X10 Chess tournament

[fguy64]

yeah.
btw, what's your favorite free chess engine?

There's all kinds that work with X-Board. I don't use engines much myself, But you can't go wrong with Crafty. It works well with Linux.

http://www.craftychess.com/

 

[zen-r]

Don't go looking at chess engines, ichwar. If you get a taste for it, you won't want to play against real people, & this thread would have been a waste of time.

Also, how will we know if we're playing against you, or your chess engine?!

 

[ichwar]

@fguy, crafty is good. My personal favorite is fruit.

@zener, I've played against chess engines for a few years, I've got a taste for it and I still enjoy playing with real people.
How will you know if you're playing against me or a chess engine? Simple. I'll tell you now: I don't cheat, and I'm trusting everyone else who participates here not to either. :biggrin:

 

[fguy64]

I used to play it a lot. But it's so many years since then that I've lost the knack now - and I don't want to lose to someone like ichwar. I'd never hear the end of it!

Also, I don't think I've got the patience for it any more. Too much puzzling over something that doesn't earn me money!

But I'd enjoy watching the games unfold here if others played. And I'm really curious to see what fguy64 comes up with. It would be great to see something that works on this forum, without having to go & play on another site.

The more I think about, the more reasons I see why it might not work to run a tournament on x10. Things start out with the best of intentions, but then they get mixed up. Without having specially designed software to automate certain tasks, it just gets too messy, and too much opportunity for mistakes. It's one thing for two people to play one game this way, it's another thing all together to have a bunch of games going at once.

more likely to be successful is a tournament on a site such as gameknot.com. we could make it easy for people to follow the action if they don't mind a click or two offsite.

thoughts?

 

[zen-r]

The more I think about, the more reasons I see why it might not work to run a tournament on x10. Things start out with the best of intentions, but then they get mixed up. Without having specially designed software to automate certain tasks, it just gets too messy, and too much opportunity for mistakes. It's one thing for two people to play one game this way, it's another thing all together to have a bunch of games going at once.

more likely to be successful is a tournament on a site such as gameknot.com. we could make it easy for people to follow the action if they don't mind a click or two offsite.

thoughts?

Fair points. But in the end though, people may as well just go somewhere else to play chess then. Why bother with the X10 connection at all.

The only way I thought this might work was if someone who knew what they were doing with the coding, & had the inclination, could set things up here.

Not being an expert, I don't know how tricky this might be. Certainly the just-2-player-per-thread option would be a doddle. But that's not very ambitious!

In a slight off-topic point, I was just wondering ; how would Deep Blue of 1997 fare against a chess program running on the average home PC of today? Any ideas?

 

[fguy64]

Fair points. But in the end though, people may as well just go somewhere else to play chess then. Why bother with the X10 connection at all.

The only way I thought this might work was if someone who knew what they were doing with the coding, & had the inclination, could set things up here.

Not being an expert, I don't know how tricky this might be. Certainly the just-2-player-per-thread option would be a doddle. But that's not very ambitious!

In a slight off-topic point, I was just wondering ; how would Deep Blue of 1997 fare against a chess program running on the average home PC of today? Any ideas?

fair enough, I should keep in mind that we have a bunch of tech savvy people here, so we should be able to make something work.

For a long time after the match, Deep Blue would still have ruled. it was a powerful computer specifically designed to play chess. IMO even now it probably defeats an average home PC. Don't forget that it defeated the strongest player of all time when he was at the peak of his powers. But some of the newer multi-core PCs with software designed to take advantage of these features would probably defeat Deep Blue.

 

[ichwar]

I'm sure rybka could defeat deep blue np.
Edit:
On a second note, I'm with zener's idea of rigging something up here in the forums for all x10 chess players to join in with out having to go to an external site.

 

[fguy64]

ichwar, have a look at the viewer on this page.

http://gameknot.com/pg/chess-tools.htm

It doesn't meet our needs for a couple of reasons, but we might get some ideas from it?
Edit:
OK ichwar, lets try a game just to get the ball rolling. We'll see where this leads, maybe get some ideas as we move along.

your move.

 

[ichwar]

 

[zen-r]

I've joined this game late. To help onlookers it might help to state the obvious :

fguy64 is white
ichwar is black

The most current position of the 2 screenshots above is the 1 in ichwar's post (at the time of posting this).

I'm not sure why they aren't just updating the 1 picture, which could be hosted in a location which they both have access to (eg. a shared Photobucket account)

Edit : I also wonder if it isn't possible to avoid people having to install this game playing software, & keep updating the screenshot. Is there a chess playing website which meets these criteria ;

-Allows 2 players to login with passwords online (to stop spectators tampering!)
-Displays the current position as a .jpg, .gif or .png image of the board layout on the site.
-Keeps that image up on the site even when the players aren't logged in.
-Ideally, also displays the annotated moves online.

Then it would just be a simple matter of the 2 players playing on the other site, & the visual info could be displayed in one post here, using a link to the image(s) on the chess site.

Comments could still be posted here by the players as normal. And anyone could look in here, & see what's happening. It all depends on whether there are chess sites which function like I described - I don't use them myself, so wouldn't know.

If something more complex than this is required because there are no sites which just display an "image" one can link to : is it possible to come up with something that uses the "CODE", "HTML" or "PHP" tags that one can insert in posts here ? (in the Advanced Post box). Again, I don't use them so don't really know what might be achievable.

 

[fguy64]

I've joined this game late. To help onlookers it might help to state the obvious :

fguy64 is white
ichwar is black

The most current position of the 2 screenshots above is the 1 in ichwar's post (at the time of posting this). It alternates, naturally

I'm not sure why they aren't just updating the 1 picture, which could be hosted in a location which they both have access to (eg. a shared Photobucket account)

we can try that, it's an idea with merit

The software ichwar and I are using is single file executable, very small, that requires no installation.

I have looked into ideas like the ones you described in the rest of your post, without success, maybe someone else will have better luck. In the meantime this sort of thing where we update a jpg on a server and leave the URL untouched is the best we have so far.

if comments in this thread take us to a new page, I imagine we will move the diagrams to the new page also.

White: fguy64 Black: ichwar

 

[zen-r]

OK fguy64. By the way, I kept adding to my last post, so hopefully you got to read all the extra bits that went on the end!

If you're playing the game this way, I'm not sure if it wouldn't be better to leave it as just 1 image (using the shared file host idea) at the start of the thread. If you keep reposting the image, it may get confusing for some people as to where they should be looking, & could put off anyone posting comments (like me!) for fear of having to make you repost the image again. Just a thought.

 

[fguy64]

OK fguy64. By the way, I kept adding to my last post, so hopefully you got to read all the extra bits that went on the end! yep!

If you're playing the game this way, I'm not sure if it wouldn't be better to leave it as just 1 image (using the shared file host idea) at the start of the thread. If you keep reposting the image, it may get confusing for some people as to where they should be looking, & could put off anyone posting comments (like me!) for fear of having to make you repost the image again. Just a thought.

I like that idea of leaving it at the start of the thread, I have place a copy of the img in my first post in this thread, ichwar can do the same in his post, I'll work out the photobucket details with ichwar. Soon I expect I will remove the extraneous images from other posts in this thread.

If anyone else wants to get in on the action, they might supply their own img URL to ichwar (or myself), and we can display more than one game diagram in the posts at the beginning of the thread.

 

[ichwar]

 

[zen-r]

Don't forget that this thread is more of a test ground & suggestion thread, in Off-Topic. If & when the games get up & running properly, a new thread should be started in the Games area.

You could try to put all games in the same thread as you said, but this would be tricky if new people come along & want to play, & you can't by then add more diagrams to the first post. It would also be confusing if people want to post comments on the games.

I'd suggest that there is 1 thread for organising the tournaments & general discussion. Then each game is played in a separate new thread & given its own number which identifies it in the tournaments thread. Each game can then also receive it's own comments within its own thread.

I like this arrangement, but it has 1 main disadvantage, which is that it is hard to follow past moves in the game. My suggestion if you want to overcome this is to not overwrite the screenshot each time you upload it, but instead to add it to your files. Each new screenshot would unfortunately then have to be inserted as a new link in the first post. But this would allow all moves to be seen in sequence on the first page, (or throughout the thread if the first post becomes un-editable.) - Not the best arrangement but it might be worth considering if the "replay" facility is felt to be worth having.

 

[fguy64]

Don't forget that this thread is more of a test ground & suggestion thread, in Off-Topic. If & when the games get up & running properly, a new thread should be started in the Games area.

You could try to put all games in the same thread as you said, but this would be tricky if new people come along & want to play, & you can't by then add more diagrams to the first post. It would also be confusing if people want to post comments on the games.

I'd suggest that there is 1 thread for organising the tournaments & general discussion. Then each game is played in a separate new thread & given its own number which identifies it in the tournaments thread. Each game can then also receive it's own comments within its own thread.

I like this arrangement, but it has 1 main disadvantage, which is that it is hard to follow past moves in the game. My suggestion if you want to overcome this is to not overwrite the screenshot each time you upload it, but instead to add it to your files. Each new screenshot would unfortunately then have to be inserted as a new link in the first post. But this would allow all moves to be seen in sequence on the first page, (or throughout the thread if the first post becomes un-editable.) - Not the best arrangement but it might be worth considering if the "replay" facility is felt to be worth having.

There in lies the rub. in my opinion it's too much work for the players. AT least with the program we are using, you can see the text of about 15 moves, so people can recreate the game on their own sets if they really want to. Maybe we can provide a new URL every 15 moves or so.

It's good that you are interested zen-r, but honestly I'd be surprised if that many people are. Probably they are interested in the results more than being able to view every last move.

 

[zen-r]

Agree with everything you wrote.

I didn't realise there is only a max of 15 moves shown. So yes, a new url would then be a good idea. All the more reason to beat ichwar before 15 moves!

Whilst a lot of this may be of little interest to others, I think it's also a useful learning curve for us. And you never know, once a chess section is up & running, the interest from others may grow. It would also be a useful forum for you to inspire other people to join your chess software development team.

 

[fguy64]

Agree with everything you wrote.

I didn't realise there is only a max of 15 moves shown. So yes, a new url would then be a good idea. All the more reason to beat ichwar before 15 moves!

Whilst a lot of this may be of little interest to others, I think it's also a useful learning curve for us. And you never know, once a chess section is up & running, the interest from others may grow. It would also be a useful forum for you to inspire other people to join your chess software development team.

1. it's maximum of 15 moves shown in the jpeg. there's only so much space. ichwar and I can scroll because we have the actual program

2. Cool well count me in. I'd like to see us come up with something too.

One possibility in the short term is that in addition to a URL that shows a snapshot, the snapshot itself can be a hyperlink, I think. click on the diagram and it could take us to a javascript viewer hosted on another part of the site. Which is one more step in the right direction.

 

[zen-r]

I've had a thought - this thread is in Off-Topic & is just called Chess Tournament, so might be being overlooked by some of the techies who could be in a position to help with some of the more advanced feature problems we have discussed.

Is it worth you posting a new thread in either the http://forums.x10hosting.com/programming-help/ or the http://forums.x10hosting.com/scripts-3rd-party-apps/ sections asking for advice? They're more likely to see it there & realise what it's about.

 

[fguy64]

I've had a thought - this thread is in Off-Topic & is just called Chess Tournament, so might be being overlooked by some of the techies who could be in a position to help with some of the more advanced feature problems we have discussed.

Is it worth you posting a new thread in either the http://forums.x10hosting.com/programming-help/ or the http://forums.x10hosting.com/scripts-3rd-party-apps/ sections asking for advice? They're more likely to see it there & realise what it's about.

Definitely worth keeping in mind. But let ichwar and I play a little bit more with what we have, before we call in the techies.