Quote from nitro:
You can now rent a chess cluster running a very strong program:
http://cluster.rybkachess.com/
http://picasaweb.google.com/Idaweta/RybkaCluster?authkey=Gv1sRgCLyC0-aP9s3qwgE&feat=directlink#
Amazing.

Quote from nitro:
Yep.
Make the rule for the starting position, the black King and Queen are switched. It is hard to believe that the simplicity and yet incredible consequences have eluded people. Yet I have never seen it.
Think about the ramifications of this. Chess would be almost identical to the way it is now, but it would be way more exciting (why?) and lots of opening theory would go out the window. The "Sicilian Defense" would now be 1. D4 F5, but it would be many times deadlier for black.
Quote from nitro:
I have a new idea as to how to make Chess even more interesting. One major difference between chess and poker, bridge, trading and even war is that chess does not contain what mathematicians terms "information uncertainty". My proposal is to add this element to chess in the following way.
At the beginning of the game, the players secretly write down on a piece of paper the name of the piece that will be their Spy for the game. The only pieces that cannot be the Spy are the Queen or a pawn. They put the name of this piece that will be the Spy on paper in a sealed envelope. The role of the spy is simple. At any point in the game, each player can remove the piece of paper from the envelope and choose the option to change the position of the Spy and the King. This can only happen once per game per player. The Spy and the King can be switched, but only if the Spy and the King lie on a path where the piece that is designated the Spy can move to the square the king is on. So it is s weird kind of castling, but it is far more dynamic, and the choice of which piece is the Spy is kept secret. For one move if this choice is taken, the King moves like the Spy. if the Spy is captured, you lose the option, but the player does not have to disclose the Spy was captured.
I think this would be really interesting!
A couple of obvious modifications.I have a new idea as to how to make Chess even more interesting. One major difference between chess and poker, bridge, trading and even war is that chess does not contain what mathematicians terms "information uncertainty". My proposal is to add this element to chess in the following way.
At the beginning of the game, the players secretly write down on a piece of paper the name of the piece that will be their Spy for the game. The only pieces that cannot be the Spy are the Queen or a pawn. They put the name of this piece that will be the Spy on paper in a sealed envelope. The role of the spy is simple. At any point in the game, each player can remove the piece of paper from the envelope and choose the option to change the position of the Spy and the King. This can only happen once per game per player. The Spy and the King can be switched, but only if the Spy and the King lie on a path where the piece that is designated the Spy can move to the square the king is on. So it is s weird kind of castling, but it is far more dynamic, and the choice of which piece is the Spy is kept secret. For one move if this choice is taken, the King moves like the Spy. if the Spy is captured, you lose the option, but the player does not have to disclose the Spy was captured.
I think this would be really interesting!
Quote from nitro:
A couple of obvious modifications.
1) Can't swap out of check.
2) Can't swap through check.
So checkmate is checkmate as in classical chess. The second is less clear, but seems in the spirit of castle rules. Coordination with the Spy becomes critical. Also notice that if you have designated one of the rooks the Spy, even if you move either the king or the rook, you might still be able to "castle" with that rook if you opt to use the Spy, since you are not castling but swapping.
In Spy chess, in order to keep track of which knight and rook is which (Kings Knight or Queens Knight, Kings Rook or Queens Rook) those pieces will have some decoration on them to distinguish them so that you can make sure and quickly verify which is the Spy. Don't need to do that for the Bishops for obvious reasons.
I think I will call this, "Spy Chess". I wonder if computers or humans would be stronger at this game, and how much game theory mathematics would enter the game. Theory would be drastically changed.
Yes, I have played Go, although I am a complete beginner. Yep, I realize that Go is infinitely more varied than chess, although somehow combinatorial complexity isn't what makes a game deep.Quote from Grandluxe:
Ever played the east asian game called GO or WeiQi?
Total number of possible games in Chess is generally regarded as 10^123, in Go it is 10^700
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_and_mathematics