Comments by catugo
So you were saying H.G. that is better to do more iterations with 100 games for example and then get to the fine tunning part!
And you also said 2 weeks ago something about taking the pawn to an absolute value of 60 or somewhere near.
And you forgot to mention the modern elephant.
Ok, Here in Romania is late at night, but tommorow is a reduced materials endgames day test, like knights vs bishops and so on!
H.G.,
I've decided for keeping values computed earlier as good enough for first iteration.
Also, you've said nothing on minors vs few (3-4) pawns. That should also provide info on the values of minor pieces.
Apothecary 1 piece values used in first interation:
pawn:60
knight:190
bishop:200
wizard:181
champion:191
rook:345
aanca:476
griffin:524
queen:571
Apothecary 2 piece values used in the first iteration:
pawn:60
knight:162
bishop:200
elephant:175
camel:153
rook:345
zebra:143
archbishop:476
marshall:524
queen:571
Also I decided to rename the to title variants: Small Apothecary 1 and Small Apothecary 2. The reason for that is that I already sketched 3 12x12 variants, and bigger is to come. The main trouble with those is that I doubt I can find a program that can play them, so I'll have to build my own. In the particular cases of the 12x12 Apothecary variants the problem with regard to Fairy-max is that both armies use promotable berolina and regular pawns and moreover the problem with sjaak 2 is that it uses aancas and griffins. Also the weird promotion rule stands.
I have finished the first iteration for griffins vs aancas for the new set of experiments, results are below. No surprises threre. Now queens vs griffins has started under similar conditions.
Griffins wins:114
Aancas wins:61
Draws:25
Griffins Points:126.5
Aancas Points:73.5
Apothecary 2 Marshalls VS ArchBishops have ended. Now Queens vs Marshalls have started.
Marshalls wins:103
Draws:20
Archbishops wins:77
Marshall points:113
Archbishops points: 87
How can I use these images for my own diagrams?
H.G.,
I'm watching some queens vs griffins matches and I remembered what you've said about most of the power of the pieces coming from empty board mobility (Griffin mobility=27/25 Queen mobility). I think we are for an exception here as the griffin has a slightly higher empty board mobility than the queen but in the early game gets hindered much more easily by having only four squares nearby. The queen also has 3 forward direction as opposed to two, for what that worths. From what I'm seeing the queen is roughly half a pawn above the griffin in apothecary 1 (as is above the marshall in apothecary 2, nice to know for different armies maybe). Larger boards will probably provide even more interesting encounters between the 2.
Weakly related: An even weirder case of fluctuations along a game of ratios of pieces, I think is rook vs nightrider. As the NN is clearly superior in the early game the R is superior due to its traits in the late game.
H.G.,
I'd like to confess something, I wanted to be a bit profane on Fairy-Max, as it plays both apothecary games so open. But after trying to play myself against myself on the diagrams (I'm blundering later now) I've noticed that with so many leapers these games are pretty open themselves. So pushing pawns and closing the game may not work. This is a weakness of both apothecary games I have to think about in the future.
Moreover, I'm now in a position to defend apothecary 2 (or small apothecary 2 as is it's real name- but as of now they are the only apothecary games, simple apothecary works) against your criticism that the game is too long (and maybe stale as a result). Introducing the minor pieces enriches the middlegame a lot and even if more often than not the minor pieces get exchanced in the middle game (camels in the endgame are very rare, zebras even more so) the damage to pawn structure and the more weird endgame pieces combinations make up for the increased lenght. It's all an opinion of course.
The queens vs griffins experiment has finished yielding a bit of a surprising result (see below). The difference is 2 pawns (1 for each pair of opposite pieces), larger than I expected.
Queens wins:129
Griffins wins :53
Draws:18
Queens points:138
Griffins points:62
Queens VS Marshalls has finished again with what I consider a bit of exagerated results.
Queens wins:129
Marshall wins:54
draws:17
Queens points:137.5
Marshall points:62.5
H.G.,
Could the last 2 experiments have fallen into a slightly nonlinear zone?
Pawn (maybe 2 pawns) deletion for the queens side is in the cue now. But for now I've started apothecary 2 minor pieces games. I decided against reducing material so I kept most pieces (except the ones under test).
Now Camels vs Zebras and Elephants vs Knights is on!
Falcon Chess. Game on an 8x10 board with a new piece: The Falcon. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Hello,
H.G.,
Could you explain the betza notation for falcon for us the more lazy ones.
I was thinking of something more like lame Z or C (L in older version) rather than what you posted which is something I don't understand, and why your choice for the used version , as I'm sure more people could think at more solution to writting the falcon move.
Well, Alfairie is the most complete set, and so deserves to be the default, but thanks you very much for every picture to all contributors!
So, now we are on minor pieces contests. In apothecary 2 camels vs zebras has started. This is set up by replacing in the initial setup the camel with a zebra for a player and vice-versa for the other. Zebras vs Elephants is next. This will be set up by replacing an elephant with a zebra an deleting the other elephant and for the other player just deleting the zebra. No other pieces are deleted for the sake of consistence. In apothecary 2, where the initial setup has 2 of each minor pieces (say bishops vs elephants) one player gets deleted one set of minors where the other gets deleted the other set of minors. This is also what always happens in apothecary 1.
Results for camels vs zebras and elephants vs knights coming soon.
Elephnats vs Knights:
Elephants wins:97
Draws:30
Knights wins:73
Elephant Points:112
Knights Points:88
My initial guess of 30 centipawns for the difference between an elephant and a knight was surprisingly close!
Camels VS Zebras
Camels wins:96
draws:22
Zebras wins:82
Camel Points:107
Zebras Points:93
Elephants Vs Zebras
Elephants wins :106
draws :39
Zebras wins :55
Elephants points:125.5
Zebras points:74.5
Bishops VS Knights
Bishops wins :102
draws :27
Knights wins :71
Bishops Points:115.5
Knights Points:84.5
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Bad news,
I haven't used the proper piece values, in all four experiments. So I restarted them.
The worse was a peculiar small rook just a few centipawns above the minors. That's noise inducing. I actually seen a rook-champion exchange sack I found particulary weird.
So I'm redoing everything for the sake of consistence. I'm still new and learning, so guys please excuse my blunder!