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“Death” one of 5 ways to lose at Chess, according to PGN standard

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Re: “Death” one of 5 ways to lose at Chess, according to PGN standard

#81

Post by zepto »

dogorman wrote: post #80
zepto wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still have to worry about the Zeroth law.

The Zeroth law, which permits a robot to harm individuals if it's good for the collective humanity, is certainly cause for concern. But it's scarcely the only concern. The three laws are riddled with holes which Asimov used as plot generators for his robot stories. Consider the Solarian formulation of the first law: Robots are not permitted to kill humans [where 'human' is defined to only include Solarian.] But even…

Right, imagine an army of androids rampaging through the streets snatching cigarettes and junk food out of people’s mouths. Perhaps we’d see public executions of Zuckerberg along with cigarette company executives and various figures from the military industrial complex, etc. etc.

Re: “Death” one of 5 ways to lose at Chess, according to PGN standard

#82

Post by bsza »

wellthisisgreat wrote: post #69
hirundo wrote: post #14

checkmate (n.) mid-14c., in chess, said of a king when it is in check and cannot escape it, from Old French eschec mat (Modern French échec et mat), which (with Spanish jaque y mate, Italian scacco-matto) is from Arabic shah mat "the king died" (see check (n.1)), which according to Barnhart is a misinterpretation of Persian mat "be astonished" as mata "to die," mat "he is dead." Hence Persian shah mat, if it is the u…

So it does mean that the chess assumes that the king is never “killed”? It always stood out to me as, what I assumed to be medieval code of conduct that required not killing kings (killing queens is ok)

You can think of it this way: the goal is to kill the king, but the last two half-moves are trivial, so they are not actually played.

Re: “Death” one of 5 ways to lose at Chess, according to PGN standard

#84

Post by tzs »

> "death": losing player called to greater things, one hopes.

What if the position is such that your opponent's death does not prevent them from completing the game?

For example, it is your move, you are in check, the only way to get out of check is by capturing the checking piece, and the only way to capture the checking piece will stalemate your opponent. Your opponent then dies.

In that position arguably the death of the opponent is irrelevant because there are no circumstances under which they need to take any further action.

If you do not make any further moves your flag will fall and that ends the game. A dead opponent cannot call your flag, but the arbiter can. Whether flag fall is a loss or draw for you depends on whether or not your opponent could theoretically checkmate you.

If you do make your move and hit your clock, that produces a stalemate on the board which immediately ends the game.

In all cases in this scenario the game ends in either a draw or loss for you with no further action required on the part of your opponent.

I think that in this case it would make sense to record termination as "normal" as the death of your opponent was almost certainly irrelevant to the outcome--it is just an interesting bit of trivia about the game. (I say "almost certainly" because there is one way your opponent could have affected the outcome if they had not died--they might have resigned before you made your move).

Re: “Death” one of 5 ways to lose at Chess, according to PGN standard

#86

Post by perl4ever »

zepto wrote: post #81
dogorman wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Zeroth law, which permits a robot to harm individuals if it's good for the collective humanity, is certainly cause for concern. But it's scarcely the only concern. The three laws are riddled with holes which Asimov used as plot generators for his robot stories. Consider the Solarian formulation of the first law: Robots are not permitted to kill humans [where 'human' is defined to only include Solarian.] But even…

Right, imagine an army of androids rampaging through the streets snatching cigarettes and junk food out of people’s mouths. Perhaps we’d see public executions of Zuckerberg along with cigarette company executives and various figures from the military industrial complex, etc. etc.

(1947)

"the new mechanicals have appeared everywhere in town. They state that they only follow the Prime Directive: "to serve and obey and guard men from harm". Offering their services free of charge, they replace humans as police officers, bank tellers, and more, and eventually drive Underhill out of business. Despite the Humanoids' benign appearance and mission, Underhill soon realizes that, in the name of their Prime Directive, the mechanicals have essentially taken over every aspect of human life. No humans may engage in any behavior that might endanger them, and every human action is carefully scrutinized. Suicide is prohibited. Humans who resist the Prime Directive are taken away and lobotomized, so that they may live happily under the direction of the humanoids."

Re: “Death” one of 5 ways to lose at Chess, according to PGN standard

#87

Post by tzs »

catillac wrote: post #21
ivalm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, as they can no longer complete the current turn. Traditionally chess is played with time limits, so it makes sense that death causes the current turn, and only the current turn, player to lose.

For practical purposes this is not correct though. It would be trivial for the person whose turn it is to make _any_ legal move to shift the current turn over to their now-deceased opponent and as such win the game.

Making a move does not necessarily shift the turn to your opponent. You can have a position where all of your possible legal moves stalemate your opponent, in which case your move immediately ends that game and is the last move of the game.

Tangentially, this reminds me of an amusing chess conundrum. Is it possible for a position to occur in a legal game of chess where all pieces and pawns are on the board, all of them are on their original squares, and white does not have the move? For purposes of this question, a knight or rook is considered to be on its original square either if it is on the square it started on or if it has swapped positions with the other knight or rook of the same color.

Re: “Death” one of 5 ways to lose at Chess, according to PGN standard

#88

Post by icy »

kzrdude wrote: post #76
wellthisisgreat wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it does mean that the chess assumes that the king is never “killed”? It always stood out to me as, what I assumed to be medieval code of conduct that required not killing kings (killing queens is ok)

That it is called a queen is also cultural, in Russia, Arabic speaking countries etc it is not a queen but a called a vizier or similar (a high ranking official). Looks like the Europeans changed to queens in their interpretation of chess.

Here in India I've heard both: 'queen' and sometimes, 'minister'.

Re: “Death” one of 5 ways to lose at Chess, according to PGN standard

#89

Post by eth0up »

perl4ever wrote: post #86
zepto wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, imagine an army of androids rampaging through the streets snatching cigarettes and junk food out of people’s mouths. Perhaps we’d see public executions of Zuckerberg along with cigarette company executives and various figures from the military industrial complex, etc. etc.

(1947) "the new mechanicals have appeared everywhere in town. They state that they only follow the Prime Directive: "to serve and obey and guard men from harm". Offering their services free of charge, they replace humans as police officers, bank tellers, and more, and eventually drive Underhill out of business. Despite the Humanoids' benign appearance and mission, Underhill soon realizes that, in the name of their Pr…

(2022)Future Daily Mail headline..

7yearold wunderkinder from Sweden hacks Boston Dynamics as unstoppable terrifying parkour abattoir ensues - tattered tyrants, criminals and incorrigible carbon fiends turn to sausage everywhere! Scarrier than the lobster gambit, it's H.R. Giger's reinterpretation of Michelangelo's The Last Judgement!

An ominous sound pervades. It is not entirely different from the laugh of Scott Aaronson

Re: “Death” one of 5 ways to lose at Chess, according to PGN standard

#90

Post by spoonjim »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #74
forty wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what to conclude of that though. Does it mean that playing high level chess lower risks of contracting Alzheimer's or does it mean that people with low Alzheimer's risks have higher chance to become high level chess players?

It might also mean that high-level chess players contract Alzheimer's at the normal rate, but it goes undiagnosed because their lower functioning still seems fine to everyone else.

Or, high level chess players identify so strongly with their intellect that in the face of dementia they retreat into isolation (or even suicide) where they don’t become a data point. Correlations can come from anywhere.
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