Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

I respect the need to be diplomatic with a publication by an editor of the
CV Pages.  Overall, this is a fine, well-structured article covering the
basics of chess variant design which fills a need using accessible
language and clear examples.

The only fault I find within it is that it does not, in sharp contrast to
my own essay on the subject, contain a minimum of necessary value
judgments.

I cringed only at the parts where you advise newcomers to use the three
classic games as models for good design and to intentionally create an
east-west asymmetry within their armies.  Even though you personally hold
those preferences, I doubt the necessity of sending any-all trusting
souls down those dead-end roads.

Derek Nalls wrote:

The only fault I find within it is that it does not, in sharp contrast to my own essay on the subject, contain a minimum of necessary value judgments.

Would you please clarify what this means? Are you saying (a) it's not judgmental enough, or (b) it doesn't agree with you enough?

I cringed only at the parts where you advise newcomers to use the three classic games as models for good design and to intentionally create an east-west asymmetry within their armies. Even though you personally hold those preferences, I doubt the necessity of sending any-all trusting souls down those dead-end roads.

I don't agree that these are dead-end roads. As far as symmetry goes, I consider it important for its contribution to balance, which contributes to fairness, but I don't know of any importance it has beyond this contribution. I believe that slight asymmetry adds to interest without detracting from fairness. In particular, I have seen no evidence that Chess and Shogi are appreciably imbalanced by having slight left/right asymmetry. Chess has full mirror symmetry with partial rotational symmetry, and Shogi has full rotational symmetry with partial mirror symmetry. As far as I can tell, this much symmetry is sufficient for balancing the forces, and perfect symmetry wouldn't make the forces any more balanced. Given that you value perfect symmetry, is it because (a) symmetry is important beyond its contribution to fairness, or (b) perfect symmetry is essential to fairness, or both?

I meant that our respective essays have very distinct purposes.

Mine is mainly documentation for a specific game, justifying its features in terms of likes and dislikes (based upon reason) with a maximum of value judgments.

Yours is an educational article of general purpose which should contain a minimum of value judgments (although quality itself unavoidably entails value judgments). Hopefully, many people will benefit from reading it over the years.

If I had been smart enough to invent Duniho's Eurasian Chess, I would probably have followed my 'no jackals' policy and not used the Arrow (Vao) piece at all. I also consider Queens to be over-powered in a variant containing Chinese Cannons. One solution is to replace each Queen with a Leo [Pao + Vao]. The Leo, which I value at 90% of a pair of Cannons, starts the game as the most powerful piece on the board. As with the Unicorn, you need to think twice before grabbing an undefended piece with your Leo. Especially when you consider that the Leo captures one way and makes noncapturing moves in a different way. Well, that was my two cents worth. I am more comfortable discussing concrete examples than general theory.

Yesterday, I read two parts of a three-part interview with David H. Li, the author of several books on Xiang Qi: part 1 part 2 part 3. In this interview, he maintained that Xiang Qi was a superior game to Queen-Qi, his term for what we normally just call Chess. This name refers to his criticism that Chess pays too much attention to the Queen. He added that since Pawns can promote to Queens, it also pays too much attention to the Pawns. He also complained that Chess was more drawish than Xiang Qi and also more congested. He maintained that Xiang Qi was a better model of actual warfare than Chess, which tied into his claim that the earliest form of these games was originally invented by an associate of Sun Tzu to teach principles in the Art of War. One example he gave of this was that the Horse in Xiang Qi is more realistic for not being able to leap. He maintained that 'Draws are a function of spatial manoeuvrability.' Since Xiang Qi gives its pieces more space to move around in by having a larger board and by having more gaps between pieces in the opening position, it gives pieces greater spatial maneuverability and is, according to Li, less drawish.

First of all, his complaints about Chess, whatever their merits, echo some of the points I made in this article. A game should be decisive rather than drawish, and a very powerful piece can throw off the balance of the game. I complained about pieces more powerful than the Queen, such as the Amazon and the Cavalry Chess Knight. Nevertheless, he might be onto something. Last night, I ran a game of Univers Chess between SMIRF and ChessV. This is a 10x8 Capablanca-based variant with the Rook/Knight and Bishop/Knight pieces in addition to the usual pieces in Chess. For a while, the game was very congested. Towards the end, each side had a Queen, a Knight, and some Pawns. I eventually gave up on the game when the SMIRF Queen kept checking the ChessV King without getting any closer to checkmate. I don't remember a game of Xiang Qi ever ending like this. In my experience, Xiang Qi is normally won or lost, whereas I have frequently drawn in Chess. Another criticism of his amounted to this. I may be paraphrasing. Chess is largely a game of attrition, focused on material difference. Between two equally skillful players, the difference of a Pawn can decide the outcome. In Xiang Qi, material count is less important, and it is more about being able to attack your opponent better than he can attack you.

Chinese Chess (XiangQi) is immensely fun. By the way, my Zillions implementation plays a much stronger game than the standard implementation:
http://hem.passagen.se/melki9/chinesechess.htm

But it's hard to compare apples and pears. To compare with warfare lacks relevance, I think. Chinese Chess is very technical, and that's probably why the Chinese have devised the simpler Jungle game (Shou Dou Qi). It is a stepping stone in teaching XiangQi:
http://www.chessvariants.com/other.dir/animal.html

Comparatively, a less technically skilled player can survive much longer in Fide-chess, whereas the XiangQi game would soon end in catastrophe. I have played much Fide-chess and I did acquire an Elo rating, too. But I always experienced it as frustrating, due to the lack of action and creativity. Hour upon hour of wood-chopping, moving pieces around, planning and waiting.

XiangQi is very different, it's action from the first move, and then it's threat upon counter-threat, and little ingenious traps, followed by mate, usually before the fortieth move. Chess, on the other hand, is more manysided. Sometimes play is slow and strategical. Sometimes it's brutal and tactical. And sometimes endgame criteria take over. But it is a little tedious, and now it suffers routinization due to theory development and computer power. So it is not the perfect game, contrary to what many people think. 
/Mats

What do you mean by Xiangqi being 'technical'? Are you referring to the horrendously complicated rules to decide if repetitions are drawn or lost?

I don't think Xiangqi is any less drawish by nature than Chess. It is true that a Queen is stronger than the Rooks, which are the strongest pieces in Xiangqi. But the royal piece of Xiangqi (a Wazir) is also a lot weaker than the King in Chess. And it is constrained to the Palace on top of that. This makes that a Knight is often enough to perform a perpetual.

The fact that it never happens is only due to the rule that you lose when you do it. It would be easy enough to add a similar rule in Chess. I am not sure that it would help much, though: not many games end in a Queen ending. The usual draw occurs because there simply is not enough material difference left at the end to force a win.

In fact I am surprised that this should not happen in Xiangqi, as most material is completely useless in an end-game. I read a complaint recently on the Talkchess forum that NeuChess, one of the best Xiangqi programs in existence, was not able to beat itself when playing with 20-py search against 18-ply search (which in Chess would cause a crushing defeat), because all games ended in 'draw due to insufficient mating material'.

Btw, the draw percentage in Capablanca-type variants is usually only half of that in normal Chess (15% vs 30%). With Superchess, Dutch-Open rules (featuring an Amazon and Centaur in addition to the Capablanca pieces) it is even lower. The more strong pieces, the larger the probabilities for a quick mate, or devastating tactice.

I meant that XiangQi always revolves around threats and counter-threats, sacrifices and counter-sacrifices, tactical traps, mate-attacks. Strategical thinking is very scarce. Another game which is considerably slower, and puts greater demand on strategical thinking, is Korean Chess. Nevertheless, XiangQi is very fun. One can order very fine wooden piece sets, including a plastic mat board, very cheaply from a Chinese vendor at Ebay. But the information you relate is very interesting. One would want to know how complex it is compared with Fide-chess.
/Mats

OK, so you mean it is a more tactical game.

I remember now the posting about NeuChess was actually on the Rybka forum. 
( http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?pid=64961 )


The game tree of Xiangqi is supposed to be larger than that of Chess.

In the Mad Queen variant, the player is able to gain or recover pieces through promotion of the Pawn.

In Shogi, not only do many of the pieces promote but the player also gains an opponent's material through capture.

In XiangQi, except for the increase in power of the Soldier there are no promotions. What you see is what you get.

Like most Westerns I was first introduced to the Mad Queen variant. During military service, I came into contact with and played Shogi and XiangQi. There was always other players of the Mad Queen but those of Shogi and XiangQi were rare. That was until common access to the internet(I actually played a text-based game of Mad Queen across the fledgling internet at a technology exposition in Houston when I was a Boy Scout).

I enjoy all three games very much, and have real-world sets of each.

In fact Xiang Qi is too drawish. A Chinese professional player can easily
force a draw playing Red (White). A few years ago The Chinese Xiang Qi
Assosiation (I don't know what exactly the name is in English, just that
kind of organization) even made a controversial rule that a draw equals to
a win of Black. Xiang Qi has too many defending pieces and too much
restrictions on offencing pieces, that's why too many draws.
When I was a child, my grandpa told me that the purpose of Xiang Qi is to
checkmate the opponent not maintain valued pieces. Sacrifices are very
common in Xiang Qi for two reasons:
a)Though the board is larger, it's hard to develop valued pieces in Xiang
Qi. So sacrifices happen to exchange for partial advantages on one side
(left or right) of the board.
b)Players of Xiang Qi like to achieve winning of continuos mates (as VCFs
in Renju). Sacrifices happen when a player can see clearly a win after many
continuos mates.

Mats,
I don't know which is more drawish, chess or Xiang Qi. But Xiang Qi is
really too drawish for professional players. For inexperienced players it
often comes to a checkmate. The situation like Kasparov v.s. Anand 1995 PCA
also occurs in Chinese Professional League of Xiang Qi. Professional
players are making rules to punish negtive draws.
I've read the article you mentioned. Too much imagination there.

Shi Ji, I question your judgment. Former women Fide-chess World Champion Xie Jun says that she prefers Xiang Qi before Fide-chess. It is more fun and not at all as tedious.
/Mats