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Comments by matthew_montchal
David, you must be thinking of USCF ratings, NWCF ratings (if they still exist), or ELO ratings, and each of these provide some way of estimating probable future performance based on previously observed past performance. I need to read up more on the Glickman Chess Rating system to see how it differs from that of the Game Courier Rating system, seeing as how they seem to share the same acronym. I was suggesting, on the other hand, a way of measuring computer programs pitted against each other, and against humans that are allowed to compete with them. You've probably heard of http://www.pogo.com where you can play cardgames such as Hearts and Spades (but no Skat, the last time I looked). You even get to play with robot players if you want. There are lots of sites like that in Internet. It's my understanding that the Game Courier here at www.chessvariants.org could handle cardgames like that, though one might be a tad less graphical than another. As for ZOG being some kind of a reason to forbid the 'Game Plies Rating' system I suggested, that only applies to people unwilling to buy an upgraded ZOG with the feature I suggested. Since I don't have a copy of Zillions of Games (and I'm unusually reluctant to go out and buy something that I don't even have a hardware platform to run it on), it escapes me why, exactly, the program can't be upgraded to play out all the plies that it has been directed to search through, short of observing that the person who originally programmed it, must not have felt like designing that feature. It was probably a case of him shrugging, and saying, 'Why bother?' If someone gets around to upgrading ZOG so it *could* search through entire Plies' worth of information (with or without regard to time controls, or the peculiar predicaments inherent in data storage), I'm sure it could do the job just as well as the next one could.
Yep, that's me. I'm also known as Matthew Monchalin. It's a very frequent misspelling of my name. But while we are on the subject, try not to pronounce my name as 'Moncha Lin' (as it has the accent on the penult, so pronounce it 'mont CHAY lin'). I think there may also be a Matthieu Monchalin over in France, but I've never met him.
The FIDE Laws Of Chess. The official rules of Chess from the World Chess Federation.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Playing speed chess with one hand on the chess clock, and another hand moving the chess pieces, often results in a broken chess clock because the players, struggling to push their own buttons down simultaneously, in belief that they are completing their moves 'in the nick of time' break or bend the lever(s) inside).
Fergus, your reference to Zillions of Games being a constraining factor appears to be a 'non sequitur' and not a premise. Supposing the games on this website are adequately described, it follows that all of the games on this website /can/ be played; not just online, but face to face, should the opportunity ever arise. Computers could eventually be brought in to help people learn how to play these games; wasn't increased accessibility the main idea behind designing Zillions of Games? It's unfortunate that Zillions of Games doesn't have a ply-setting, as that would have been extremely convenient for entry into my proposed 'Game Ply Rating' system. Even five or six computers that limit themselves to 2 ply searches, are going to play wildly differently if they disagree on the values of their pieces, or employ even slightly different pseudo-random number generators. Even if they were all playing absolutely randomly (and were therefore all assigned initial ratings of 1000), there would eventually be a departure from that number, as their true colors started to show, and the game results began to produce a bell curve of sorts. The inherent differences in programming is what appears to be the real quandary behind using a 'ply' based rating system; each computer will naturally play a little bit differently. (What sounds good in theory may not work out in the long run.) As for computers that can play one or two of the games available at this website, I'm still working on my Baroque computer game (for an ST upgraded to 2.5 megs RAM, minimum). Boy, it sure takes a ton of work to do all of the graphics, but at least the calculation part is proceeding fairly well. My program just isn't marketable, or user-friendly, in the slightest. (And I'll probably end up giving it away for free, anyway.) Zillions of Games appears to be a remarkable product, even if it won't run on my hardware platform.
Tony, to answer your question, I already have two ST computers, so I don't have to pony up for a PC computer, nor buy a Windows developer's license (which I understand is $1,500 on top of the purchase price of the hardware, and it costs even more to get a Mac and a Mac developer's kit, if that even exists, which I'm not sure about). And then there's the learning curve. I'd have to learn how to program a Mac or Windows, and that's one daunting task right there. Also, I prefer computers whose operating systems are in ROM, and therefore incorruptible. For the purpose of establishing benchmarks, maybe you and I could someday test out our programs against each other's? You could use a modern computer running at 2.5 gigaherz (or whatever), and I could use my little computer? I'm naturally referring to the game of Baroque - or one of its relatives (but no Rococo, please). And certainly not Chess, as there are enough Chess-playing computers already. Baroque is a more challenging game, and requires far more calculations than Chess does. (Markedly more, if we allowed either side to delay indefinitely the reversals of their rooks (causing one to become an Immobilizer), or the reversals of the King and Queen (Withdrawer)), which adds a whole extra element of long-range strategy to the game. When it comes to modern computers, there are zillions of programmers that are better than I am. I'm no virtuoso. I just put my nose to the grindstone, and keep toiling away at the darn thing until it works like it's supposed to. That means a near endless examination of the states that the 'programming engine' outputs, and you would not believe how poorly implemented the Atari support package is, you end up having to kludge out your own suite of programming tools, the kind that more or less work right most of the time. I've put in about 9 months or more on this thing so far. Sure is slow and tedious. As for computer contests, we /could/ use an ordinary telephone line with direct connections, no webmail involved. (Or we could just post the moves here or at some other mutually agreed-upon place.) The role of the user-attendant would be to type the moves in, as they come.
My program isn't ready yet, but I'll keep it in mind. I think there are a lot of programmers hanging out at this website (http://www.chessvariants.org) and many of them may have hacked together a program out of nothingness, using nothing but sweat and insight, and they should be encouraged to have their programs brought in as well. (Ditto goes for the people that are responsible for programming ZOG.) I think that a 'Game-Ply Rating' system would probably oscillate around a bit, with every re-calculation introducing a little bit of drag and a little bit of drift- considering how 0-ply systems would hover around 1000, 1-ply systems around 1100, 2-ply at 1200, and 3-ply at 1300, and so on. Using a 'Game-Ply Rating' system, to which computers could contribute benchmarks, would make the human performances more meaningful. And if a human's USCF or ELO chess rating were imported into the 'Game-Ply Rating' system, it would probably see a steep climb before stabilizing. For instance, if a handful of human beginners at 800 USCF started playing a few 0-ply computers at 1000 GPR, the human ratings would go up. I would oppose lowering a computer's GPR rating, however. If a computer has a GPR rating, it should only go down as a result of a loss to another computer. This is because humans are inherently smarter than computers. The computer GPR ratings ought to be independent benchmarks that only they themselves contribute to.
If people think they are going to be 'rated' on games that they have previously been told, don't count, there is going to be a chilling effect that discourages people from participating on the website here. For that reason, two separate rating systems should be used, if at all any ARE used: one would be for those adventurous souls willing to play games they've never even heard of (and are therefore attempting to learn), and another rating system for those souls that insist on playing just one particular game, something they actually know a thing or two about, and about which they have developed theories of play that are put into practice.
Game Courier Ratings. Calculates ratings for players from Game Courier logs. Experimental.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Fergus, I suggest you use a different rating system, especially considering how your current one is pretty arbitrary (we can nitpick about the 400 point difference as opposed to a 500 or 600 point difference, but we would do by knowing in advance that one number is just as arbitrary as another), and how it appears to be designed to judge people's 'future performance' based upon observations of previous games that users were told wouldn't count. (Although that's really not /that/ big of a deal.) And if you encouraged users to add their computer programs to the fray, the ratings, as such, would add an extra dimension of utility.
I'd like to invite someone to play a game of Maxima but for the graphics currently designed for (or attached to) the game. If anybody has the means of editing the graphics so the pinchers look like chess pawns, could they volunteer their services? I don't have access to a reliable Windows or Mac computer, so that rules me out.
Can anybody comment on making your own plastic pieces, whether through casting (as in the case of acrylics) or through injection moulding? I'd guess that both methods would require first the making of moulds for churning out prototypes, and then obtaining material for filling the moulds up with? I read somewhere that plastics injection moulding employs little plastic pellets that are exposed to heat and liquefied, and then pumped into the moulds. I'd suppose that foundries specializing in plastics could work with initial prototypes before they actually do a real production run. Since the difficulty in making pieces is the same no matter where you do it, a more serious question to ask, is whether production expenses would be less if products were manufactured in one part of the world as opposed to another. Where are most plastic chess pieces manufactured in the United States? Are there alternative sources for plastic pieces than the US?
Somebody edited the Ultima preset to make it look for checks, checkmates, and stalemates. Could you return it back to the way it was?
Well, in any event, I'm glad you returned it back to the original.
How much work would it take to modify the Ultima preset to allow the Withdrawer to engage in additional withdrawals (in different directions, of course) if it ends up (fortuitously enough) in a square adjacent to an enemy piece that so situated it is subject to capture by the Withdrawer? This kind of a change would make the Withdrawer considerably more powerful than it is right now. Allowing 'bonus' withdrawals would, if implemented, make the piece enjoying that power a 'Multi-Withdrawer' (similar to the Multi-Leaper that is already part of the Preset). That may not be too important in an 8x8 version of Baroque (like Ultima), but in 9x9 and 10x10 versions with more pieces, and necessarily more Withdrawers, it could make the game that much deeper to ponder. Innovations along those lines *would* make it more difficult to calculate when a King is in check, but that's something I think I could live with.
Well, that's why the Presets shouldn't attempt to verify check,
checkmate, or stalemate. Let the players look at the diagram, and decide
for themselves whether the proper score is available to them. (And in
Ultima, a stalemate ought to count as 2/3 - 1/3 instead of 1/2-1/2, but
that kind of a change would probably screw up your rating system.)
And considering the large number of chess variants being discussed or developed at this website (with or without some other kind of 'real world' non-Internet avenue of promotion available to it), I can certainly understand why you'd find it a daunting matter to spend time on something you don't really spent much time playing, as it presumably involves a lot of spaghetti code that needs to be given a good looking at.
So, if that new Preset you mentioned allows players to type in anything they want, maybe it could be used for a variant of Ultima where a Withdrawer is given the honor of additional captures?
I just dropped by to see if my opponent had made a move, and when I clicked the newest implementation of Ultima (that's Baroque to the rest of the world), I was greeted with some kind of 'abstract' representations of the chess pieces. No matter what I clicked, I couldn't get the original 'staunton' style of chess pieces back. I tried selecting the 'chess motif' that was supposed to be available, but then after I clicked 'view' I got stuck at move 0. But the fact is, we are around 6 moves into the game. It appears that the most recent innovation (or innovator) in the Game Courier must like the 'abstract' representations of the pieces. But I don't. I prefer instead the Staunton design, as that is what is most historically accurate. Help!
The 'v' command works better now. As you observed, it kept reverting back to some kind of an 'abstract' or 'alfaerie' font, instead of the user-selectable font. I'm glad you fixed it. It was getting frustrating having the thing revert back to that weird font, over and over again.
I accurately described the problem; it existed; the problem appears to have gone away. It is unfortunate that your experiences were not the same.
Is there any way a 'button' could be added to the module that allows people to view the game logs from start to finish, more or less automatically? I was wondering if there was a simple, easy way of watching a game log play itself out automatically, assuming the user types in the point at which it begins? For instance, when I go to the implementation of Ultima (i.e., Baroque), I always choose the kind of pieces I want to look at, and then I always have to click 'VIEW' to translate the board into something that makes sense to me. It would be nice if there were a button that said 'VIEW CONTINUOUS' (with user-definable pauses inbetween moves) so I could watch the whole game play itself out automatically. But if 'VIEW CONTINUOUS' takes too much room to display on the screen, how about 'MOVIE' for an auto-play-out option?
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