be nice to have one in the style of All the King's Men, which I think in at least two ways would be an appropriate complement to the Smess-style board. In All the King's Men, the squares resembled a wooden floor, and the arrows had a simple, uniform style, easy to see but not distracting. Iff Fergus and others are interested in having such a board, and if no one else wants to create it, I would be willing to try my hand, although I probably won't have the time until after New Year's Day.

BoardGameGeek's Smess page has some nice images of various editions of Smess, Take the Brain, and All the King's Men.

I also count only 864 starting arrays.

I won't say much about game selection and tournament structure; I'll play
in just about any event as long as the games are appealing and I have the
time.  All the ideas posted here so far are good, but I hope the
multivariant tournaments with democratically selected games won't go
away; part of the fun of these has been the exposure to games that I might
not have played otherwise.  My only real 'complaint' about the polling
process is that good old Chess doesn't seem to stand much of a chance of
getting through, and I'd like to play it alongside other games.  (Hmmm...
maybe a 'Big Three' chess/xiangqi/shogi tournament?)

I have some thoughts about scheduling, which apply mainly to largish round
robins.  In GCT1 the games were divided into three rounds; this worked, but
led to periods of relative inactivity if a round had one or two very long
games.  For GCT2 it was decided that games would be assigned as players
became available.  This was a good idea in principle, but in order to run
smoothly it seems to require an inordinately large (and prolonged)
time commitment from the director, who must continually check for finished
games and determine which players are available, how many new games can be
assigned, which of the remaining games should be assigned first, etc.

It seems to me that the game-assignment process could be automated.  I'm
thinking of a script which could run periodically (once a day, maybe) and
assign games until it couldn't assign any more without exceeding a
specified maximum number of ongoing games for any player.  The algorithm
to work out which games to assign wouldn't have to be very complex.  The
part that I don't know anything about would be the interface with Game
Courier.  Perhaps Fergus can tell us whether this would be feasible.

The problem seems to be that the link from the PBM Game Logs page points to /play/pbmlogs/displaycomment.php?commentid=11172, while the link from the corresponding Comment Listing page points to http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=11172.

Antoine's proposal should work very well if the number of players is
prime.  If the number is divisible by 2 or 3, there's a small weirdness. 
Look at the Shogi pairings in the 9-player example: players 1, 4, and 7
play one another; 2, 5, and 8 play one another, and 3, 6, and 9 play one
another.  No one in any of these groups plays Shogi against anyone in
another group.  A similar partitioning into 2 groups would happen with
Xiangqi with an even number of players.  I don't know how much, if at
all, this should bother us.

Here's an interesting possibility, inspired by Fergus's idea of having a
champion for each game.  Perhaps the final round could consist of the top
Chess player, the top Xiangqi player, the top Shogi player, and the top
overall player (and, if some of these should be the same person, the 2nd
overall player, etc.).

I would prefer to allow draws by agreement even in Shogi, although they
should be discouraged except in clearly drawish positions.  It doesn't
seem fair to me to penalize both players for playing equally well just
because the game ran long.  If length is a concern, there must be some set
of carefully chosen time controls that will address the issue.

Besides, I could always use it as a chess set.

1. When the tournament rules mention 'White' and 'Black', presumably 'White' means the first player (White in Chess, Red in Xiangqi, Black in Shogi) and 'Black' means the second player (Black in Chess and Xiangqi, White in Shogi)?
2. The first round will be a true round robin (meaning everyone plays everyone) only if exactly seven players participate.
3. If my understanding of the Buchholz-Solkoff and Sonneborn-Berger tiebreaks (as explained here) is correct, then this page's description of Buchholz-Solkoff is incorrect, and that of Sonneborn-Berger is incomplete and potentially misleading.

Oh, and sign me up, please.