5 ms·

Almost all of the human strategies and concepts would still apply: center control, square control, development, initiative, king safety, the opposition, etc. Th

Almost all of the human strategies and concepts would still apply: center control, square control, development, initiative, king safety, the opposition, etc. The only exceptions would be fringe concepts like opening theory (already moot in Chess960) and endgame edge cases. If you’re still not convinced, I’ll prove that skills transfer by playing bullet against anyone who can make a 10x10 variant playable online. [Edited to come across less egotistical]

csande17 7y ago
> make a 10x10 variant playable online I'm not saying I'm definitely going to do this, but is there a rulebook somewhere for 10x10 chess? (What are the initial piece positions, and how would castling work?)
- mindgam3 7y ago
  I’m not aware of 10x10 chess ever being attempted, let alone codified. Here’s my suggestion: add another set of bishops (or knights, or one of each) in between rooks and king/queen. Castling works the same, king goes around rook.
  - gpm 7y ago
    Generalized NxN chess is a thing I've seen talked about in complexity theory. I'm not sure if anyone has actually made a proper set of rules for it though. It looks like they often just don't care about such trivialities as starting positions (and probably castling). E.g. http://www.ms.mff.cuni.cz/~truno7am/slozitostHer/chessExptime.pdf http://www.ms.mff.cuni.cz/~truno7am/slozitostHer/chessExptim...
  - jhncls 7y ago
    Former world chess champion Capablanca suggested a 10x8 board with two additional pieces in the 1920s, but there have been many variants proposed earlier and later [0]. Grand Chess [1] is the most known 10x10 variant, also with 2 additional pieces and a different start position, castling not allowed. See wikipedia for links to programs implementing these rules. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capablanca_Chess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capablanca_Chess [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Chess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Chess
    - mindgam3 7y ago
      Interesting. Note that both of those types involve introducing new pieces. I would argue that this changes the fundamental nature of the game in a way that increasing board size alone doesn’t. The reason is that I (as a human chess master) would need to retrain myself to learn the new piece movements. What I really want is a 10x10 or even 8x10 board using the original set of pieces. This would be sufficient to prove that human chess masters can adapt in a way that machine-learning based algorithms cannot.
      - qiqitori 7y ago
        Wouldn't adding more of the existing pieces in the back row change the game a bit too? Which piece(s) would you suggest having more of to accomodate the extra fields?
        mindgam3 7y ago
        It would change the game but not enough to reduce the performance gap between an expert and a novice. See my grandparent comment for a specific suggestion on which pieces to use.
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
  There are variants with fewer pieces like Hexapawn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexapawn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexapawn
m0zg 7y ago
I'm pretty sure this isn't how chess masters actually play chess. That'd be too slow and error prone. They pattern match very heavily in the beginning and towards the end. And all those patterns would be wrong on a larger board with more chess pieces. At least for chess.
- mindgam3 7y ago
  I hate to break it to you, but this is exactly how chess masters play chess. Including bullet. Source: am a master, rated 2500 in bullet.
  - m0zg 7y ago
    Yet you yourself also mention openings and endgame above in the thread. What's that if not pattern matching?
    - mindgam3 7y ago
      Wait, are you referring to the comment in which I refer to them as “fringe concepts”, “already moot”, and “edge cases”? Please don’t attempt to twist my words in order to support your own bogus position. Act like a chess master and just resign already.
      - m0zg 7y ago
        I'm not a chess master myself, my knowledge of this topic is from what I've read of Kasparov. The guy is all about patterns. He even advises to play using a physical board as much as possible, to improve _visual_ recognition of patterns. Thing is, you might not even recognize this as "pattern recognition" per se. Call it "intuition", call it "experience", or whatever you like, but combinatorially I'm pretty sure you're not searching the entire tree of possible positions several moves ahead - that's literally impossible to do for a human to do in the finite time allotted to a game. You're relying on patterns to constrain the search, much like a modern neural algorithm would constrain its search using a cost function. That's what's meant by "pattern recognition" here, not rigid recognition of fixed positions. That is also combinatorially impossible for a human to precisely memorize.

csande17 7y ago

> make a 10x10 variant playable online I'm not saying I'm definitely going to do this, but is there a rulebook somewhere for 10x10 chess? (What are the initial piece positions, and how would castling work?)

mindgam3 7y ago
I’m not aware of 10x10 chess ever being attempted, let alone codified. Here’s my suggestion: add another set of bishops (or knights, or one of each) in between rooks and king/queen. Castling works the same, king goes around rook.
- gpm 7y ago
  Generalized NxN chess is a thing I've seen talked about in complexity theory. I'm not sure if anyone has actually made a proper set of rules for it though. It looks like they often just don't care about such trivialities as starting positions (and probably castling). E.g. http://www.ms.mff.cuni.cz/~truno7am/slozitostHer/chessExptime.pdf http://www.ms.mff.cuni.cz/~truno7am/slozitostHer/chessExptim...
- jhncls 7y ago
  Former world chess champion Capablanca suggested a 10x8 board with two additional pieces in the 1920s, but there have been many variants proposed earlier and later [0]. Grand Chess [1] is the most known 10x10 variant, also with 2 additional pieces and a different start position, castling not allowed. See wikipedia for links to programs implementing these rules. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capablanca_Chess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capablanca_Chess [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Chess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Chess
  - mindgam3 7y ago
    Interesting. Note that both of those types involve introducing new pieces. I would argue that this changes the fundamental nature of the game in a way that increasing board size alone doesn’t. The reason is that I (as a human chess master) would need to retrain myself to learn the new piece movements. What I really want is a 10x10 or even 8x10 board using the original set of pieces. This would be sufficient to prove that human chess masters can adapt in a way that machine-learning based algorithms cannot.
    - qiqitori 7y ago
      Wouldn't adding more of the existing pieces in the back row change the game a bit too? Which piece(s) would you suggest having more of to accomodate the extra fields?
      - mindgam3 7y ago
        It would change the game but not enough to reduce the performance gap between an expert and a novice. See my grandparent comment for a specific suggestion on which pieces to use.
YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
There are variants with fewer pieces like Hexapawn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexapawn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexapawn

m0zg 7y ago

I'm pretty sure this isn't how chess masters actually play chess. That'd be too slow and error prone. They pattern match very heavily in the beginning and towards the end. And all those patterns would be wrong on a larger board with more chess pieces. At least for chess.

mindgam3 7y ago
I hate to break it to you, but this is exactly how chess masters play chess. Including bullet. Source: am a master, rated 2500 in bullet.
- m0zg 7y ago
  Yet you yourself also mention openings and endgame above in the thread. What's that if not pattern matching?
  - mindgam3 7y ago
    Wait, are you referring to the comment in which I refer to them as “fringe concepts”, “already moot”, and “edge cases”? Please don’t attempt to twist my words in order to support your own bogus position. Act like a chess master and just resign already.
    - m0zg 7y ago
      I'm not a chess master myself, my knowledge of this topic is from what I've read of Kasparov. The guy is all about patterns. He even advises to play using a physical board as much as possible, to improve _visual_ recognition of patterns. Thing is, you might not even recognize this as "pattern recognition" per se. Call it "intuition", call it "experience", or whatever you like, but combinatorially I'm pretty sure you're not searching the entire tree of possible positions several moves ahead - that's literally impossible to do for a human to do in the finite time allotted to a game. You're relying on patterns to constrain the search, much like a modern neural algorithm would constrain its search using a cost function. That's what's meant by "pattern recognition" here, not rigid recognition of fixed positions. That is also combinatorially impossible for a human to precisely memorize.