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Subject: Re: Capablanca Random Chess - please check new proposal

Author: Angrim

Date: 10:17:31 06/19/04

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On June 19, 2004 at 11:23:13, Reinhard Scharnagl wrote:

>On June 19, 2004 at 11:05:10, Angrim wrote:
>
>>I think that having castling in randomized chess is silly,
>
>Why?

Partly that the position after castling is more similar to the
standard start position is after castling, thus discarding some of
the randomness.  partly that it prevents engines that are designed to
play non-randomized chess from being able to play the game.

>>and if you leave it out then you can both make the rules simpler,
>
>Castlings are defined by very simple rules. You simply have to think of
>normal chess: the post-castling positions are always the same, the way
>of the pieces to perform the castling have to be free, a chess threat on
>the way is disabling a castling possibility. Everybody who can play the
>traditional chess is able to understand that nearly at once.

refering to the rules that you posted, which include more than
just "how to castle" there are also the following:

3) the king always has to be placed somewhere between
  the rooks
6) if a castling enabled rook is not the most outer one
  at that side, the letter of his file has to be placed
  immediately following his castling marker symbol, where
  'q'/'Q' are used for the alpha-, 'k'/'K' for omega-side.

I agree that this is not a large amount of complexity, but it is there.
The issue is larger with FRC, where there are already lots of tools
for working with chess positions which would work on randomized
positions just as well except that they can't handle FRC castling.
I guess there are far less existing tools for capablanca chess.

>>and also remove some of the restrictions on where the king/rooks go
>
>From which restrictions do you speak? If it is that the king has to be placed
>somewhere between the rooks, well, that is for to enable castlings.

exactly. so remove castling and that restriction goes away.

>>which allows for a wider variety of starting positions.
>
>Why do you think, that 24000 different positions are not sufficiently wide?

the number of positions is adequate, but the variety is reduced.
A starting position with the king on the very edge of the board could
be interesting for instance.

>>Just my opinion of course, but I think that it should be removed.
>
>Well, but you have not mentioned really strong reasons for that.
>Nevertheless thank you for your opinion.
>
>>Angrim
>
>Regards, Reinhard.



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