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Subject: Re: An intersting question to Dr. Hyatt

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 10:49:16 01/08/04

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On January 08, 2004 at 12:27:21, Ed Trice wrote:

>Hello Dr. Hyatt,
>
>>
>>Why would I?  To do this would require multiple things:
>>
>>(1) a reason for wanting to play YACV (yet another chess variant).  ICC
>>already has dozens.  No major tournaments.  No major competitions.  No
>>major organizations.  So what would be the driving force?
>>
>
>I wish you could have been at Bartle Hall in 2002 with the 2500 people playing
>Gothic Chess.


I wish you could attend a scholastic event where the city-wide event has
2500 kids playing normal chess.  Not world-wide.  In _one_ city here in
Alabama.  :)


>
>>(2) who would bother with a 1-year license?  What would the fee be after
>>that?  In my case, I really wouldn't care.
>>
>
>Well, you have to write the program first, which is a challenge.
>
>>Here is your challenge for the week:
>>
>>I am going to study your game.  A friend and I are going to sit down and
>>start playing gothic chess against each other.  Your mission is to _stop_
>>us.  If you can.  I don't believe you can, myself, with any patent process
>>known to man.
>
>Show me visual proof of you playing Gothic Chess when you do, or else I will
>consider your post here just hypothetical :)
>
>>If you can't stop that, then you are going to be unable to prevent me from
>>writing a program that can simply play the game against someone else, just
>>like Crafty does for real chess.
>
>See, this is the beauty of it: writing a Gothic Chess program is diffcult, and,
>by default, that will stop many, many people, perhaps even you.

I don't see anything difficult about it at all.  Generating moves for odd
pieces is not a problem whatsoever.  The evaluation would take some time to
tune decently just as it does for a chess program, of course.  But the _game_
itself is no more complicated to program for than chess.  IE I generate moves
for kings and knights in exactly the same way.  I don't even generate moves for
a queen, I pretend it is first a bishop, then a rook...  Etc.

>
>>But this is all moot, as chess has a _long_ life left in it, with a lot
>>of inertia behind it.  What would be the driving force for anyone to write
>>yet another variant program?
>
>1. Gothic Chess is cool, and it is an interesting programming challenge.

I wouldn't agree or disagree there.

>2. There is no 'opening theory' so the programmer with the most talent would
>really be victorious, rather than the one with the best book.

A book is not _that_ big a deal in normal events, if the participant takes
some care in what he is doing.

>3. There is clearly a disagreement as to the value of the pieces, something that
>has not been around in a long where chess is concerned.

Sorry, but that is _way_ wrong.  You pick a position and you can create great
arguments when comparing a bishop to a knight, or a queen to a rook + bishop +
pawn, etc.  Even chess programs don't have "standard" values for pieces and
pawns, if you read here regularly...

There's a _lot_ of room left for discovery.



>4.Because of 1-3, it will be "fun".



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