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Comments by GregoryStrong
Index page of The Chess Variant Pages. Our main index page.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Nov 11, 2004 10:19 PM UTC:<p>Fergus Duniho says:
<blockquote>As you can tell by looking at the Age field when you go to the logs page, there is no age limit on the logs shown. </blockquote></p>
<p>Just because the age field has an option labled 'anytime' doesn't mean that you intend to save them forever. It was a perfectly reasonable question.</p>
Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Nov 12, 2004 06:06 PM UTC:Sweet! Thanks again; this is very useful for when I add new games to ChessV to be able to see logs of actual games for purposes of testing and creating opening books. Hopefully as the popularity of chess variants, this site, and the Game Courier grows, the number of game logs for the popular games will grow into the hundreds!
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Nov 13, 2004 04:31 PM UTC:Each of these games requires some work, although not too much. It's going to be a month or two before I add any complicated games, though. I really need to get the last couple of bugs fixed, and there are still a few important performance enhancements I want to add, too. It is still possible to more than double the speed of ChessV at most games. Eventually, though, I will add support for all of the games you mention. Rococo will come first, as that's by far the easiest.
Game Courier Tournament #1. A multi-variant tournament played on Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Nov 13, 2004 04:52 PM UTC:Bug report: When I click on 'View Entire' on Antoine's comment on this page immediately before this one, I get a 404 Page Not Found error, so I can only see part of his comments. Game Courier Tournament #2: Yes! I'm eager to get in on the next GC tournament... I have enough free time that I can I could deal with more ambitious time controls, but I understand that most people don't, and I think the priority should be on maximizing participation. As for game selection, I favor a democratic approach. From what I see from the logs, game selection was conducted in a very impressive way last time, and I would like to see that process repeated. The only change I can think of that should be considered is a rule to preclude inclusion of the same game in consecutive tournaments. My suggestion: exclude games from this tournament that were played in the last one except those that are Recognized Variants. This way, GC tournament #2 can still include Shogi, Xiang Qi, Ultima, Alice Chess, Grand Chess, and Glinski's Hex Chess, but other games won't be available again until GC tournament #3. Otherwise, I'm afraid we won't get enough variation...
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Nov 13, 2004 05:32 PM UTC:Well, I'm certainly happy to have an entirely new list of games, and RL blocks.
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Nov 13, 2004 11:08 PM UTC:<p>Sounds good to me!</p>
<p>It would be nice to get GC presets for Wildebeest Chess and Omega Chess available for consideration of inclusion. I have a Wildebeest Chess preset located here:</p>
<p><a href='http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game%3DWildebeest+Chess%26settings%3DWildebeest'>http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game%3DWildebeest+Chess%26settings%3DWildebeest</a></p>
<p>It does not enforce the rules, though, and has a Giraffe icon for a Wildebeest. Of course, I think of that piece as the GNU, and for all I know a GNU looks much like a Giraffe :) Seriously, though, in the next couple of days I'll try to make a Wildebeest piece that appears to match the other Alfaerie pieces, and submit a new piece set for this game.</p>
<p>As for Omega Chess, Ironlance has a preset for it that looks nice, but I don't have the link.</p>
Game Courier Logs. View the logs of games played on Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Nov 16, 2004 02:49 AM UTC:Regarding possible game courier bugs, I have noticed a couple of things... I have also experienced the suddenly back-in-time that David describes, although I have never had it go back more than one move, and I have also discovered that I can completely prevent it from happening by always, always, ALWAYS clicking ctrl-refresh to force a full page re-load before entering any moves. I find that this is step is essential, or there's the occasional deja-vu-move. I use IE 6.0 SP 2, and it is configured to always reload all pages, so it's not IE configured to cache pages or the like. Also, in a game of Fisher Random Chess in which I was making the first move of the game, I noticed that every time I would click 'Refresh,' (which I always do, as described above) it would give me a different random configuration. But then, when I actually made the move, (a pawn move,) the pieces were suddenly in a different configuration (the original configuration, I presume, although I'm not sure. I wasn't paying that much attention.) Hope this helps! Greg
Greg Strong wrote on Wed, Nov 17, 2004 10:34 PM UTC:<p>A brief rules description can be found <a href='http://groups.msn.com/ChessVariantClub/pbmpresets.msnw?action=view_list&row=5&viewtype=2&sortstring='>here</a>. Basically:<br>
the Bow and Arrow piece is a Longbowman, which moves like a <a href='/piececlopedia.dir/dabbabah.html'>Dabbabah</a>.<br>
the Crecent Moon piece is a Seer, which moves like an <a href='/piececlopedia.dir/alfil.html'>Alfil</a>.<br>
the Warrior's Head piece is a Swordsman, and can move 2 squares in any direction without jumping. This brief description seems to indicate that it cannot move a single space, but I assume he meant to say no more than 2.<br>Also, there's a special castling rule.</p>
<p>It's too bad that the Game Courier preset has square colors that are so low-contrast. It would be nice if individual users could override square colors and piece sets on a game-by-game basis, but I realise that would probably be a real pain to implement.</p>
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Nov 18, 2004 03:01 PM UTC:Sure, you can change colors to make a new preset, but frequently I do not create the game. In any event, one player should be able to use alfaeire pieces and another use abstract pieces in the same game, for example. Even more useful for games like Shogi (not everyone can or wants to read the Kanji.) Color overrides is somewhat less important, but still bloody nice, especially with new games showing up with really wacky colors.
Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Nov 19, 2004 05:49 PM UTC:When you make a move, just change the status field. It says 'ongoing' by default, but you can change it to 'John Doe has won.' Then when you verify the move, it will consider the game over.
Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Nov 19, 2004 06:32 PM UTC:sorry, I just checked and that user doesn't have an e-mail address listed. I just tried something. Please try making your move again. There is a chance that it will work now. And if it does, please let me know.
Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Nov 19, 2004 06:59 PM UTC:Oh well, it was a long shot. For the record, I'm not an administrator so I'm not supposed to have the power to fix anything. But I did discover a security flaw earlier today, which I reported to Fergus. It is possible that as I discovered that bug, it was my experiment that caused the problem with your game. I appologize if that is the case...
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Nov 20, 2004 12:34 AM UTC:Ok, that's good to know. This command is not mentioned in the manual.
Double Chess 16 x 8. On 16 by 8 board. (16x8, Cells: 128) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Mon, Nov 22, 2004 09:48 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★Noticing that I haven't previously commented on this, I must also give this an 'Excellent.' This varient is much more fun that I expected; the openings seem tame because the board is so large, but due the large amount of material, things become deadly in short order.
Game Courier Developer's Guide. Learn how to design and program Chess variants for Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Wed, Nov 24, 2004 04:46 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★Very nice! This new version is very well written and comprehensive! Thanks for this.
Games for Game Courier. The many games you can play online with Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Nov 25, 2004 04:39 PM UTC:<p>I started on the code for verifying the moves in Wildebeest Chess, but hit a road-block with the three-space pawn move, because I didn't see a 'checkathreestep' function to correspond with the 'checkatwostep' function, and didn't see another way to do it...</p>
<p>Perhaps a useful function would be checknstep, which would check to see if it is a valid move of exactly n steps all in the same direction. This would allow you to put pawns on a really big board more easily. Or make another version of 'checkaride' that allows you to specify the maximum number of rider-steps. This would be important for the short rook in CWDA.</p>
<p>P.S. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!</p>
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Nov 25, 2004 05:28 PM UTC:I don't think anyone has worked on rules-enforcement for Omega Chess; I don't think the O.C. people responded to Fergus' request for permission. They never responded to me when I asked about ChessV either ... I am going to work on rules enforcement for your L&U Chess; I think that one will be much easier, and thus will be better for my first attempt. The pawn move in Wildebeest is fairly tricky - unlike Omega Chess, pawns may make a single step, and then still make a 2-space move later.
Game Courier. PHP script for playing Chess variants online.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Nov 27, 2004 05:29 PM UTC:The code to enforce the rules in standard Chess is missing the lines that prevent a pawn from capturing directly forward...
Recognized Chess Variants. Index page listing the variants we feel are most significant. (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Mon, Nov 29, 2004 06:20 PM UTC:I disagree with Robert Fischer. It is not possible to test EVERY possible permutation, since there are tens of thousands of them. And I think it is totally unnecessary. Fischer Random Chess has 960 different set-ups, and probably, by now, all have been played at least once, but *NO* organized effort has been made to test each and every one by high-level Chess players for playability. In fact, FRC doesn't even try to avoid unprotected pawns. Considering the number of FRC enthusiasts, I doubt it's necessary. Besides, as Fergus recently pointed out in a different thread, the most common opening move in Chess is pawn to king-4, which creates an unprotected pawn! As long as white and black have identical setups (mirror-symmetry, not rotational-symmertry) the game appears to be fair. I see no reason why Capablanca Random Chess would not be fair, especially since Dr. Scharnagl has excluded all setups with unprotected pawns. Regarding Capablanca Random Chess: Good work, Reinhard! You have taken the concept of crossing Capablanca Chess with Fischer randomizations and done a fantastic job of identifying the issues that need to be addressed, such as castling and proper notation. I look forward to adding proper support for this game to ChessV. You asked how a game becomes 'recognized'. I suspect you didn't mean to use that word. There are only about 30 variants that are listed as Recognized Variants on this site, and it takes a while to become a Recognized Variant. What I suspect you want is to have a web page created on this site for the game. There are well over a thousand such games, and it is not hard for yours to be added. Technically, all that is required is that you submit an e-mail to the editors. They are very busy, though, and they can get it up much faster if you have it already formatted into their HTML template. If you would like, I would be happy to take the description you submitted, and format it properly, and submit it for you. I can also create a Game Courier preset for you if you like. P.S. Is your book on Fischer Random Chess available in English? Sincerely, Greg Strong
Greg Strong wrote on Mon, Nov 29, 2004 08:13 PM UTC:Sorry George, yes, this was the comment I was thinking of. Not sure why I attributed it to Fergus - my memory is clearly not as good as it once was, which is kind-of scary since I'm only 32.
Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Nov 30, 2004 02:32 AM UTC:Roberto is exactly right. Playability, etc. is very subjective. Part of the reason we publish games here is to get other people interested so that we may begin the playtesting. If you are only interested in time-tested games, that's what the Recognized Variant List is for.
Poll number Game Courier Tournament #2 Approval Poll. Vote for which games you would like to play in the second Game Courier Tournament.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Nov 30, 2004 03:54 AM UTC:Something appears to be wrong ... I cast my votes, and the summary page shows only one person voting, but it includes games I didn't vote for. I tried the fields at the top of the form to review votes, but it goes to the GC Tournament #1 page, saying that the tournament is over.
Game Courier. PHP script for playing Chess variants online.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Nov 30, 2004 11:49 PM UTC:When I attempt to access this game log, I get an error... Log: http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game=Anti-King+Chess+II&log=andreas-cvgameroom-2003-300-130 Error: Game Courier Warning: resigned is not a valid move, because resigned is not a recognized command, and it lacks any recognized operator. It says it's just a warning, but it keeps me from seeing any of the game.
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