A GeekDad’s 8-Year Old Daughter Reinvents Chess | Hacker News Reader

A GeekDad’s 8-Year Old Daughter Reinvents Chess

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111 pointsnreece22 comments

The age of the daughter is not a surprise--- the number of children who learn chess and happen to be 8 is actually quite large(and no I don't have a citation, this is anecdotal). However of that group the number who the next day or so invent fairy-chess with a Fisher(kind of) variation is probably pretty close to 1! Were I the father, I'd be enormously proud and more than a little stunned. Shaking that off, I'd begin to encourage this spark as much as I could...

Agreed. All my boys were playing chess at 5. However, they have no desire to create a variation. Their #1 goal is to beat Dad.

Found a link to the rules in the comments: http://changizi.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/plastic-animal-ches...

Chess is a revered institution. What kind of heretic plays chess once and immediately presumes to do better?

http://lesswrong.com/lw/qs/einsteins_superpowers/

There has been some debate regarding PG's "naughtiness" criteria for founders. Maybe irreverence would be a better word? To truly believe in their venture, founders need to have a certain irreverence for how things are done today or how the world is missing out on their idea.

I know I have mentioned this here before but while in college I played a version of chess that used the dice from a game of Risk. If you didn't like your opponents move you could challenge it by rolling the dice. The player defending a the valid move would get the 3 white dice and the "attacker" would get the 2 red ones. Just like in Risk the highest point total won. I think if the defender lost the roll then they had to choose another move, if the attacker lost the roll then they lost their turn. Anyway it led to matches where you would try and get your queen behind the opponent's pawns and start taking out large pieces.

The rules that the girl came up with remind me of some of the stuff I see in modern video games medic, civilians, etc.

It also made me think about something I read recently that said that the average I.Q. is increasing all around the world from generation to generation.

Kid makes up a new game. It's quite shocking really.

>"So, on the one hand we have my daughter’s irreverence to a great institution (“bad girl!”)."

I don't understand how it's irreverent to make up your own game inspired by another?

I think the point he's trying to make is that we're all so conditioned to accept institutions without question ("we do it that way because we've ALWAYS done it that way"). This is beaten into us (and creativity beaten OUT OF us) as children, especially through the public schools. Clearly it's not irreverent to innovate, but I can imagine the shock/horror of the mainstream at the "reinvention" of chess.

While the point is valid, certain institutions do require some reverence and respect. Chess is certainly such a game. I'm not saying one has to be a Fischer to invent a new chess format; but unless the person has seriously understood/appreciated the complexities of chess, I'll have trouble taking them seriously.

Irreverence is good if it comes from deep understanding and knowledge or genius - otherwise it just comes off as arrogance.

That's only true if you're trying to invent something better, Chess 2.0. If you're just trying to create something different and fun with similar rules, it's not really necessary to deeply understand the strategic balance of chess.

Exactly. She appeared to make something more complex (though I didn't look at the rules). But perhaps it's something that allows here to make stories about it better, or something that uses her favourite toys, or something that is more fun for some other reason.

Now, if she'd said - that game is no good, it's not complex enough, it's not challenging enough or somesuch (and wasn't a grandmaster) then I think she would perhaps have been irreverent, though more likely ignorant.

"Irreverent: showing lack of due respect or veneration" - she played it once and then invented a different game she'd rather play.

Since he holds Chess in high regard, she "should have" fawned over chess, wanting to play it again and learn more about it. To not do so is to not show enough respect to his ideal of Chess.

If instead, she had played chess a lot with him, talked about how much she liked it, and then presented him with a game she made while downplaying it as a trifling diversion from Real Chess which she really likes, then he would have felt suitable respect was being paid.

aka politics, see also: we humans delight in finding or inventing things to be offended at.

See also: how would you automatically react if someone posted "my forum is much better than YCombinator" and had an account registered a day ago, versus if patio11 posted "I'm trying out a few different ideas for auto-moderating comments on my forum, would any of you come over and give it a try please?". Same basic point, very different presentations.

I invented a chess variant that my friends and I have been addicted to for years. Here's an overview and breakdown:

Overview: Team chess. The game is played using teams of 2 against each other. Each individual sets up their pieces in their side of the board.

Phase 1: In the first phase each person draws a team from the hat. White1, Black1, White2, and Black2.

Phase 2: Class draft. Using the order listed above, each person takes a turn drafting a class of their color for their control. For example, when you draft "rook", you personally control all of your colors rooks. Only 4 pawns are used by each side. This process continues until all classes have been drafted.

Phase 3: Board position. Using the same order, each player takes a turn selecting a side of the board.

Phase 4: Class placement. Using the same order, each player takes a turn placing 1 class of pieces within their start zone. Because each side of the board is used, pieces can not be placed into the corner cross sections to begin. So a player's available spots would appear as follows: xxooooxx for the first 2 rows of a player's side

Phase 5: Starting. A random player is chosen from the hat to begin. Order continues in W1,B1,W2,B2 format from starting position.

Additional notes:

1) A king owner must have the opportunity to get out of check. This means a king could be in check for 3 straight moves.

2) A pawn upgrades a piece to whatever it wants, but if a player upgrades his pawn to a class he doesn't own after reaching the opposite side of his starting position, his partner (that class owner) will take the piece's control.

3) Pawns can start anywhere within the start zone and still move 2 spaces in their first move.

4) A bishop owner can place his bishops on any squares in the start zone, including the same color.

I'm sure there's a few more minor things I've left out, but that's the basics. If anybody wants to help me build this into a web game, let me know. It's incredibly addictive.

TL;DR - Team chess = awesome.

Is it in any sense news that people have developed variant forms of chess?

http://www.chessvariants.com/

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/FairyChess.html

After all, isn't current Western chess itself a variant of the (possibly Indian) game from which it originated?

http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Chess.htm

http://history.chess.free.fr/history.htm

If you know people from China, Taiwan, or Vietnam, you may have had the opportunity to play Chinese chess,

http://www.clubxiangqi.com/?F=rules

which is definitely related to Western chess, but noticeably different in game play.

After edit: I wonder about the first reply to this comment here, "so you post this, which is hypocritical on the face of it," and how it fits with the HN guideline

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation.

"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

Above in my original comment, I am of course expressing the opinion that a new variant of chess is unremarkable. I am not slamming the eight-year-old girl who invented the variant (and I appreciate the link in the reply that shows her handwritten notes about the rules--putting the rules in writing at her age is impressive to me). It just seems to me that part of the context of the submitted article is a long and well documented history of many people in West and East developing variants of the game of chess--including the variant that has become the dominant international form of the game. And I raise the meta-issues here because of pg's recently expressed concern

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2403696

that HN has a problem with some of the comments submitted. I want my comments to be top-quality (and, thus, appreciate correction from other participants here), and I want to be aware of what generally desired behavior is here.

P.P.S. scott_s posted simultaneously with my editing the first time here, and I appreciate his comment explaining succinctly what was dissatisfying about what the submitted article emphasized. Yes, inventing variants of common games (something I have observed dozens of children do over the years) is part of a young person's process of developing creativity--"rewriting the rules" to dare to try new ways of doing things.

...and so you post this, which is hypocritical on the face of it.

Since you seems to have missed the rules referenced in the article, here they are:

http://changizi.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/plastic-animal-ches...

Not really. The author uses his daughter inventing a new game as a springboard to speculate on the relationship between irreverence and innovation. The title, unfortunately, is geared towards his hook, not his point.

Unfortunately, irreverence isn't a great asset until you have a fair amount of knowledge under your belt. Until then, it can be quite a hindrance to the process of learning.

The main thrust of this article is not the new game she invented.

It's about "irreverence," which is a great word for the concept that for many of us leads to "hacking" - in other words, not limiting ourselves to the status quo or any constraints that are typically perceived by ordinary humans.

The article's takeaway sums it up nicely- Whereas we adults may have to be taught to be irreverent, intellectual irreverence comes naturally to kids, out of sheer ignorance. And although ignorance is generally a vice, for creativity it can be a virtue.

Here's mine -- "Divorce court chess:"

    QBNRRNBK
    PPPP....
    PPPP....
    ........
    ........
    ....PPPP
    ....PPPP
    KBNRRNBQ

I've played this a number of times. It flummoxes chess experts, and it's actually quite fun. Everyone speculates that it's a solvable game. Believe it or not, but in my brief experience, development of the queen has been a big part of this game.

What are the castling rules in this variation?

Oddly enough, they're the same! (Or more accurately the standard ones are easily adapted.)

EDIT: I think I see what you're getting at. The King moves farther when castling with the far Rook.

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