Switch-Side Chain Chess App.

[Garland Best]

Just noticed this on the Chessbase site. http://en.chessbase.com/post/switch-...ndroid-and-ios

Kudos Paul. Hope you see some success with it.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Switch-Side Chain Chess App.

It's good to see another chess variant App. However, unless I'm mistaken, Paul's not the inventor of this particular variant.

[Garland Best]

Re: Switch-Side Chain Chess App.

From the article (underscore by me):

The game-playing ability is therefore still quite rudimentary even though it does kind of implement the novel chain detection algorithm developed primarily by Paul Bonham, whom Frederic Friedel put me in touch with after our articles on chess variants appeared ChessBase. He was intrigued by the problem and quite interested in tackling it programmatically, especially since the algorithm developed by my research assistant (at the time) in the prototype Windows version of SSCC was known to not work for certain types of chains.

Paul and I even co-authored a paper on the new chain-detection algorithm that should work ‘infallibly’ but not provably so, unfortunately (more details in the paper). The truth is, the programmers whom we could afford to hire given the shoestring budget could not quite understand the new algorithm well enough in the time we gave them and had to improvise aspects of chain detection on their own. They did not realize how complicated chains on the board could get. Even detecting the presence of a single chain is not algorithmically guaranteed, to say nothing of detecting and highlighting them all, for example. So among a handful of other aspects of the game there are still some bugs. Regardless, a full SSCC game can indeed be played on these apps, for the most part.

[Jason Manley]

Re: Switch-Side Chain Chess App.

I've tried playing with the app a couple of times, though I'd never played this variant before. It's certainly an interesting variant, though I'll need to play quite a bit more in order to begin to grasp how to take advantage of it in practical play. The play by the computer isn't particularly strong, unfortunately; in my second game against it I defeated it in 12 moves in what was a standard game (i.e. no switches took place)

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Switch-Side Chain Chess App.

Just noticed this on the Chessbase site. http://en.chessbase.com/post/switch-...ndroid-and-ios

Kudos Paul. Hope you see some success with it.

Hi Garland, thanks for the heads up and for the kudos. I didn't know this article was coming out yet. Good also to see the "thumbs up", it's good to know some people appreciate efforts in chess variants.

You may be interested in reading the paper that Dr. Azlan Iqbal (the inventor of SSCC) and I wrote on the algorithm -- which to be clear is NOT implemented at all in the Android / iOS app. For this paper, Dr. Iqbal just did some minor editing once I provided him with the draft copy. I created the original draft text, with all the diagrams and the appendix with all the algorithm pseudocode. The actual code I wrote is all in C++ and was tested on hundreds of test positions, and is now giving correct results for all of them.


I am mentioned in the Chessbase article because I have been working with Dr. Azlan Iqbal on what was to be one of the engine components, specifically the module that detects and verifies chains as defined within this SSCC variant. Other developers had tried to achieve the desired result, and not quite succeeded. I took it on because once I fully understood what chains are and how a new chain is formed (that's the key thing to understand about the game, by the way: how to form new chains), I saw the game for what it is, an amazing and original creation.



The work I did was for free, and I am not in any way officially involved in the project nor will I receive any monies or compensation. I believe the project is fully owned by the university in Malaysia where Dr. Iqbal teaches.

However, I did influence game rules in one way. During my work with the chain verification algorithm, I realized that the rules had a flaw. The original rules stated that for every move where you create a new chain, you can switch sides, and this process can continue indefinitely on your turn until you manage to either no longer find a move that creates a new chain OR where you have won the game by checkmate. Kind of like billiards, where as long as you sink a proper ball and only a proper ball, you continue to play.

I found the flaw in this: it turns out that this meant the first person to advance a Pawn or any piece to their 4th rank from their 2nd move onward would lose the game by force. Dr. Iqbal was resistant to this revelation at first, and only when I showed him example after example of it did he realize it was true. And so a rule was added that the switching sides has an upper limit based on how many moves you have made so far in the game. For example, if you're about to make your 5th move, you can form chains and switch sides a max of 5 times. I believe this restriction has been coded into the app, as Dr. Iqbal realized it couldn't be left out.



For me, the reward in this work was achieving an algorithm that so far has proven to work correctly with even the most complicated chains. However, as stated in the paper we wrote, I do not claim the algorithm is the most efficient one possible, and anyone interested in the challenge could try and find a more efficient one that still works correctly. There is no way to theoretically prove absolute correctness, at least not that I know of. Someone more deeply versed in graph theory might be able to come up with something there, too.

Again, my algorithm is NOT implemented in the app. As Dr. Iqbal relates, because the funding was so minimal, the programming team went with a much more compact algorithm they thought would work, but which, like its predecessor in a version written several years ago, gives some incorrect results. But the app provides a way for the user to override that. The engine, on the other hand, makes its decisions based on this compact algorithm, and so makes some mistakes.


This game is in its theoretical infancy. I believe it has great potential as a challenge for both programmers and for human players. But you do have to be interested enough to overcome the initial difficulty of understanding fully the rules. It's not easy to grasp.

I continue to thank Dr. Iqbal for letting me be a part of his creation. One compensation I did get was to learn how to program 2D games in the Unity game engine, because I was allowed to see the code that the app programmers used. The actual base code (that just plays regular chess) was available for a one-time purchase on the Unity asset store, and I bought it and am able to freely modify it and use it for my own projects. I was also in touch with the creator of that module, he is based in Denmark and works for a very successful game company, and he helped me get used to the Unity way of doing things.

Now, I am well on my way to having my own first Unity app released.... very soon now. Some of you may recall, I started a thread here a few months ago on "Norochess", where "Noro" was a short form for "Non Royal" pertaining to the Kings being non royal.

The name has now been changed to something much more pleasing and catchy. And I have created a nice logo for it (sorry Neil Frarey, I might have hired you if you weren't such an apologist for an immoral criminal in the White House.) I am now working on the help system, to show new users how the app interface works and how the game is played.

Also, as Dr. Iqbal indicated in the Chessbase article, he and I may work together in the future on SSCC problem compositions. Very interesting!

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Switch-Side Chain Chess App.

My apologies for not reading the entire text; fwiw I did happen to know from memory alone that Paul wasn't the variant inventor. Paul indeed deserves kudos for his contribution that was part of the effort leading to the app.

[Neil Frarey]

Re: Switch-Side Chain Chess App.

This stuff is beyond me ...but I do appreciate the effort!

Congrats!

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Switch-Side Chain Chess App.

Reflecting on part of Paul's post, I wonder how many Democrat voters currently are not hiring known Republican voters these days, even for temporary work.

As I noted on chesstalk long ago, I suspect Neil's having some fun in the Trump threads, plus every chesstalk post by Paul brings him endless joy. Fwiw, at birth the word Liberal was tattoed in red on Neil's butt. :)

[Neil Frarey]

Re: Switch-Side Chain Chess App.

Reflecting on part of Paul's post, I wonder how many Democrat voters currently are not hiring known Republican voters these days, even for temporary work.

As I noted on chesstalk long ago, I suspect Neil's having some fun in the Trump threads, plus every chesstalk post by Paul brings him endless joy. Fwiw, at birth the word Liberal was tattooed in red on Neil's butt. :)

Ruffly 68% of Canada's total exports go to the U.S. ... with your self-aggrandizement aside Kevin you do have the ability to understand growth in the American economy translates to growth in Canada's economy don't you?

Trump can deliver that growth.

MAGA!

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Switch-Side Chain Chess App.

Sorry if my bit of levity offended you, Neil. By now most viewers know we're familiar with each other (well, not that familiar).

Trump the Prez on the whole isn't doing too terribly so far, scandals aside, IMHO. I just hope he doesn't happen to have a much darker side we don't know about yet.