Single Comment

H.G. wrote:

"I don't understand what you mean by a 'fully once colorbound Knight', and thus whether your conjecture that it is worth half a normal Knight makes any sense. A Ferfil has 8 moves and is color bound. Would that make it worth half a Knight? In practice a pair of (unlike) Ferfils is worth as much as a pair of Knights, on 8x8.

Why do you think that computer programs are weak? Can you easily beat them? Why do you think that the level of play matters anyway? Isn't it true that in a game between purely random movers the side with a Queen versus a Rook would already have a significant advantage, in terms of win rate?"

In chess, as I think I may have read on this website, a N is in a way colourbound (but as I would put it, only 'once', i.e. by just one 'binding') for every second move that it makes (this is also illustrated, differently, in Alice Chess)., so it is not 'fully' (i.e. every time it moves) colourbound. I do not know if there's existing CV terminology that describes this differently, and in fewer words - I suppose if I simply say something is colourbound, that phrase is always understood to mean all that I wrote, but I unnecessarily tried to be more precise.

I have trouble imaging a CV where a N could be fully once colourbound (even if more than one board is involved in said variant, as in Alice Chess), barring that some weird board shape could make it physically possible, if that's even possible in itself, but otherwise I had meant to (yet again) illustrate in my previous post that my usual way of giving a 'binding' penalty is to divide by 2, at some stage of a calculation, although I don't bother with such a penalty for the case of a ferz, even on 8x8, or in the case of a B (as its total value is known on 8x8, or I simply increase it a bit in another [imperfect] way, for bigger board sizes).

Aside from all that, I'd note that a ferfil (on 8x8) for me equals (N-P)/4+ferz+P=3.125 (with my assuming N=3.5, as per Euwe, and ferz=1.5). Note if I valued N=3 and ferz still 1.5, I happen to get ferfil=3, like for a N, too, which would seem to have been rather nicer in this particular case. However, all this is using my Q=R+B+P analogy, plus my imperfect way of estimating an A (i.e. as (N-P)/4) which, to be kind to myself, I would say is not always fully appropriate (it's clear I have work to do if I ever aim to be a serious CV piece values authority, at least for all my given estimate cases and methods used to get them).

I had a couple of years ago noticed the chess rating of a program used for computer studies when it was entered into a computer chess tournament, and it's rating happened to be relatively low, i.e. around 2300, assuming I remembered the name of the program right. I'm currently about 2200 Canadian (2400 peak rating Cdn 8 years ago, maybe a bit of a feat for me since I was around 50 then), or almost 2300 peak FIDE rating when I was about 30 (under-rated juniors with low FIDE ratings killed that). However, I as a human would have trouble against a computer even if it had just my rating, as it would never blunder at a relatively shallow move level. Your old Sac Chess program, which may not have had relatively many heuristics, I played several times long ago, and I beat it just a couple of times, but only when I didn't let it look ahead for more than a couple of minutes for any given move. Sac Chess would happen to have a high number for the average number of legal moves available during a game, I'd note.

Even if some of the best chess engines and hardware become available for CV piece type studies (have they yet? I don't know), it would seem it might take some time to (extensively?) modify their algorithms to play CVs nearly as well as for chess, though calculating speed may compensate for that a lot in the beginning. Still, chess computers became much stronger than humans at first because of better and better heuristics for chess specifically programmed into them, I've heard - perhaps chess grandmasters' brains were picked for the heuristics. However currently there are no CV 'grandmasters' other than for a handful of CVs (i.e. chess, shogi, chinese chess, at the least). So, I have doubts about the strength of available CV engines for now, though you might be able to quickly inform me why I shouldn't.

A match based on games between very low level players where one side has Q for R at the start (e.g. 1000 FIDE rated adults) would be a significant edge, it would seem, for the side with the Q. Not sure it would win nearly as often as it should. In an extreme but rather imperfect analogy, a timed contest of monkeys with typewriters pitted against each other writing a million 'books' where half the monkeys get a twenty page head start might not get significantly better literary results (in the eyes of most humans) for the latter group. It would also be so usually for unrated 2 year old kids playing chess with one side having Q vs. R edge. For 2300 vs. 2300 computers, with tree searching allowed, but heuristics (other than assigned piece values) banned, with one side having Q for R edge, it should prove a decisive edge, and any typical errors made for that level would prove relatively insignificant in light of the now crushing material edge, and the games might even show examples of at least some sufficiently adequate methods to make use of the advantage. Otherwise, it's pretty tough for me to be categorical about such hypothetical situations as random move games (i.e. 1 ply search depth, no heuristics?!). I once had a BASIC program on a PDP/11 to do just that (but did not try Q vs. R handicap), and the results were not pretty. Possibly the 50 move drawn game rule might come into play almost every time in any game/match, almost no matter how great a material advantage one side might ever have at any stage.