Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Chess960: Arena castle vs X-FEN castle (German)

Author: Harald Lüßen

Date: 11:03:06 11/08/05

Go up one level in this thread


On November 08, 2005 at 04:42:49, Reinhard Scharnagl wrote:

[...]

>Chess960-Positionen sind eine OBERMENGE zu Positionen des traditionellen
>Schachs. Darum macht es keinen Sinn, eine Entweder-Oder Entscheidung zu
>treffen, wozu diese Stellung denn nun gehöre.
>
>Im Laufe einer Partie, besonders nach beiderseits ausgeführten Rochaden, sind
>die sich ergebenden Stellungen kaum noch derart künstlich einzuordnen. Situa-
>tionen mit wenigen Steinen sind in Wenigsteiner-Tabellen nachzuschlagen, die
>einen absolut gemeinsamen Fundus bilden.
>
>Aus diesem Grunde konnten die meisten traditionellen Schachprogramme auch die
>18 Pseudo-Random Startstellungen korrekt handhaben. Ebenso hat man keine Not-
>wendigkeit gesehen, Shuffle-Chess Positionen (ohne erlaubte Rochade) in spezi-
>eller Form zu notieren. Nun beim Chess960 eine solche sinnlose Separation durch-
>zuführen, macht weder Sinn, noch ist dies - wie gerade dargelegt - überhaupt
>vollständig machbar. Ein Versuch, dies gegen jede Vernunft wie in Shredder
>dennoch vorzunehmen, führt dazu, dass es verschiedene FEN Darstellungen von
>tatsächlich absolut identischen Stellungen gibt. Das ist schizoid.
>
>Was für ein Sinn soll darin liegen, z.B. bei Wenigsteiner-Positionen zu ver-
>langen, diese als Chess960 oder traditionelle Stellung zu markieren und sie so
>vielleicht verschiedenen Bewertungsfunktionen zuzuführen? Dies ist so unnütz
>und verzichtbar, wie ein Versuch, Bayern von Deutschen zu unterscheiden.
>
>Reinhard.

Sorry Uri-Babel, I could not resist. This is my translation:

"
Chess-960 positions are a SUPERSET of positions of traditional chess.
Therefore it does not make any sense to make an either-or decision to
which this position belongs.

During a game, especially after both sides have castled, the resulting
positions can hardly be devided artificially in two sets. Situations
with few pieces can be looked up in endgame tablebases, which build
a common knowledge base.

This is the reason why most of the traditional chess programs could
handle the 18 pseudo-random opening positions. Just so there was no
necessity to note Shuffle-Chess positions (without castlings allowed)
in a special way. Now to make such a senseless separation for Chess960
does neither make sense, nor is it - like stated above - really
completely possible. An attempt to do it against all reason like
Shredder does leads to the existence of different FEN notations of
really absolute identical positions. This is shizoid.

Where is the sense in a requirement to mark e.g. few-piece-positions
as Chess960 or traditional and then perhaps use different evaluation
functions for them? This is as useless and dispensable as an attempt
to distinguish Bavarians from Germans.

Reinhard [poorly translated by Harald]
"

I think in most of his points (often written here and at other places)
he is right. But that is not enough. Critics are:

- Some people just don't like Chess 960. They are happy if it has
problems. They don't want to see it mixed with traditional chess.
They feel it mixed as a whole even when just some positions and
games are shared and others can clearly be distinguished.

- Some programmers think the XFEN notations are hard to do. The
situation is getting worse because of different programs with
lots of slightly different protocols. Reinhard predicted this.

- Shredder made his own thing. Why? This version has much influence
and market power, whether it is technically better or worse.

- In databases there would be positions included which can only
come up from a chess960 opening positions. The whole game would
show this but the (X)FEN position not. But that is the same with
Shredder-FEN, after all castlings made impossible. No information
is really lost and we can handle this.

Harald



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.