Rules debate at Cotsen

[Joaz Banbeck]

Jasiek: You really need to experience the Cotsen first hand to appreciate the laid back style. It is held every September in LA. Please be my guest some year: I live about 10 miles away, and you'll have free room and board for the weekend.

[RobertJasiek]

Invitations to New Zealand, Costa Rica, now to California, ohoh, I guess I am missing some pocket money for the flights:)

[Kirby]

Invitations to New Zealand, Costa Rica, now to California, ohoh, I guess I am missing some pocket money for the flights:)

Well, if you win for your division in the Cotsen, the prize money might offset the travel costs a little bit.

[willemien]

This game is ' the rule is very simple game' when i was first introduced to it. I wonder if chess get the same situation that people do not agree with the result for this or that reason now.

You doubt the 'many' I said, then what frequency do you think is ok for this kind of problem to come over and over again?

Chess has less problems but they are not completely absent.

- Was it now 40 / 50 / 150 or another number of moves that needs to be played to make the game a "draw" and what is the procedure for claiming it?
- Is "eternal check" a win or a draw?
- Can a game have 3 black knights, or 2 white kings?
- If you touch a piece that cannot move do you have to move the king?
- if you touch a piece of the opponent do you need to capture it?
- and what are the rules if more pieces are touched? (PS they differ if they are yours or your opponents)
- When is there insufficient material to continue (this is spelled out in the USCF rules )
- Are you allowed to promote a pawn to a pawn?


Go is behind on competition regulations (the rules of the game outside the board)
and also there is discussion what (the best?) "rules of the game" are.

But having said all this is it not amazing that in almost all games (and that is even more than 99%) the players agree on the outcome.

[dfan]

Chess has less problems but they are not completely absent.

- Was it now 40 / 50 / 150 or another number of moves that needs to be played to make the game a "draw" and what is the procedure for claiming it?

50 moves on either side without a pawn move or capture. You claim it by writing down the move you intend to play and stopping the clock.

- Is "eternal check" a win or a draw?

A draw.

- Can a game have 3 black knights

Yes.

or 2 white kings?

No.

- If you touch a piece that cannot move do you have to move the king?

No.

- if you touch a piece of the opponent do you need to capture it?

Yes.

- and what are the rules if more pieces are touched? (PS they differ if they are yours or your opponents)

The first piece-touch that forces a move, forces a move.

- When is there insufficient material to continue (this is spelled out in the USCF rules )

This is the only annoying one of all these questions. Luckily the preferred answer these days is "use a delay clock, in which case this rule is obviated".

- Are you allowed to promote a pawn to a pawn?

No.

Chess has a lot of rules but it is pretty rare for there to be a big debate on what they are.

Go is behind on competition regulations (the rules of the game outside the board) and also there is discussion what (the best?) "rules of the game" are.

Agreed. If you look at the US (or international) official rules of chess, most of them are about about tournament rules such as the use of the clock, when to offer a draw, touch-move, rules for pairing, etc., rather than about the rules of the game itself.

But having said all this is it not amazing that in almost all games (and that is even more than 99%) the players agree on the outcome.

Yeah, although that can create a false sense that the details of the rules don't really matter, which can then cause a real problem in the other 1% of the cases.

[balmung]

This game is ' the rule is very simple game' when i was first introduced to it. I wonder if chess get the same situation that people do not agree with the result for this or that reason now.

You doubt the 'many' I said, then what frequency do you think is ok for this kind of problem to come over and over again?

Chess has less problems but they are not completely absent.

- Was it now 40 / 50 / 150 or another number of moves that needs to be played to make the game a "draw" and what is the procedure for claiming it?
- Is "eternal check" a win or a draw?
- Can a game have 3 black knights, or 2 white kings?
- If you touch a piece that cannot move do you have to move the king?
- if you touch a piece of the opponent do you need to capture it?
- and what are the rules if more pieces are touched? (PS they differ if they are yours or your opponents)
- When is there insufficient material to continue (this is spelled out in the USCF rules )
- Are you allowed to promote a pawn to a pawn?


Go is behind on competition regulations (the rules of the game outside the board)
and also there is discussion what (the best?) "rules of the game" are.
But having said all this is it not amazing that in almost all games (and that is even more than 99%) the players agree on the outcome.

A draw is official if you go 50 moves with out moving a pawn capturing a piece.
Perpetual check which you call eternal check is always agreed on as a draw unless a player can get checkmate
A game can have as Up to 8+ the number of any piece on a board except king because of pawn promotions. Will it happen? No in most top level games you don't have two queens and your opponent resigns if he can't stop your pawn from promoting in endgame.
Touch move rule states that if you touch a piece that can't legally move then you may move another piece.
also if you touch an opponents piece first and it can't be legally captured you are not required to capture, but if it can you are required to capture it
if you touch more than one piece in one movement it counts as adjusting the pieces
insufficient is determined by basic endgames, if there is a pawn on the board it is never stalemate. Insufficient material is just both kings, a king and a knight, a king and a bishop, or a king and two knights.
pawns can only promote to back row pieces except the king.

[balmung]

wow dfan beat me two it didn't know we had another chess player on this site.

[willemien]

Almost all correct, but unfortunedly not all

Chess has less problems but they are not completely absent.

- Was it now 40 / 50 / 150 or another number of moves that needs to be played to make the game a "draw" and what is the procedure for claiming it?

50 moves on either side without a pawn move or capture. You claim it by writing down the move you intend to play and stopping the clock.

- Is "eternal check" a win or a draw?

A draw.

- Can a game have 3 black knights

Yes.

or 2 white kings?

No.

- If you touch a piece that cannot move do you have to move the king?

No.

- if you touch a piece of the opponent do you need to capture it?

Yes.

- and what are the rules if more pieces are touched? (PS they differ if they are yours or your opponents)

The first piece-touch that forces a move, forces a move.

- When is there insufficient material to continue (this is spelled out in the USCF rules )

This is the only annoying one of all these questions. Luckily the preferred answer these days is "use a delay clock, in which case this rule is obviated".

- Are you allowed to promote a pawn to a pawn?

No.

Chess has a lot of rules but it is pretty rare for there to be a big debate on what they are.

Go is behind on competition regulations (the rules of the game outside the board) and also there is discussion what (the best?) "rules of the game" are.

Agreed. If you look at the US (or international) official rules of chess, most of them are about about tournament rules such as the use of the clock, when to offer a draw, touch-move, rules for pairing, etc., rather than about the rules of the game itself.

But having said all this is it not amazing that in almost all games (and that is even more than 99%) the players agree on the outcome.

Yeah, although that can create a false sense that the details of the rules don't really matter, which can then cause a real problem in the other 1% of the cases.

minor:

"eternal check" is neither draw or win. (but it probably leads to a draw because of repeated positions)
the claiming method is the FIDE method the USCF method is different.


The touched piece rule it is more complicated than you described. (in fact it is almost 3 pages in the rule book)

Wrong:

Your last answer is wrong. rule 14D - insufficient material to continue - has nothing to do with the time system, you are confusing it with 14E - insufficient material to win on time-

Chess has a lot of rules but it is pretty rare for there to be a big debate on what they are.

I would say the rules of go have something "natural" about them that many players create their own opinion about them.

If you look at the US (or international) official rules of chess, most of them are about about tournament rules such as the use of the clock, when to offer a draw, touch-move, rules for pairing, etc., rather than about the rules of the game itself.

But even only the rules of the game together are longer than some complete go rule sets

Insufficient material is just both kings, a king and a knight, a king and a bishop, or a king and two knights.

this is the list of 14E -insufficient material to win on time-

[balmung]

this is the list of 14E -insufficient material to win on time-

it is insufficient for end of game as well any tournament player will tell you. Basic checkmates are two bishops a knight and a bishop king and rook king and queen assuming the the opponent has one king anything else when there are no pawns on the board is stalemate.

Also perpetual is draw for the reason that three of the exact same board positions that happen during a game can be a forced draw

[kokomi]

With all the discussions above, I do think Go is easier than Chess now
Are there any special meaning of 'touch' in chess? Or you simply can not touch your opponent's stones?

[RobertJasiek]

willemien, what is "natural" for the purpose of go rules? For the sake of simplicity, let us forgo the grid, the choice of playing stones on the vertices (instead of the facets or lines), the number of players, Black first etc. and let us assume the game shall be a mental competition etc.

Alternation:

This allows for a balanced interaction between the two players and creates the greatest density of turn-driven interaction. Balance is natural and greatest density is natural for the sake of mental competition, which we have presumed. That the game is turn-driven and not a game of simultaneous actions is not natural though but yet another rather arbitrary choice of game design. Also simultaneous actions would mean balanced interaction and greatest density (of a different kind than turn-driven interaction).

Play of one stone:

The units of expressing plays are the stones. At a turn, a player could play none, one or several stones. Any number of played stones at a time greater than one would be somewhat arbitrary but also highly dynamic. Being arbitrary is not that natural while being highly dynamic is natural for the sake of mental competition. Hence it is far from obvious whether one or several is more natural. Playing none is unnatural though because then progress by means of stones placement is halted. So at least we can say that playing one or several stones is more natural than playing none. - However, a game to be a mental competition should normally come to an end to allow for a comparison between the two players' skills under controlled conditions. Oh, wait - should it? It would also be possible to have a live scoring system that adds to the score at, say, every turn. Then one could have an eternal game with ongoing evaluation of the players' mental competition successes. Therefore also playing no stones during a turn could be natural. - Thus, to say which number of played stones per turn is natural, it requires a context of game procedure, game end and scoring.

We learn that "natural" is not necessarily a characteristic of each single game aspect considered alone for itself. Rather "natural" is or is not a property of a game's entire rules design as a whole. This, however, requires a fresh approach to possibly assessing whether a ruleset is natural. What makes a system (like a set of rules) as a whole "natural"? Supposedly if its components fit well together in some optimal, clear, easy to understand manner.

Now go ahead and evaluate which ruleset is or is not natural as a whole...!

[willemien]

willemien, what is "natural" for the purpose of go rules? For the sake of simplicity, let us forgo the grid, the choice of playing stones on the vertices (instead of the facets or lines), the number of players, Black first etc. and let us assume the game shall be a mental competition etc.

Now go ahead and evaluate which ruleset is or is not natural as a whole...!

the problem with go is that to much is natural.

It is as natural to count territory as it is to count area. And therefore there is a lot of discussion between the merits of one above the merits of the other.
(one of the big advantages of territory counting is you don't need to count as far)

all kinds of repeated position have something "looks natural" over them. and therefore are also open to discussion. (non is obviously better than an other, they all have some merit)

It goes a bit back to an old adagio.

Chess was invented, Go was discovered.
(but we still need to learn to recognise the best rules)

[RobertJasiek]

Go is a game on the board; therefore keeping prisoners next to the board is already unnatural; hence territory scoring is unnatural. Another unnatural aspect is the introduction of different kinds of play: real (the game's move sequence) and hypothetical (the analysis game trees).

What does it matter for the rules whether repeated positions look natural?

If you don't want to count far, then use either 1) prisoner counting or 2) putting away pairs of stones counting or 3) arranging all stones on the board symmetrically counting. You don't even need to count; just determining the remaining colour determines the winner; this makes each of these methods easier from the view of remaining counting effort than Ing fill-in counting and - after the rearrangement - about 70 times as short as the numerical counting step of Japanese rearrangement counting. If you want to include the rearrangement, then Point-by-point-half-counting is as fast as Japanese rearrangement counting.