Re: Improving your Chess
hello,
@39: XBoard is... how to call it... the program behind WinBoard.
It's for Linux, WinBoard is its Windows port.
Also, I have just checked, XBoard supports uci engines. You just need to have Polyglot installed, it's a middle-layer connecting uci engines with XBoard. It's available in repository on Linux:
sudo apt install polyglot
or as a .exe file for Windows, you need to make sure that WinBoard can find it, either in path or in its root directory.
Everything should work then, i have successfully configured Stockfish in XBoard and it works. I won't be using it for playing though, as I would definitely lose, but it should work for analysis.
if you managed to make uci engines work with WinBoard, that would be the best option. It contains all features you describe, even online play.
@40: as for shogi, it seems we have the same motivation.
What I don't like on chess is, how easy is it to draw. Just take the last competition between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana. How many matches did they play? 10? 12? I'm not sure now, but all of them ended as a draw.
Shogi doesn't seem to have this problem, as the number of figures in game is constant during the whole gameplay, so there is always a way to surprise your opponent and win.
I finally got it working in XBoard. Not with Fairymax though, I've used SjaakII, which also supports Crazyhouse.
It works nicely, the only problem is, how the dropping works. Instead of using a standalone place to list available pieces, the board gets additional 4 columns (2 to the left and 2 to the right), from which two are symbolic borders made of non-active pawns, and two, those on the edges, are free and contain the captured figures.
That itself wouldn't be a problem, the issue is, that these columns are also counted in the coordinates system.
So, for example, in Crazyhouse, the chessboard starts on square c1, ends on j8, and when I want to move for example e2-e4, I must do g2-g4, c7-c5 is announced as e7-e5 etc. Shogi has the same problem, instead of 9 columns, there are 13, and the coordinates are always shifted.
It's quite annoying, I'm thinking about setting up a speech filter, which would correct it. But otherwise it works.
There is also a variant called minishogi. It's a normal shogi, just played on 5x5 board, with only 6 starting pieces on each side.
It should be technically playable on a normal chessboard, the only problem is, that shogi has much more figure types than chess, thus another set would be required to provide them. The figures of second set could be marked with a relief dot for example, so they would be easily distinguishable from the firstone.
I'm currently trying to get it working in XBoard as well, as 5x5 board could be very practical for us. There are significantly less diagonals and possible moves, while at the same time the game could be still funny thanks to the shogi's dropping rule.
As for Go, yes, I'm very interested in this game as well. I'm not just unsure about some rules, but for example also don't understand, how is it possible to capture a group of pieces, when just by making a straight line, every move creates two additional liberties for the opponent to block. That means, that for every my move, my opponent needs additional two moves to cath me. If the board was infinite, it would be theoretically impossible to capture a group.
I have once made a 9x9 goban for 3D printers. Or better said, a model consisting of 9 3x3 goban parts, which after joining and securing with special components made one solid goban.
This structure was necessary, as average 3D printers are usually not larger than 15x15 cm. Each part had 12x12 cm (plus some height of course), so the whole goban was supposed to have 36x36 cm. Like my chessboard, if it had 9 rows and 9 columns.
Sadly the only part which I got really printed was the corner part, and even thatone was corrupted due to the printer messing things a bit in the process. I was printing it in school, I told my teacher to make anotherone, he told me he will, but may be about a year or two later, i still don't have it. Hmm, reminds me bit of myself.
I can see however from the corrupted part that at least I got the dimensions right, individual holes and lines between them are nicely trackable and can be easily recognized.
So, in order to finish the project, I need to create models also for side and central part of the board (basically the same as corner, just with some additions such as securing holes, direction of lines etc.) and find out an ideal shape for a Go piece.
The pieces must be easily trackable, easily recognizable by means of color, but they also must give the player a good overview over a broader area, so they shouldn't be too big.
The only way to determine it is through experimenting, but to do that, I need a 3D printer in first place!
So, in the mean time, until i get rich enough to buy one, I have developed my AudioGo for computer. It's not as good as physical board, but still better than nothing.
my favourite variant is playing on 5x5 board, as I found out a way to force Gnugo to resign after about 5-10 moves. Thus I always win... in case that I play as black.
Best regards
Rastislav
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