When my grandfather taught me to play chess, he always made me play as Black, and I would get upset because I wasn’t the one to move first. Now I know why
Fair Chess and Simultaneous Games
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Re: Fair Chess and Simultaneous Games
#12Makes more sense to slightly buff black's opening move. E.g. allow two pawns to move one square, or select a few pawns that can move three squares. The flexibility will make white harder to play than black.
This is how esports are balanced, and how a game like Starcraft was (at least when I played) more fair than Chess even though there were three "colors" involved (Zerg, Protoss, Terran) and way more "pieces" and complexity.
Re: Fair Chess and Simultaneous Games
#13I was expecting: The players play two games against each other concurrently. Each plays white on one board and black on the other.
Re: Fair Chess and Simultaneous Games
#14Isn't this game with the given conflict resolution rules just broken? But forcing conflicts feels like a way to cause a game to become a draw. Imagine I move my queen next to the opponent's king (with no defense). My opponent's only legal move is to capture it in the next move. Let's say I don't like my chances of winning, so I just keep on trying to move the queen away from that square. Every such attempt results in a conflict, eventually leading the game to be drawn.
Re: Fair Chess and Simultaneous Games
#15Isn't this game with the given conflict resolution rules just broken? But forcing conflicts feels like a way to cause a game to become a draw. Imagine I move my queen next to the opponent's king (with no defense). My opponent's only legal move is to capture it in the next move. Let's say I don't like my chances of winning, so I just keep on trying to move the queen away from that square. Every such attempt results in…
Yes, conflict blocking moves makes no sense in this variant, since you can block checkmate indefinitely unless the opponent angled their pieces in a way which prevents all king moves and intervention from other pieces which would be very rare.
Re: Fair Chess and Simultaneous Games
#16I think this could be a very interesting way to reinvent chess which is in my opinion less interesting with AI, it would add a strategy facing the type of player but as my colleagues said the risks are conflicts like queen next to the king (and a lot of other situations).
We should have to create many rules to avoid this.
Nice post :)
Re: Fair Chess and Simultaneous Games
#17If the point of this exercise is to create a game that removes first move advantage, while keeping the game as unchanged as possible, this is an utter failure.
Turning a game of perfect information into a bluffing and anticipation game is not a minor change. It's a fundamental change of the essence of what the game is.
Re: Fair Chess and Simultaneous Games
#18[deleted]
Re: Fair Chess and Simultaneous Games
#19People get hung up on the unfair White advantage in chess, but actually it's not large enough.
In tennis, on every point there's a big advantage to the server. Not because he "gets to go first" but because he gets a second chance in some situations. You can prove this: in high level mens tennis the server wins ~70% of points [0] but on a second serve - equivalent to playing without the second chance - he wins almost exactly 50% [1]
This creates a tension in every game where one player is attacking and expected to win, the other player needs to "break" him at least once or twice in the course of the match to win the overall contest.
Chess is similar, but worse because of the possibility of draws. 60-90% of top level chess games end in draws.
Computer chess is even worse again! 95%+ of top computer play ends in draws. Organisers of engine tournaments have solved this: they let the computers play from positions considered advantageous to white, usually where they expect White to score ~75%. They play each position with both White and Black. [2]
This wouldn't be a popular or practical change for human play. But that's not the point, letting White take back his moves à la tennis wouldn't be a change people would accept either. The point is that chess isn't in need of evening out the first-move advantage.
[0] https://www.ultimatetennisstatistics.com/statsLeaders [1] https://www.braingametennis.com/the-art-of-winning-2nd-serve... [2] https://tcec-chess.com/articles/TCEC_Openings_FAQ.html
Re: Fair Chess and Simultaneous Games
#20"Players enter a boxing ring and fight for the square." - I LOLed :) Great stuff!
For anyone unaware, this is a real thing! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing
Not quite… in the most common version of chessboxing it’s more a case of alternating between the chess & the boxing via, say, a 3 minute timer from the start of each “round”. You do need to be very careful moving the chess board in/out of the ring between rounds so as not to upset any of the pieces but otherwise play just continues round by round until checkmate or knockout (or TKO or a clock falls etc.)
Source: I fought in (and won!) a one-off chessboxing exhibition match in London back in 2012