Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Thomas, I like Shogi preset with white marble board as well.

Either the Symbolic or Chess Motif pieces are fine with me--because of my poor eyesight I find it difficult in the extreme to play Shogi with the Japaneses pieces, I confuse them too easily.

Marble board is my favorite, but any is fine with me.

I prefer checkered board and symbolic or motif pieces. As you know, I have some troubles with my vision, this is the main reason for my preferences.

Grand-Chess: I like the new Maple and Walnut board. Is it the official?. If not, this is my preference anyway.

Both Grand Chess and Great Chess are now available in reduced maple/walnut boards, and the maple/walnut boards will be used in the tournament unless anyone asks for the fullsize, plain boards available as HTML tables.

There is one detail I forgot before about the different Shogi pieces. The Motif Shogi pieces have light edges around their borders that show up against the dark background of the sodalite blue board. This is an artifact of how I created them. I was able to create the Japanese pieces without this effect, but I'm not sure what I did right to eliminate it, and even if I remembered what to do, I couldn't fix them without recreating the full piece set. Anyway, this was the motivation for creating the white marble board. The Motif Shogi pieces look better on this board, because the light edges around them blend into the background. So if these are the pieces you want to use, the white marble board may be your best choice.

I would also prefer the white marble board for Shogi. My second choice would be the uncheckered board, since the sodalite blue board doesn't fit well with my favourite 'black' Alfaerie pieces.

Fergus, when begins the Tournament?. I supposed today, but I doubt it can happen. In every case, I´m not going to play any move today. As I can see, you have had not troubles with pairing. Which games are going to appear in the first round?. I´m expecting the start. I´m not so optimistic in this Tournament about my possible final score, but it is not important, I think I´m going to have a lot of fun, as the rest of participants. Enjoy it!.

I have begun to assign the games, but I am now stopping for tonight. So far, I have done Caissa Britannia, Chinese Chess, Fischer Random Chess, Grand Chess, and Great Chess. I will continue with the remaining games sometime tomorrow. In the meantime, get in your Shogi board preferences if you haven't done so yet.

Will there be a GCT2 filter so that one can easily view only the logs from this tournament?

There is now a filter for this tournament. I just modified how tournament filters work, so that the Logs page does not require a special OPTION for a specific tournament. The filter will take wildcard patterns, so that it is even possible to view a list of all games from any Game Courier tournament with the a simple '*Game Courier*' filter. The default for the filter is '*', which will also show games not played in tournaments. The filter for this tournament is 'Game Courier II', and there is now a link to the logs in this tournament near the top of this page.

I have finished assigning the first 26 games of the tournament. I am going to wait until tonight to move in any of my own games, because I need to get offline now.

When I assigned the games, Game Courier put the address [email protected] in the From: field, but I no longer have this address, and I won't get any mail sent to it.

Since there doesn't seem to be any authentic historic account of Chaturanga, and since Gollon's description of the game was actually based on other games, and since Shatranj is the oldest variant for which we have an authentic historic account of the rules, I propose that, at least for the purposes of this tournament, that we treat Shatranj and Chaturanga as essentially the same game and substitute Shatranj for Chaturanga in the lineup of the games to be played. If anyone has objections, let me know.

Four games in the tournament have now ended, freeing up their players for new games. These are Carlos Carlos for two games, and Fergus Duniho, Gary Gifford, Hans Henriksson, Andreas Kaufman, Roberto Lavieri, and Mike Nelson for one game each. I will be pairing up some of them for new games in the near future. The new pairs will be Carlos and myself at Extinction Chess, Hans and Roberto at Extinction Chess, and Gary and Mike at Fischer Random Chess. This leaves Carlos and Andreas to be paired up, but they are already playing their game together. So they will have to wait for other people to finish up games. Unless someone asks for a break in the meantime, I will assign these three games this evening.

Gary Gifford and myself are playing steadily at Great Chess, but on the face of it Great Chess games would be expected to be longer on average. So be it. Of course anything can happen.

I have just assigned the three games I mentioned in an earlier comment. Also, since no one has raised any objections, I have replaced Chaturanga with Shatranj. The rules of Shatranj are part of the historical record, whereas the rules of Chaturanga are not. The descriptions we have of Chaturanga are at worst mistakes and at best educated guesses. The rules of Chaturanga may or may not be the same as Shatranj. If they are the same, then we will be playing Chaturanga by playing Sharranj. If they are not the same, then it's anybody's guess what they are, and we may as well play the closest game we actually have rules for, which is Shatranj.

Now that the game between Antoine and Hans has ended, I will assign the Alice Chess game between Antoine and Andreas tomorrow, assuming neither one asks for a break in the meantime. Since there is no one else to pair up Hans with at the moment, he will have to wait until another game ends.

In addition to the finished game I noticed last night, Roberto and Greg have finished their game. So tonight I will, barring requests for breaks, assign both the Alice Chess game for Antoine and Andreas and the Caissa Britannia game for Hans and Greg. Roberto will have to wait until someone else finishes a game.

I've now assigned the two games mentioned in my last comment.

The game between Greg Strong and Hans Henriksson has ended, and now Carlos, Roberto, Greg, and Hans need to be paired up for new games. Greg has already played against Hans and Roberto and has only Carlos left, but their game is Marseilles Chess, and I need to take some time to write a rule-enforcing preset for it. I think I have figured out the key to doing it. Hans has played Greg and Roberto, also having only Carlos left. So I will pair them up next on Alice Chess, leaving Greg's and Carlos's Marseilles Chess game for the future. I will leave Roberto and Greg open until others become available. Unless Carlos or Hans ask for a break, I will assign their Alice Chess game tomorrow.

I have now assigned the Alice Chess game between Carlos and Hans.

Carlos Carlos, Fergus Duniho, Roberto Lavieri, and Greg Strong are presently available for new games. Carlos has played all but Greg, but I'm still working on Marseillais Chess. Roberto has played all but me, but I haven't gotten to programming a preset for Switching Chess. That leaves just me and Greg for our game of Kamikaze Mortal Shogi. I'll assign this game tomorrow if Greg doesn't ask for a break in the meantime.