Gave up on the knights i see.
I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions
161–170 of 269 posts
Re: I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had an updated version of this set (probably from the 90s?). Mine had a better board and I think the tops of the pieces were different, but the text/diagrams were identical: https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/c1ri78/t... Not all of the moves were the clearest, but it was still handy while trying to learn.
Great! This will be excellent for beginners. I'm considering teaching chess to my kids. Can I still find it online? My searches on Amazon and Google haven't yielded the results I need.
I'm pretty sure this was the set I had from 1992:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/134677808785?hash=item1f5b6c4691:g:...
There's a lot of other versions sold under "chess teacher", this seems to be the most modern: https://www.ebay.com/itm/266236564204?hash=item3dfcef92ec:g:...
It appears that it was originally sold as "The Educator": https://www.ebay.com/itm/325899664936?hash=item4be1223e28:g:...
Not affiliated with any of those and they probably aren't the best prices (just the first ones I found), but should give you enough to track one down.
Re: I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions
#163They already look like this. Stop tweeting and go start a business!
Already as in yes, the moves are baked in to the standard design -- you just look down at them from the top. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/79/75/8a/79758a3355c2bed372aa... Yes, queen already had 8 point hat wide because whole board, king eight point cross, small for one step. Bishop has a diagonal cut in its cap. Knight as a horse, the long nose and ears are the knight move. Castle with a plus cut in the ramparts. P…
Yea
Re: I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions
#164isn't this idea about as trivial as it is useless? i can maybe see the appeal as a special edition for elderly homes or hospitals where people with brain injuries are treated but for a healthy person? learning a few rules? how about a simple cheat sheet squiggled on a piece of paper next to the board?
Re: I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's very much a picture that you learn on the usual mathematics route of learning about these things, yes. More generally, there's a fair amount to be said about how you can derive shapes of unit balls from distance functions and vice versa (in functional analysis in particular).
I think, unfortunately, not many get visual descriptions when learning about these topics. To be fair, these visualizations can harm one's intuitions about how the metrics work in higher dimensions, so I can understand arguments against visualization. But in another example, I think even many people can come out of a Linear Algebra class and not understand that a matrix operating on a vector always performs an affine…
> a matrix operating on a vector always performs an affine transformation on that vector
A simple matrix multiplication only performs a linear transformation. To get a nonlinear affine transformation you need to augment the matrix and vector with extra dimensions containing carefully selected extra ones and zeros in addition to the translation. The end result is still a linear transformation of the supplied vector, but looks like an affine transformation if you ignore the final dimension.
But yes, I did not pick that up in linear algebra. It wasn't even mentioned there. All the fun stuff was taught in computer graphics.
Re: I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The pieces resemble the movements in most cases I don't see it. Do they really?
The ones with square tops only move horizontally/vertically and the bigger ones move further, the ones with an L-shaped top move in an L shape, the ones with a diagonal top move diagonally. I don't see the King and Queen movements though.
Right, the king and Queen could maybe have 4 or 8 pointy corners instead of just a V, but the other pieces 'mimic' their movement in a sense.
Re: I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
The knight shape does seem off. But it avoids the piece being a sun symbol / fascist tribute piece :-)
It shouldn't look like that, its two I's at 90 degrees: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GEqoWAFXQAAPRXm?format=jpg&name=...
That knight looks like it's 12th century and he's heading to Jerusalem.
Re: I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions
#168I still have a set which was sold as "Visual Chess", and you can still find it on eBay for example. The pieces were mostly like traditional design (but kind of "modernized" in 1960s style) but when viewed from the top (i.e. as you play), there was an indication of the allowed move. You can see some examples in the image link below. Even the pawns had a nice design which clearly indicated that movement of one square f…
I had an updated version of this set (probably from the 90s?). Mine had a better board and I think the tops of the pieces were different, but the text/diagrams were identical: https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/c1ri78/t... Not all of the moves were the clearest, but it was still handy while trying to learn.
It doesn't represent the "en passant" rule, nor the castling. :-)
Re: I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's also the knook that combines the Knight and the Rook, which was hilariously invented as a meme on /r/anarchychess: https://anarchychess.fandom.com/wiki/Knook
Here's a whole page of chess variants, many of which include such invented pieces: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_variants
Wherein the hex-knight is the anti-hex-queen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexagonal_chess#/media/File:Gl...
Re: I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions
#170For me the most surprising observation from this thread is this tweet [1] showing that the knight's moves are exactly the squares that the queen can't get to within a 2 square manhattan distance. I.e. the knight is an anti-queen. [1]: https://twitter.com/skidbladnirr_/status/1750285122769957129
I'm not a master or anything, but I've always found it interesting that the queen is usually thought of as the most powerful piece while I think it's the knight. Yeah the queen can move everywhere, but she's "predictable". The way a knight moves makes it more difficult to defend against IMO.
A huge difference is that a queen, like a rook, can attack a whole row and column, making it possible to box in an opponent's king. A knight has limited reach and can never attack a square the same colour as the one it is occupying.
Another is that a queen, like a rook, can reach any unblocked square in at most two moves. A Knight can require up to six moves!
Add to this the ability to move and attack diagonally like a bishop, but without the restriction of staying on the same colour of squares...
The queen is immensely powerful.