Ratings & Comments
H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Jul 6, 2024 02:45 PM UTC in reply to Aurelian Florea from 11:57 AM:The 1-step fast castling should now work too: if the square next to the King is empty, it will be highlighted, but the Rook in that direction will also be highlighted (if both K and R are virgin). Clicking the Rook would then do the fast castling, clicking the empty square would just move the King there.
Featured Chess Variants. Chess Variants Featured in our Page Headers.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Can't we present the nominations as a table, with columns that can be ticked for eeach of the facilities that exist for it?
Yes, it would be much easier to read that way. [EDIT: I have begun working on this. I will prettify it after all the data is tabulated.]
I suppose the information we list now is not completely up to date either;
Yes, after a while, I focused only on games that were seconded.
Great work!
Featured Chess Variants. Chess Variants Featured in our Page Headers.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]So that I can better check against introducing errors, here is what was on the page before I started editing:
- Seirawan Chess [UGC] ID [PG] (N: Kevin Pacey)
- Superschaak [] (N: H. G. Muller)
- Paco Shako [ID] (N: ibid, S: A. M. DeWitt, Bob Greenwade)
- Musketeer Chess [GC ID PG] (N: ibid)
- Tenjiku Shogi [GC PG J] (N: ibid, S: A. M. DeWitt)
- Duck Chess [ID] (N: ibid, S: Jean-Louis Cazaux)
- Spartan Chess [PG J] (N: ibid, S: Aurelian Florea)
- Elven Chess [UGC PG J ID] (N: Jean-Louis Cazaux, S: Daniel Zacharias)
- Enhanced Courier Chess [GC PG ID] (N: ibid)
- Modern Chess [GC PG J Z] (N: Max Kovel)
- Singularity Chess [] (N: ibid, S: H. G. Muller)
- Opulent Lemurian Shatranj [UGC PG] (N: Joe Joyce, S: Bob Greenwade)
- Tiger Hunt [] (N: David Paulowich)
- Sort of Almost Chess [] (N: ibid)
- Chess on a Soccer Ball [] (N: Max Kovel)
- Atomic Chess [ID Li Lu] (N: H. G. Muller, S: Daniel Zacharias)
- Golem Chess [] (N: ibid)
- Knight Relay Chess [] (N: ibid)
- Odin's Rune Chess [UGC PG] (N: ibid, S: Daniel Zacharias)
- Kyoto Shogi [Z] (N: ibid, S: A. M. DeWitt, Lev Grigoriev)
- Elk Chess [OGC ID Z] (N: ibid, S: Jean-Louis Cazaux)
- Chieftain Chess [] (N: ibid)
- Extinction Chess [] (N: ibid)
- King of the Hill [] (N: ibid)
- Racing Kings [] (N: ibid)
- Three-Checks [] (N: ibid)
- Losing Chess, nominated as Suicide Chess [] (N: ibid)
- Dark Chess [] (N: ibid)
- Balbo's Chess [] (N: ibid)
- Pick-the-Team Chess [] (N: Bob Greenwade)
- Deconstruction Chess [] (N: ibid)
- Shatranj of Troy [UGC PG Z] (N: Daniel Zacharias, S: H. G. Muller)
- Seireigi [GC ID J Lu PG] (N: Lev Grigoriev, S: Bob Greenwade)
- Ice Age Chess [] (N: Max Koval)
- Chak [ID] (N: Jean-Louis Cazaux, S: Lev Grigoriev)
- Dai Seireigi [GC ID Lu PG] (N: Bob Greenwade)
- Ajax Chess [] (N: Daniel Zacharias)
- N-Relay Chess [] (N: HaruN Y)
- Sort of Almost Chess [] (N: HaruN Y)
I have now reformatted the Nominations & Seconds section, and I have checked it for errors. The information about games is not complete, though.
Seireigi. Variant of standard Shogi with promotable Gold Generals, as well as more varied and animalistic promotions. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Hello HGM,
"I heard that this increased its strength by about 1000 Elo over using the hand-crafted evaluation"
Have not trained a NNUE for Sereigi yet, but indeed, in Shogi the NNUE was over 1000 Elo above HCE. For now, I have defined Sereigi for FSF and integrated it in the Winboard GUI, just download it (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1STneJS83cyom0qGzytWgDwtemdc2WE2F/view?usp=sharing), unzip it and start it in Winboard (it's the only engine I have included in the factory.ini file).
With the graphics via pieceToCharTable and the bitmaps folder of Winboard there are problems (could only apply the bmp of archbishop for the lance piece) Of course I can change the bmp's in the bitmaps folder, but that would make the Winboard GUI unusable for other games. The best for now may be to start manually from the command line
FSF2304 load variants.ini
xboard
memory 2048
cores 22 (the number of cores your processor has)
variant sereigi
st 10 (seconds per move)
and type some move in the notation g1f2 If a piece promotes, the sign + after the move is necessary, for example h8b2+
I would say, even without NNUE it plays at superhuman strength and is without doubt atm world's strongest Sereigi player, Enjoy
Featured Chess Variants. Chess Variants Featured in our Page Headers.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Odin's Rune Chess is in ChessV.
Some other games, such as Ajax Chess, would be easy to define for ChessV also. Would making the game definition available here be enough to count as strong ai?
Some more potentially qualifying games that are included in ChessV or Ai Ai, or both:
- Alekhine Chess
- Sac Chess
- Northern Ecumenical Chess
- Unicorn Great Chess
- Great Shatranj
- Lemurian Shatranj
- Shako Balbo
- Xhess
- Apothecary Chess Classic
- Duke of Rutland's Chess
- Wildebeest Decimal Chess
- Jumping Chess
- King's Color
Seireigi. Variant of standard Shogi with promotable Gold Generals, as well as more varied and animalistic promotions. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I'm seeing the Tokin having the same image as the Pawn in the interactive diagram
Featured Chess Variants. Chess Variants Featured in our Page Headers.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Since I got rid of the ibids, I put the nominated games in alphabetical order. While doing so, I found two games that were nominated twice. I consolidated each into one with the second nomination as a second.
H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Jul 6, 2024 07:53 PM UTC in reply to Daniel Zacharias from 05:52 PM:Ai Ai is very weak. I think it even loses to the Interactive Diagram.
I knew it wasn't great but I didn't realize it was that bad
H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Jul 6, 2024 09:12 PM UTC in reply to Daniel Zacharias from 08:56 PM:It is always difficult to compare programs that can play so many different variants, and have different methods of time control (fixed time per move vs fixed depth). I also have the impression that Ai Ai is buggy, making it a bit unpredictable. But at Tenjiku Shogi it cannot even come up with a reasonable opening move even at 10 min/move.
I guess the next step is to complete the list of strong computer opponents. On the Fairy-Stockfish page at GitHub I see that it plays:
Regional and historical games
- Xiangqi, Manchu, Minixiangqi, Supply chess
- Shogi, Shogi variants
- Janggi
- Makruk, ASEAN, Makpong, Ai-Wok
- Ouk Chatrang, Kar Ouk
- Sittuyin
- Shatar, Jeson Mor
- Shatranj, Courier
Chess variants
- Capablanca, Janus, Modern, Chancellor, Embassy, Gothic, Capablanca random chess
- Grand, Shako, Centaur, Tencubed, Opulent
- Chess960, Placement/Pre-Chess
- Crazyhouse, Loop, Chessgi, Pocket Knight, Capablanca-Crazyhouse
- Bughouse, Koedem
- Seirawan, Seirawan-Crazyhouse
- Amazon, Chigorin, Almost chess
- Hoppel-Poppel, New Zealand
- Antichess, Giveaway, Suicide, Losers, Codrus
- Extinction, Kinglet, Three Kings, Coregal
- King of the Hill, Racing Kings
- Three-check, Five-check
- Los Alamos, Gardner’s Minichess
- Atomic
- Horde, Maharajah and the Sepoys
- Knightmate, Nightrider, Grasshopper
Shogi variants
- Minishogi, EuroShogi, Judkins shogi
- Kyoto shogi, Microshogi
- Dobutsu shogi, Goro goro shogi
- Tori shogi
- Yari shogi
- Okisaki shogi
- Sho shogi
Elven Chess is one of the variants played by HaChu, Musketeer Chess is played by KingSlayer-Aramis, and for Chess with Different Armies there also exists a KingSlayer derivative. The ChessV page says that ChessV plays 100 CVs, but it doesn't say which.
Imaginary (Complex) Chess. Members-Only Extremely complex chess. Chess masters become powerless. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Since this comment is for a page that has not been published yet, you must be signed in to read it.
Featured Chess Variants. Chess Variants Featured in our Page Headers.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I commented out the nomination for Deconstruction Chess, because its page is still pending approval.
Banzai Chess. Friendly pieces can be pushed and pushed pieces can bounce. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Like this?
There is nothing else to add here.
If you find this worthy of publishing please change metadata to public. I won't be able to reply for several months.
Featured Chess Variants. Chess Variants Featured in our Page Headers.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]If I may add there's also ChessCraft which meets the requirements of programmed online play, has a computer opponent (albeit weak).
https://lichess.org/@/ChessCraftBot Politique 2.0 did a long test against different chess bots, Chesscraft AI 7 is around 1300 ELO But only when it tested the board at least 3 times Else he gets around 1000 elo Here's his best game won with his highest opponent: https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/computer/52267803?tab=review u_ndefined on 06/05/2023 sent a message which is a compilation of (most) variants from chessvariants.org imported to ChessCraft: Alapo: 2S4U Alley Chess: 2ZM2 Almost Chess: EBK Sort of Almost Chess: 2RA1 and 2RA2 Arch-Chancellor Chess: 2SAE Argess: 2QS8 Ascension: H6G Berolina Chess*: 2QP3 Bird's Chess*: 2VRS Bird's Shatranj*: 2VRX Capablanca Chess*: 2VQY (recreated slightly better than other implementations) Capablanca Shatranj*: 2VR0 Centaur Chess: centaur1 Chancellor Chess: 2VRY Modern Chancellor Chess: 2VS8 Chigorin Chess: VR Chimera Chess: EJ0 Coregal Chess: 2QS6 Diana: 2VRJ Dipole Chess: 1T9 Douglas Modern Chess: 30I4 Dunsany's Chess: 2S8J Enep: VQ Espionage Chess: 2S4K Fianchetto Chess: 2XJD Formation Chess: 2ZM3 Gardner's MiniChess: 2VRK Grotesque Chess*: 2VTD Grotesque Shatranj*: 2VTG Half Chess: 3142 Haven Chess: 30J8 Horde variant: 2TE3 Hyperabad Decimal Chess: 43G Interior Chess: 30LD Janus Chess: 2RCY Janus Shatranj: 2VRI Knightmate: 9R Ladorean Chess*: 2WC8 Ladorean Shatranj*: 2WC9 Legan's Game: 2TE4 Los Alamos Chess: 2TNX King of the Hill: 2TNZ Kingsmen: EQ7 Maharajah and the Sepoys: EFB Super Maharadscha: 2VR4 Tiger Hunt: 2S8K and 2SAD Makruk / Thai Chess: 2RGX Microchess-56: 2ZM4 Modern Carrera's Chess: 2WCB Near Chess: 2RGJ Near vs Normal: 2WCC and 2WCD New Chancellor's Chess: 2VRR New Chancellor Shatranj: 2VRU Omega Chess: 2WCK Orda Chess: 2QNW Orda Mirror: 2RA3 Paulovits' Game*: 2S4Z Peasant's Revolt: 319M and 319N Periphery Chess**: 30IZ Platonic Chess: FYB Rooksquare Chess: 2ZM1 Schoolbook*: 2VTH Schoolbook Shatranj*: 2VTI Skirmish56 Chess: 30RV Shako: LDW The Bridge41: 314A The Consuls: G3H The Arena: H59 Turkish Great Chess: 2RCS Modern Turkish Great Chess: 2RCU Tutti-Frutti Chess: 2R9X Victorian Chess: EPR * this variant almost works ** bugged! ChessCraft ID URL copy-pasting for convenience: https://www.chesscraft.ca/design?id= Frog/Hannibal/Waffle chess with Gryphon/Manticore and falcon. Expansions of Kevin Pacey's Frog/Hannibal/Wafle Chess. (9x10, Cells: 90) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]@HG,
I'm working on an article for all the games : Frog/Hannibal/Waffle chess with Gryphon/Manticore and falcon. I have used the satellite parameter with success except for the initial diagram. I'd like it to be a random choice between the six games, because I don't want the user to feel that a certain game is privileged over the other five. For now it's almost nothing. How should I make that?
H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, Jul 7, 2024 11:47 AM UTC in reply to Aurelian Florea from 10:48 AM:Affecting the initial state is somewhat tricky, because the Interactive Diagram is initialized with a certain delay. This to make sure the initialization routine can see all Diagrams on the page, and is not immediately executing after the page has been loaded enough to only see the first Diagram. So you cannot use the code you use later for altering a Diagram that you use in the buttons immediately.
The way I would do it, is first alter the mechanism by which you change things now, by letting all buttons call the same function (say 'AlterDiagram(n)'), specifying by the parameter n what should actually be altered. So AlterDiagram would contain a switch(n) statement, where each case does what you now have written directly in the button. Initially you can then call AlterDiagram with a random number as parameter (Math.floor(nmax*Math.random()). Or call it twice, once for the base variant, and once to choose the off-board piece.
The main difficulty is when to call it. You could call it with a delay larger than the betza.js script uses to call its Init() function, but that seems a bit risky in case the page lows more slowly than that (or future versions of betza.js use another delay). Now you can prevent that betza.js invokes the Init() routine at all, by, before specifying the URL to betza.js
<script>var scriptSeen = 7;</script>
(Betza.js uses this to make sure the Init() routine is only executed once, even if there are multiple links to the script on the page, such as could happen in a Comments page.) You then should arrange the Init() function to be called from your own code. You could do this through
<script>
function MyInit() {
Init();
var n = ...; // number of the random position you want to show
AlterDiagram(n);
}
setTimeout('MyInit()', 100); // arrange MyInit() to be invoked 100 msec from now.
</script>
This guarantees that you execute the AlterDiagram() for picking the initially shown position only after the initialization has been done.
Featured Chess Variants. Chess Variants Featured in our Page Headers.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, Jul 7, 2024 11:53 AM UTC:We will have to add additional opportunities for human on-line play (pychess.org, gamerz.net, freechess.org, chess.com), and for 'strong' computer opponents (Fairy-Stockfish, ChessV, Sjaak II, Nebiyu, HaChu, CrazyWa, KingSlayer...).
Since some of these engines are configurable, it would often be possible to supply game files for them, to use them for variants that are not in their standard repertoir.
Standard repertoir of Sjaak II:
- Normal chess (Jazz, Sjaak and Leonidas all play this).
- Spartan chess, where black and white play with different armies and black has two kings (Sjaak and Leonidas can both play this).
- Seirawan chess, where both sides start with an extra off-the-board piece that can be introduced later (Sjaak and Leonidas both play this).
- The Maharaja and the Sepoys, where white has only one piece (the Maharaja) (needs to be played as variant "fairy" in XBoard). In Sjaak II you need to load the variants.txt configuration file to make this variant available.
- Amazon chess, where the queen moves as an amazon (needs to be played as variant "fairy" in XBoard).
- Knightmate, where the king moves as a knight and the knights move as a king.
- Berolina Chess, where pawns move one square diagonal and capture straight ahead.
- Shatranj, a historic precursor of modern chess.
- Capablanca Chess, a variant played on a 10x8 board with two extra pieces.
- Gothic Chess, the same as Capablanca Chess but with a different starting position.
- Fischer Random Chess and Capablanca Random Chess, which are like normal chess and normal Capablanca chess, but with a randomised starting position (Sjaak does not generate a starting position, however).
- Makruk, the Thai version of Chess. ASEAN chess and Ai-Wok are supported Makruk variants.
- Pocket Knight, like normal chess, but players have an extra knight they can drop on the board.
- Grand Chess, on a 10x10 board.
- Indian Grand Chess, or possibly Turkish Grand Chess. On a 10x10 with four extra pieces.
- Burmese chess (Sittuyin), needs to be played in XBoard with legality testing off.
- Courier chess, a medieval variant played on a 12x8 board.
- Chinese chess (Xiangqi), Black and white face eachother across the river that runs along the board, with their kings confined to their palaces.
- Japanese chess (Shogi), where captured pieces can be dropped on the board to reinforce your own army. Also supported are a number of Shogi variants (sho-shogi, mini-shogi and tori-shogi).
- Traditional Mongolian Chess (Shatar), which has restrictions on how mate can be delivered.
- Omicron Chess, which is basically Omega Chess on a slightly smaller board.
- Omega Chess, a variant on a 12x12 (effectively 10x10 with four extra squares) board.
- Grande Acedrex, a large (12x12) mediaeval variant of chess with divergent pieces: the Rhinoceros/Unicorn (first as Knight, then as Bishop) and the Gryphon/Aanca (first as Ferz, then as Rook). Can be played by Postduif.
- Various minor variantions and challanges, including Peasant's revolt, Legan's chess.
Weak computer opponent, weaker than Zillions of Games. (ID = Interactive Diagram, J = Jocly, Li = LiChess, Lu = Ludii)
I can also notice that there’s LiShogi site (can be abbreviated like Ls) which can play Kyoto Shogi; and also all variants marked with #Lichess tag are playable against Lichess Stockfish, which isn’t noted in Weak section in the table (exc. for Atomic chess).
H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, Jul 7, 2024 06:36 PM UTC in reply to Diceroller is Fire from 05:51 PM:Well, websites like LiShogi an PyChess just offer on-line versions of Fairy-Stockfish, rigged to play at very weak level, for a limited number of variants. So I don't see much use in mentioning those at all, if Fairy-Stockfish is already mentioned as a possible computer opponent.
Fairy-Stockfish is also configurable for other variants, in a straightforward way. But it seems to suffer from similar limitations as Sjaak II. (But is of course enormously stronger, 3000+ Elo vs ~2200 Elo.) One of these is that the board cannot have more than 128 squares (which in Fairy Stockfish seems to be further limited to max 10 ranks and max 12 files). And only a limited variety of pieces is supported: compound of leapers, sliders, knightrider, possibly as (grass)hoppers, possibly divergent. So no Griffon, for example. But many variants don't need more than that.
Frog/Hannibal/Waffle chess with Gryphon/Manticore and falcon. Expansions of Kevin Pacey's Frog/Hannibal/Wafle Chess. (9x10, Cells: 90) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I have remade the six articles with the games in my collection of games inspired by Kevin Pacey, into one. Hopefully that is better for everyone involved. Please take a look! If this article is accepted I'll delete the six old ones.
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