Show HN: Play Chess Without Moving Pieces | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Play Chess Without Moving Pieces

ba.net

36 pointsfonosip27 comments

Some instructions would be nice; it looks like I do have to move pieces, I'm just dumped into the middle of a game.

edit: Oh, I see, there's a help link ,and "guess white", "guess black" and "guess draw" at the bottom. When you click one, the computer will play until the game is over (or you declare the game to be a draw).

Right the "guess white" links are at the bottom. The full help link is http://ba.net/juegos/crazychess-guessposition/help.html

And it would be nice with an indicator telling whose turn it is.

This isn't as much fun as I thought. The engine pursues a primitive attacking strategy, often missing the best moves. I got the first five right, not because I did deep analysis of the position, but because I simply started picking whichever side could jam its queen into some sort of attack in a hurry.

I picked draw on the sixth one, which was an intriguingly well-balanced position -- and the engine managed to turn it into a crazy slaughter-fest within five moves and an eventual 55-move win for white.

With a better engine, this could be quite a good test of chess skill and strategic insight.

If you have a fast machine it is better to click on the "computer level slowest". AI searches a deeper tree of moves.

It plays a bit better at the supposed ELO 1900 level, but it still stumbles into some very avoidable pins, etc.

I changed the chess engine to chess-gym. Give it a try, it seems a bit better. Also you can import your own FENs now

The game seems to be buggy: "King's Indian - Steven Cordy vs Martinez Garcia, Warsaw, 1991" -- it just keeps going in a loop endlessly. Neither the AI nor the game engine seems to be aware of perpetual move draw:

5 Qh6+ Kf6 46 Qg5+ Kg7 47 Qh6+ Kf6 48 Qg5+ Kg7 49 Qh6+ Kf6 50 Qg5+ Kg7 51 Qh6+ Kf6 52 Qg5+ Kg7 53 Qh6+ Kf6 54 Qg5+ Kg7 55 Qh6+ Kf6 56 Qg5+ Kg7 57 Qh6+ Kf6 58 Qg5+ Kg7 59 Qh6+

etc

After repeated moves a red link appears next to the "Guess Draw" link. You have to click it to set the draw.

Same with "French Advance - Erkki Havansi vs Jorma Kekki, Jyvaskyla, 1993" I had assumed that this would be a replay of this actual game.

New improved chess engine added. Now games are more realistic, especially if you give the computer more time to move

Although I am far, far from a chess expert, it seems like with so many moves left to play, unless you know whether one player is more skilled than the other, one's guess is as good as another's. Might as well guess a coin flip. Maybe if the state of the board was "later into the match" it would be possible to judge whether one side had an advantage and allow you to guess better. Then again, maybe I just suck at reading a chess board and the side with the advantage IS obvious here.

You can also guess on easier, un-balanced positions from random piece games at http://ba.net/juegos/crazychess-guessengine/

From my understanding, you are not guessing which human player won. Instead, two equal AIs play the remainder of the game and you have to guess which side will win.

> it seems like with so many moves left to play, unless you know whether one player is more skilled than the other, one's guess is as good as another's. Might as well guess a coin flip.

Consider it exercises in intuitionistic positional judgment, rather than a game of "hey try to play this out in your head".

Does it say who's to play or is it always assumed white starts?

White starts, unless Black mentioned in the title of the game

It doesn't recognize threefold repetition draw. Also, a couple times I saw it miss some tricky tactics that would have won. Very nice and fun idea with a bit of polish. It needs a real chess engine.

Upon repetition a red link should appear next to "Guess Draw". I set the engine now by default to "slowest" should play around ELO 1900

  It doesn't recognize threefold repetition draw.

That isn't an automatic draw like a stalemate is; either player can claim a draw at that point.

Fun fact: in the Fischer vs. Spassky title match, the judge made an error in awarding Fisher a draw by misinterpreting the rule!

You're right. But what I saw the computer do was repeat the same position thousands of times in an identical cycle of four moves. A decent AI should stop wasting its time and claim a draw at that point. So maybe this is also an AI strength issue rather than the platform recognizing a draw.

How's this different from any other tactics trainers or tactic books?

It is more of a game than a serious study tool. You can also guess games on random piece boards http://ba.net/juegos/crazychess-guessposition/ or play against the engine http://ba.net/juegos/crazychess/

I couldn't figure out who has the move!

Always assume White, unless Black to move on title of game

this is an interesting concept

Thanks

Reply on news.ycombinator.com