Who wins from this (Puzzle)? - Chess Forums - Page 2

cobra91

Jan 10, 2017

0

#21

vickalan wrote:

Btw, I read a little about some of the variants you listed. One game has a piece called the "Forfnifurlrurking"? (I copied that to make sure I spelled it right). Really??? Well except for the piece name(s), some of those games have interesting pieces!

Not really, in fact. Those pieces were later renamed, for obvious reasons.

vickalan

Jan 12, 2017

0

#22

cobra91 wrote:

Not really, in fact. Those pieces were later renamed, for obvious reasons.

Oh, OK. I read a little more about Chess with Different Armies. Ralph wrote most of that stuff in 1996 (21 years ago). That's pretty amazing after 21 years the game is (evidently) still being played!

It's interesting to see how the graphics have improved during the last few years. This image is from a game of Waterloo such as played (here).

(image by BattleChessGN18)

Well, I'm sneaking around here in the end-game forum. I better go back to the variants area before I get busted by the moderators. Come visit us sometime if you'd like to play a game, or just discuss theories about new pieces!

thou-shalt-not-take

Jan 13, 2017

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#23

WOW!!!

thou-shalt-not-take

Jan 13, 2017

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#24

What a mindblowing puzzle!

RubenHogenhout

Jan 15, 2017

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#25

vickalan schreef:

MSurkont gets the prize for best answer from another species, cobra91 for best technical answer, and foofooes for best attempt at actual play.

To see the answer play the solution here:

As cobra91 says, with best play white wins but it takes more than 50 moves. In fact it takes 546 moves!

It's the longest known forced checkmate in a chess puzzle. I did get the puzzle from the Lomonosov 7-piece tablebases. I added the extra queen at the start to make it an 8 piece puzzle (so if you plan to use the tablebase to solve you at least need to count the pieces and remove the easy first capture).

Thanks to all who guessed or considered the puzzle!

Wow I would be so proud if I found all this just on my increment!

No , but without any jokes. Of course this endgame is far behond human understanding. But interesting is that this theoretical position is won but if you get something like this on the board you can never win this also if you would understand everything because of this 50 moves rule.

And it is clear that many more of these endgames exist. Like for example also the two Knights vs one pawn or two pawns. That can take much more then 50 moves. And this endgame is allready easeier to understand. A pitty as you understand this endgame that you can not checkmate your opponent only because of this 50 moves rule! Euwe allready advokate to extent the 50 moves rule for this endgame. I don t know if there is really an exeption for this endgame to for example 100 moves to checkmate it. Trotsky allready found positions that needs more then 50 moves to win.

vickalan

Jan 16, 2017

0

#26

Shwan2006 wrote:

What a mindblowing puzzle!

Thanks Shwan for watching it. I also think it's extremely interesting.

vickalan

Jan 16, 2017

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#27

RubenHogenhout wrote:

...And it is clear that many more of these endgames exist. Like for example also the two Knights vs one pawn or two pawns. That can take much more then 50 moves. And this endgame is allready easeier to understand. A pitty as you understand this endgame that you can not checkmate your opponent only because of this 50 moves rule! Euwe allready advokate to extent the 50 moves rule for this endgame...

When I went to look at other long endings found in the tablebase, I also saw these:

"Checkmate in":
191 (4P vs. Q)
113 (P vs. BBNN)
521 (QP vs. RBP)
298 (QPP vs. PP)
317 (RPPP vs. Q)

The first one has 4 pawns, so if the pawns moved every so often, and were spaced out, the game may not have hit the 50 move rule. The others also have pawns, but not enough to extend the game to the total number of moves.

I'll check the first one to see where the pawns get promoted, and update this thread soon!

Joseph_Truelsons_Fan

Jan 16, 2017

0

#28

[COMMENT DELETED]

vickalan

Jan 17, 2017

0

#29

Here is another long forced checkmate - this time white starts with four pawns. With perfect play white wins in 191 moves. The 50-move rule never takes effect because some event always occurs before the 50 move limit - either a pawn is moved, or a piece is captured.

But there's a span of 48 moves (78 to 126) with no pawn move and nothing captured, so it gets close to the 50 move rule. Black almost could have declared a draw! Sorry black

I recently made a chess-variant "Chess on an Infinite Plane" where the board has no sides. I was worried that some possible endings might have the king trying to walk away forever while white tries to catch up to him. I think there could be theoretcial endings where one side could win (for example two rooks set up a "corner" while some knights go there to trap him. Some forced checkmates might require more than 50 moves, so in this game I removed the 50-move rule.

The more I study chess and chess variants, the more I think we should abolish the 50-move rule!

RubenHogenhout

Jan 17, 2017

0

#30

vickalan schreef:

Here is another long forced checkmate - this time white starts with four pawns. With perfect play white wins in 191 moves. The 50-move rule never takes effect because some event always occurs before the 50 move limit - either a pawn is moved, or a piece is captured.

But there's a span of 48 moves (78 to 126) with no pawn move and nothing captured, so it gets close to the 50 move rule. Black almost could have declared a draw! Sorry black

I recently made a chess-variant "Chess on an Infinite Plane" where the board has no sides. I was worried that some possible endings might have the king trying to walk away forever while white tries to catch up to him. I think there could be theoretcial endings where one side could win (for example two rooks set up a "corner" while some knights go there to trap him. Some forced checkmates might require more than 50 moves, so in this game I removed the 50-move rule.

The more I study chess and chess variants, the more I think we should abolish the 50-move rule!

Yes I agree we must so something about the 50 move rule.

But I have one question. I put the position just before 126...Qxa3 in the online tablebase and asked myself what if black does not chose the longest way to hold out to go checkmate, but instead goes for that 50 move rule! Thus instead 126...Qxa3 he plays 126...Qe2 so this is then the 49 move that no pawn has taken or moved! It turn out that 127.h5 then not wins because of white just take it. Also 127.a4 fails on 127...Qh5+ and it is a draw. That means that all the winning moves that are 127. Qf8 127.Qg8 127 Qf6 127.Qg6 127.Qg5 127.Qg3 and 127.Qd4 this are all the winning moves for white. But they all do not take a pawn or move a pawn. Doesnt this means that if black play it this way he could ( if it was a real game) claim a draw to the 50-moves rule ?

chadnilsen

Jan 17, 2017

0

#31

I win in this puzzle.

cobra91

Jan 18, 2017

0

#32

RubenHogenhout wrote:

vickalan schreef:

Here is another long forced checkmate - this time white starts with four pawns. With perfect play white wins in 191 moves. The 50-move rule never takes effect because some event always occurs before the 50 move limit - either a pawn is moved, or a piece is captured.

But there's a span of 48 moves (78 to 126) with no pawn move and nothing captured, so it gets close to the 50 move rule. Black almost could have declared a draw! Sorry black

The more I study chess and chess variants, the more I think we should abolish the 50-move rule!

Yes I agree we must so something about the 50 move rule.

But I have one question. I put the position just before 126...Qxa3 in the online tablebase and asked myself what if black does not chose the longest way to hold out to go checkmate, but instead goes for that 50 move rule! Thus instead 126...Qxa3 he plays 126...Qe2 so this is then the 49 move that no pawn has taken or moved! It turn out that 127.h5 then not wins because of white just take it. Also 127.a4 fails on 127...Qh5+ and it is a draw. That means that all the winning moves that are 127. Qf8 127.Qg8 127 Qf6 127.Qg6 127.Qg5 127.Qg3 and 127.Qd4 this are all the winning moves for white. But they all do not take a pawn or move a pawn. Doesnt this means that if black play it this way he could ( if it was a real game) claim a draw to the 50-moves rule ?

Correct! I was going to point this out myself yesterday, but you beat me to it.

What vickalan overlooked is that the 50-move rule is not taken into account when compiling endgame tablebases. So the best lines of play given by a tablebase will sometimes differ from the best lines of play in a game of standard chess. A seemingly inferior move that "wins slower" or "loses faster" might actually be the only way to avoid or achieve a draw by the 50-move rule. Tablebases cannot "understand" this, unfortunately.

It's also worth mentioning that the 50-move rule is not really something that can ever be abolished, if the game of chess is to remain playable by humans. Without it, games could potentially last for [literally] thousands of moves!

vickalan

Jan 18, 2017

0

#33

cobra91 wrote:

A seemingly inferior move that "wins slower" or "loses faster" might actually be the only way to avoid or achieve a draw by the 50-move rule. Tablebases cannot "understand" this, unfortunately.

Or to say it another way, a seemingly inferior move that "wins slower" might be the only way to achieve a win. Trying to win the fast way, might lead to the 50-move draw.

Very interesting but I'm sure extremelly rare in actual chess games. The game has to be so close that winning is only possible with a very long sequence. Then the players have to be aware of this (able to calculate the moves far in advance).

So here's another question that might not be so easy to answer: Does white really have a forced win even after applying the 50-move rule? RubenHogenhout found a way that black can go for the 50-move rule to achieve a draw(!). But maybe white has a "slower" way to win(!) It might even be possible that a forced checkmate exists but actually takes more than 191 moves when the 50-move rule is added. At move 78 the pawns still have (combined) 9 moves to go before promotion, and maybe 2 or 3 captures in the game can still occur before a checkmate. So initially it appears ((9 pawn moves + 3 captures) x 50 moves) = 600 moves might still be possible before a checkmate is forced. (near the extreme upper end of possibilities).

Going back to abolishing the 50-move rule or not:

When a win requires more than 50 moves, I don't think a human would normally understand what is going on. If they keep playing and no one can achieve a win, then they can choose a draw by agreement. But if they are stubborn (or if they really can calculate a win that is 50 moves away) then let them keep playing!

You guys seems smart (surely smarter than me)! Can I talk either of you into playing a game of "Chess on an Infinite Plane"? I have one opponenent already, but he's not making moves very fast. I'm looking for someone that will make about one move per day. Any takers please reply!

cobra91

Jan 19, 2017

0

#34

vickalan wrote:

You guys seems smart (surely smarter than me)! Can I talk either of you into playing a game of "Chess on an Infinite Plane"? I have one opponenent already, but he's not making moves very fast. I'm looking for someone that will make about one move per day. Any takers please reply!

My answer from before (post #13) hasn't changed. If you're willing to play one of the chess variants I mentioned earlier (post #19), then it's a "yes". If not, then it's a "no". Promptness would not be an issue if I did end up playing, because I log in every day, albeit for a usually brief period of time.

On a related note, here is an infinite-board chess variant which, once the stranding rules are clarified (see comments section), has imho a better and more elegant design than the one you threw together:

http://www.chessvariants.com/boardrules.dir/infinite.html

vickalan

Jan 19, 2017

0

#35

OK sounds great! Would you like to play Grasshopper Chess, and Chess on an Infinite Plane? The grasshopper looks interesting. One website says the board is normal but shows this:

What does the board actually look like, and where do you play it?

For Infinite Chess, the game at the site you mentioned has serious weaknesses and the rules are inadequate to play a game. Among the weaknesses, there are no borders, so it would be difficult to corner and checkmate your opponent so the game is prone to draws (problem "a").

Among the inadequecies, there is no provision to declare moves (problem "b").

Ji's idea helps but Larry's question (what happens when a piece is stranded?) was never resolved (problem "c").

"Chess on an Infinite Plane" resolves all these problems ("a","b" and "c"). You can skip directly to post #17 to see how each of these issues was resolved. Is it OK if I start a new thread so we can start our game?

cobra91

Jan 19, 2017

0

#36

Yes, you can go ahead and start the "Infinite Plane" chess game now. How does the pawn double-step work for the pawns in unorthodox starting positions?

In Grasshopper Chess, all [16] pawns begin on the 3rd and 6th ranks, all [16] grasshoppers begin on the 2nd and 7th ranks, and all [16] other pieces begin on the same squares as in standard chess. Pawns obviously have no double-step, but may promote to grasshopper in addition to the usual options.

I don't believe there are any aspects of the variant which prevent it from being played in the typical "forum post" format. We can play it in the same thread as "Chess on an Infinite Plane", or you may create a separate thread for that purpose.

vickalan

Jan 19, 2017

0

#37

OK, great! This will be two new games for me, both which I never played before.

I started two new threads for our games:

1) Grasshopper Chess: We'll send our moves on the thread. To see the board status we can either set up physical boards at home, or use a shared diagram. I'm OK with setting up mirror chessboards.(Link to game is here).

2) Chess on an Infinite Plane: I'll post an updated diagram after each move, so we can both see the chess piece locations. As I usually do for new variants, I include all the rules in the introduction.(Link to game is here).

About the pawns in unorthodox starting positions: All pawns can move 2 squares on their first move. Also, all pawns are subject to being captured en-passant, exactly the same as in normal chess. No new or changed rules concerning pawns.

I'll see you at the new game-threads soon!

deadly_gladiator

Jan 23, 2017

0

#38

[COMMENT DELETED]

n9531l

Feb 5, 2017

0

#39

For anyone interested in the original position, here are the DTM (distances to mate) after the queen capture for each of Black's eight best replies, as given by the 7-man tablebase.

Rd7 545
Rg7 156
Ra3 37
Re7 29
Nf6 27
Be2 23
Ra6 23

After Black's correct Rd7+ and White's Kc3 (Kc4 draws), here are Black's eight best moves.

Ng5 544
Nf6 368
Kf5 76
Ke5 58
Kg5 44
Bg4 37
Rc7 33
Rd6 33

So any mistake by Black will make the game much shorter.

chadnilsen

Feb 6, 2017

0

#40

I know! I haven't even bothered to read 1 post!