Chess 2

[John Foley]

There is an interesting Chess 2 article which introduces some ideas for a next generation chess game. It includes midline invasion, new armies and duelling. I am not sure about the latter two, but midline invasion is intriguing. You win if your king crosses the midline. This would eliminate lots of endgames which would be regretted by many experts who have an advantage in that part of the game. On the other hand, the middle game would be more intriguing as kings make a bid for glory. We would miss out on the long king march to form part of a mating attack. Would the midline invasion enrich chess or would we lose too much?

[Roger de Coverly]

Would the midline invasion enrich chess or would we lose too much?

It wouldn't be chess. Even if you don't believe the nonsense perpetuated by some about the billions of chess players, there are still a lot of people out there who know and understand the traditional rule set. I don't personally think there's too many rules and memorisation in traditional chess. Whilst it's useful to know conventional openings and endings, they aren't part of the rule book, unlike a game in which playing Ke5 suddenly wins and pieces can appear apparently randomly. The problem with unbalanced games is that the player who moves first can win instantly or sometimes lose instantly without there ever being a contest.

[Matt Mackenzie]

I agree with Roger

[Paolo Casaschi]

I find it amusing how some people apparently don't really like chess but still want to take advantage of its popularity.
To those people, feel free to invent any new games you like, but please do not call it chess; someone with so much creativity should easily invent a new name as well.

[Reg Clucas]

Would the midline invasion enrich chess or would we lose too much?

Chess doesn't need enriching!

[MartinCarpenter]

Well, chess itself clearly in no need of enriching - the amount of very serious study/play that the balancing/depth of the game has stood up to is really quite incredible. It is no doubt a brilliantly designed abstract game which suits human brain power very nicely.

Gimmicks like that half way line things/teleporting pieces etc can be amusing for a short while but tend to break balance/strategy in very bad ways.

That isn't to say that playing stuff like Shogi/Go/Chinese chess/Bridge etc as well isn't very warmly recommendable. They're also excellent and have the same sort of history/culture as chess.

Or various other games, although the german style boardgames tend to be balanced towards multi player play, which makes the sorts of detailed analysis you can do for chess very difficult indeed. Although I did see someone using automated players to analyse dominion play recently. A bit scary that!

[IM Jack Rudd]

Automated players are currently a bit limited when it comes to Dominion; they're great at Big Money strategies, but not so good at Engine or Combo decks.

[Robert Stokes]

This reminds me of an article I wrote a few years ago. I suggested that it may not be long before a super computer completely solves chess, i.e. proves that white must win against any defence if the correct moves are played OR proves that the game must be a draw if black plays the correct response to any white sequence of moves. (I discounted the idea of it proving that black must win in view of white having the opening move.)

My suggestion, if this happened and we wanted a minimal change, was to increase the board size to 10 by 10 and introduce a pair of new pieces called archers (to link up with the idea of the pieces belonging to a medieval army). These would move as bishops or rooks alternately. To show which was the next type of move the piece (having a bow and arrow to show direction) would be turned 45 degrees at the end of the previous move.

I sent this article to chess monthly but they didn't include it.

Robert

[Jonathan Bryant]

I suggested that it may not be long before a super computer completely solves chess ....

At the risk of taking this thread off-topic, does anybody know of any informed 'best guess' estimates as to how long this will happen. My own suspicion is that it might yet be a while.

In the summer my friend Angus told me about FinalGen - a tablebase generator that could handle positions with any amount of pawns as long as each side only had at most a king and one other piece each as well. I put in a rook ending position and it said it would give me an answer but the estimated thinking time as 18 months.


Anyhoo, back on topic: include me with those who are mystified by attempts to improve or change chess (whatever the motivation). I don't think there's any such thing as a 'minimal' change. Everything hangs together. You make one 'small' change any everything changes.

I can't imagine ever seriously playing a game with the rules as suggestion by John. Nor any other variant for that matter.

If 'traditional' chess ever did totally die out at my level (which I very much doubt it will in my lifetime), I'd be much more likely to take up another game than some kind of alleged improved' chess.

[Mats Winther]

It seems like a convoluted game, involving cards and fantasy pieces. It is possibly fun, but it is remote from the elegance and simplicity of chess rules and strategy. I have proposed many variants, most of which are "modest", that is, they remain true to the spirit of chess. So it is still chess.
http://hem.passagen.se/melki9/chessvar.htm#var1
Of special interest is perhaps my relocation variants, which introduce piece swapping before play begins. The only difference compared with normal chess is that opening variability is greatly enhanced:
http://hem.passagen.se/melki9/relocationvariants.htm
M. Winther

[Mats Winther]

I can't imagine ever seriously playing a game with the rules as suggestion by John. Nor any other variant for that matter.

If 'traditional' chess ever did totally die out at my level (which I very much doubt it will in my lifetime), I'd be much more likely to take up another game than some kind of alleged improved' chess.

Keep in mind that "chess variants" are more popular than chess and are played by many more people. Xiangqi is vastly more popular than chess has ever been, and Shogi is more rewarding in financial terms. I have learnt Xiangqi and it is entertaining, although it lacks the depth of chess. Xiangqi is all about tactics. There are no strategical themes in Xiangqi. Curiously, Xiangqi software has not yet reached the level of the grandmasters, who can still beat the programs. It is perplexing, since it is all about tactics and clever little traps.

M. Winther

[MartinCarpenter]

Just no motivation for developing an invicible xaingqi engine I think. Tuning the search/evaluation algorithms isn't going to be trivial but once you've done orthodox chess its clearly possible so the science isn't interesting and there clearly isn't the same sort of major financial motivation that there is/was in chess.

Go is of course interesting because you can't brute force it.

In terms of computers absolutely killing orthodox chess like they did with draughts say? Never. Far too many possible positions for that to be feasible. A sort of practical semi death might be possible, although maybe cybernetics is as threatening as anything else.

[Barry Sandercock]

Can anyone tell why, when I try to get pgn files on my computer, a sign comes up saying "Adobe reader cannot open pgn file"

[Roger de Coverly]

Can anyone tell why, when I try to get pgn files on my computer, a sign comes up saying "Adobe reader cannot open pgn file"

I think you have managed to associate the file extension pgn with the Adobe reader program.

To review and modify settings under Windows 7, you first go to "Control Panel", then select "Default programs". Within "Default programs", you select "Associate a file type or protocol with a program".

You then highlight the .pgn entry and click on "Change Program". You should get a list. If not, you will have to browse to find where Fritz or whatever has been installed. It's usually at something like c:\program files (x86)\chessbase

The old fashioned way of using computers is to open the program you want to use first and then the files you want to read. As I sometimes want to look at pgn files with a text editor (to paste them in the forum as an example), I don't associate the pgn extension with any specific program.

[Barry Sandercock]

Thanks very much. Roger.