HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: nates@ll.mit.edu ( Nate Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: defects in abstract games
Date: 8 Jan 93 16:51:03 GMT
Organization: MIT Lincoln Laboratory

In article <1993Jan6.085328.28673@risky.ecs.umass.edu> trodrigu@spock.ecs.umass.edu (Tao R or Stephen L) writes:
>In my (not very sophisticated) understanding of Chess, the weaker player
>can try to reach a draw by forcing the stronger player into a situation
>where any departure from a repetitive sequence is a disaster.  If the
>repetition were simply ruled to be illegal, the idea of what constitutes
>a strong position would change.  But the rule that no captures for some
>number of turns is a draw could be unchanged.  It seems to me that this
>is fairly simple, and removes many draws.  Is it a bad idea for some
>other reason, am I missing something, or do some people consider the
>draws desirable?

i was just thinking of another mod to lower (but not eliminate) the
occurence of draws in chess.  we all know that pawns can be promoted
to other peices by reaching the 8th rank.  what if...what if you win
the game if you can promote your king to the 8th rank (score a touchdown,
so to speak)?  this idea was stolen from hnelatfel (YUCK i'm bad at sp)
and from another game, pensate.  many of those "book draws" when the
material dwindles sufficiently, are now suddenly up for grabs.

- nate
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: baljeual@uther.calvin.edu (Alan Baljeu)
Subject: TwiXt rules
Keywords: twixt
Organization: Calvin College
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 21:41:35 GMT

First, did this group die over Christmas?  I haven't received any
posts here since I left for home in December.

Anyway, I tried to play a game of TwIxT at home based on what I remembered
of the rules, and I'd like a clarification.

		  

		   	  o
              /
		       /
            / 
		  x\  o x\
          \     \ 
		     \x o  \x
              /
		       / 
            /
		      o


In one of the earlier postings, it was declared that neither side could
break through the middle, and so this was an impasse, unless you allow
the rule that you can remove bridges.  However, what rule prevents x from
playing like this?:


		   	  o
              /
		       /x
            / /
		  x\  o/x\
          \ /   \ 
		     \x o  \x
              /
		       / 
            /
		      o

It's possible I got the situation wrong, but I'd like clear rules on where
tiles and bridges can be placed.

I'd also like to know how to capitalize TWixT, and why the heck tWIxT is
not capitalized like other games.

Please both post and e-mail your responses.
--
	Alan Baljeu
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring)
Subject: Re: Go (Rules please?)
Followup-To: rec.games.go
Keywords: Go
Organization: FB Physik, Universitaet Kaiserslautern, Germany
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 13:40:18 GMT

Followup set to rec.games.go.

In article <C0Fv4s.5s1@ccu.umanitoba.ca>, umsmigi0@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Trevor Allan Smigiel) writes:
> Could somebody out there post the rules for go.  I am only
> slightly familiar with them and would like a reference.

From the rec.games.go monthly posting "Go Related Files for Anonymous FTP":

\Available from ftp.u.washington.edu (128.95.136.1) by anonymous ftp
\in the public/go directory.  Remember to set binary mode.
\
\The files are mirrorred on ftp.pasteur.fr in the pub/Go directory.
[..]
\public/go               Top of the go archives
\  14686 FAQ                 Frequently asked questions on rec.games.go
\  34453 PLAYERS             Email addresses of go players
\   9699 README              This file (it appears in each subdirectory too)
\   2694 RULES               Statement of rules

> Also, is there a good place to by go stones and boards?  I
> have looked locally and found a set with board, stones and
> rules for $40(CAN).  It seemed like a low quality set, and
> I would prefer something a little nicer.

From the rec.games.go FAQ:

\11. Where can I get go equipment, books, etc?
\
\     Ishi Press International    Ishi Press International
\     76 Bonaventura Drive        20 Bruges Place
\     San Jose, CA  95134         London England NW1 OTE
\     Tel: (408)944-9900
\     FAX: (408)944-9110          071 284 4898
\
\     Ishi Press
\     1301-5 Yabata
\     Chigasaki-Shi
\     Kanagawa-ken 253
\     (0467)83-4369
\     (0467)83-4710 (fax)
\     Japan

From the Go Players Address List:

\* bate@cs.umanitoba.ca (John Bate) 3  kyu : 7kyu-3 dan, inet
\* umhuang4@silver.cs.umanitoba.ca (Hui Huang):
\- xliao%ccm.umanitoba.CA@BITNET (Xinmeng Liao) 2 dan ^

I guess those three will know how to get go material in your vicinity.

--
thomas kettenring, 3 dan, kaiserslautern, germany
"Pink"
(Peter Ustinov's answer to "Skin Color" on his US immigration form)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: Trax anyone?
From: Michael.Norrish@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Michael Norrish)
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 20:52:20 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Victoria Uni. of Wellington, NZ.

Well, due to popular demand :-)

Here, without permission, are the rules to Trax, (as I remember them
in any case):

1. Two players, red and white.
2. Each plays in turn, placing one tile per turn.
   a. Every tile in the game is identical. On one face a tile has the
   following pattern:
                            +--------+ 	 Where the double lines are one
                            |   ||   | 	 colour, and the single lines
                            |   //   |	 another.
                            | ==   --|
                            |     /  |
                            |     |  |
			    +--------+
       On the other side, a tile has this pattern:
       	       	       	    +--------+
			    |   ||   |
			    |	||   |
			    |---||---|
			    |	||   |
			    |	||   |
			    +--------+

   b. When placing a tile, a player must place it so as to ensure that
   it connects up with at least one previously placed tile. (This
   connection must keep coloured lines appropriate linked).

   3. As a result of placing a tile, it is possible that a player has
   created a situation that can not just be left as it is. The
   situation is if an empty space is touched by two incoming lines of
   the same colour. 

   For example:
             +--------
	     |   ||   
	     |   //   
	     | ==   --
	     |     /  
	     |     |  
	     +--------
From: kwhyte@arthur.uchicago.edu (Kevin Whyte)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: defects in abstract games
Date: 6 Jan 93 17:48:37 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Mathematics

In article <1993Jan6.085328.28673@risky.ecs.umass.edu> trodrigu@spock.ecs.umass.edu (Tao R or Stephen L) writes:
>In my (not very sophisticated) understanding of Chess, the weaker player
>can try to reach a draw by forcing the stronger player into a situation
>where any departure from a repetitive sequence is a disaster.  If the
>repetition were simply ruled to be illegal, the idea of what constitutes
>a strong position would change.  But the rule that no captures for some
>number of turns is a draw could be unchanged.  It seems to me that this
>is fairly simple, and removes many draws.  Is it a bad idea for some
>other reason, am I missing something, or do some people consider the
>draws desirable?

  As someone else pointed out, the no repetition move in chess would make
endgames very strange.  This is not to say it wouldn't be interesting, but
if you think the endgame has a different feel now, this would far more so.

>The latest candidates for 'flawless' games seem to be Hex, Traxx and
>Twixt.  These are all games involving a sequence of placed pieces, with
>no moves or captures.  If I'm remembering 'Winning Ways' correctly,
>these games can all be reduced to Nim or Sprouts, and can be solved
>without exploring the entire game tree.  I speculate that any game which
>does not have the potential of infinite duration (thus requiring the no
>repeats rule or some equivalent) is in the general class of games that
>can be reduced to Nim.  Does anyone know of any proofs or disproofs of
>this speculation?
> 
>- Stephen Linhart
>

  This is definitely not true.  The games which can be reduced to Nim
(Sprouts can't, and hasn't been solved ... another good game, but the
three lives per vertex is too arbitrary to call it perfect.) are exactly
those where 1) The game always terminates, even it the players don't
               alternate moves.
            2) From every position both players have exactly the same
               legal moves, and exactly the same winning podsitions,
               etc.  This is not true for games like Hex, Twixt, Traxx,
               or Go, since which color you are makes a difference.

  There are many games which are of this form, and still unsolved. 
The isomorphism with Nim requires knowing the entire game tree (more
or less), so it's not that helpful.  An example of this is Sylver
Coinage:  The players alternate naming positive intergers, and are
not allowed to name anything which is a positive integer linear
combination of previously named numbers.  You lose if you name 1 (or,
equivalently naming 1 is illegal, and you lose if you can't move).

Kevin

We are faced with the very real possibility that "digital" and 
"manual" will be used as antonyms.
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: mfrank@wilma.cs.wisc.edu (Matt Frank)
Subject: Re: defects in abstract games
Organization: University of Wisconsin, Madison -- Computer Sciences Dept.
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 05:48:28 GMT

In article <1993Jan5.190229.2264@ll.mit.edu> nates@ll.mit.edu ( Nate Smith)
 writes:
>In article <1993Jan2.065410.23378@risky.ecs.umass.edu>
> trodrigu@spock.ecs.umass.edu (Tao R or Stephen L) writes:
>>We could look at this idea of 'perfection' in abstract games as a form of
>>mathematical elegance, or we could look at it in terms of real-world
>>values such as ease of play, ease of learning, simplicity of manufacture,
>>physical beauty of the game, etc. ...[]...
>
>i think when it comes to this notion of defects in abstract games, we
>should stick to abstract defects.  the real-world values are important,
>although your "ease of play" and "ease of learning" kind of stray back
>into the abstract realm.  if we think of Occam's Razor coming into the
>picture, it might be that mathematical elegance and ease of play/learning
>are linked.

This whole discussion is begining to remind me of Godel's Theorem.  (i.e. any
sufficiently powerful axiomatic system is inconsistent, or something like
that.)  Given that no "perfect" mathematical set of rules exists, why should
we expect that a "perfect" (i.e. non-trivial but completely consistent) set
of game rules should exist?

Come to think of it, one way to win in Nomic is to be unable to complete
one's move (in essence, to find an inconsistency in the rules).

-Matt
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: nicholso@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Melvin H. Nicholson YBH)
Subject: Re: defects in abstract games
Organization: NASA Ames Res. Ctr. Mtn Vw CA 94035
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 19:15:17 GMT

bob_cannard@mentorg.com writes:
>
>In article <1993Jan5.232906.9595@news.arc.nasa.gov>, nicholso@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Melvin H. Nicholson YBH) writes:
>|> Remember that rock-paper-scissors is more complex and challenging than
>|> both go and chess in it's own way, and has a "search tree" of three.
>
>Interesting statement, but I doubt that it's defensible.

>The complexity of R-P-S arises from psychology. In Go there are no perfect
>players, so it is necessary to adapt strategy according to the understanding
>of the other guy's personality and perceived technique.  For example, I'm
>less inclined to make risky moves against someone who I believe has a
>strong understanding of tesuji. Given the much greater range of effects
>that psychology can bring into the game, how is R-P-S more complex or
>challenging? I'm sure Chess players can make a similar case for their game.

No.  My statement is quite defensible.  The false warrant you use is
that the psychology involved in chess or go is equatable with the
psychology involved in RPS.  Given that my statement was qualified to
limit scope to "it's own way" I can choose *any* means of evaluating
the complexity issues, or *any* definition of challenging which puts
RPS ahead of the other two.  You next statement will help my derive
my final point out of this.

>|> Trying to justify game preference logically is a futile proposal, and we
>|> can do without the psuedo-logic that comes from the attempt.
>
>Within limits. Would you argue with the claim that Chess is objectively
>better than 3x3 tic-tac-toe because the latter is well within (adult)
>human capability for complete analysis, with no room for psychology?

No.  Consider the phrase "objectively better", as my whole argument is
that this is a meaningless phrase.  "Better" implies a set of values,
which are nescessarily individual, while "obejctively" limits to things
which are not individual.  I state categorically that such a system of
universal values which transends point of view does not and can not
exist.  What is "better" depends on what you want.

Mel
From: bruno@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Bruno Wolff III)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: defects in abstract games
Date: 7 Jan 1993 00:13:14 GMT
Organization: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Computing Services Division
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.89.7.46
Summary: Rock Paper Scissors vs Go
Originator: bruno@cerberus.csd.uwm.edu

From article <1993Jan6.174837.15285@midway.uchicago.edu>, by kwhyte@arthur.uchicago.edu (Kevin Whyte):
] In article <1993Jan6.085328.28673@risky.ecs.umass.edu> trodrigu@spock.ecs.umass.edu (Tao R or Stephen L) writes:
]
]   This is definitely not true.  The games which can be reduced to Nim
] (Sprouts can't, and hasn't been solved ... another good game, but the
] three lives per vertex is too arbitrary to call it perfect.) are exactly
] those where 1) The game always terminates, even it the players don't
]                alternate moves.
]             2) From every position both players have exactly the same
]                legal moves, and exactly the same winning podsitions,
]                etc.  This is not true for games like Hex, Twixt, Traxx,
]                or Go, since which color you are makes a difference.
] 
Sprouts does statisfy the conditions for reducing to Nim. However that isn't
a lot of help since sprouts positions tend to get more complicated rather
than splitting into subgames which would make the nim analysis useful.

From vn Wed Jan  6 18:10:27 1993
Subject: Re: defects in abstract games
Reply-To: bruno@cerberus.csd.uwm.edu
Newsgroups: 

From article <1993Jan06.161958.12730@news.mentorg.com>, by bcannard@hppcb36.mentorg.com (The Human Mi-Go):
] 
] In article <1993Jan5.232906.9595@news.arc.nasa.gov>, nicholso@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Melvin H. Nicholson YBH) writes:
] |> Remember that rock-paper-scissors is more complex and challenging than
] |> both go and chess in it's own way, and has a "search tree" of three.
] 
] Interesting statement, but I doubt that it's defensible.
] 
] The complexity of R-P-S arises from psychology. In Go there are no perfect
] players, so it is necessary to adapt strategy according to the understanding
] of the other guy's personality and perceived technique.  For example, I'm
] less inclined to make risky moves against someone who I believe has a
] strong understanding of tesuji. Given the much greater range of effects
] that psychology can bring into the game, how is R-P-S more complex or
] challenging? I'm sure Chess players can make a similar case for their game.
] 
In practice RPS is less complex than chess or go because it is easy to find
a strategy which guarentees doing as well as your opponent on average.
However in a sense it is a more complicated game because there is hidden
information. In chess and go "all" you have to do is look at the game trees
to figure out what you should do for perfect play. That won't work with RPS
since each "pure" strategy can be countered by a better "pure" strategy.
You need to use a "mixed" strategy to guarentee that you will break even on
average. This is a quality missing from perfect information games, like chess
and go.
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: defects in abstract games
From: wft@math.canterbury.ac.nz (Bill Taylor)
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 02:44:09 GMT
Organization: Department of Mathematics, University of Canterbury

In article <1993Jan06.161958.12730@news.mentorg.com>, bcannard@hppcb36.mentorg.com (The Human Mi-Go) writes:
|> 
|> Within limits. Would you argue with the claim that Chess is objectively
|> better than 3x3 tic-tac-toe because the latter is well within (adult)
|> human capability for complete analysis, with no room for psychology?

This is a common mistake, that tic-tac-toe has no room for psychology, merely
because a perfect strategy is thoroughly known by many players.

There is still the question of *which* (of several draw-forcing moves) to play;
the "enough-rope" principle (a J.H.Conway coinage) is useful here, but probably
not the end of the story.

Even more controversially, it may be good to deliberately play a theoretically
losing move.  This will be no surprise to players of complex games, but is 
a tenable position even at tic-tac-toe. For instance; if, in the midst of a
series of games (all drawn so far) with a player who seems to know the basic
forced-draw ideas, but hasn't struck you as a terribly alert or really 
knowledgeable player, it may occur that he starts on the side.....
              
  O |   |   ..then you might try this move as your first move as O, (2nd player).
 ----------
    |   |     Although it is a losing play, it has the property that of its 7
 ----------   essentially different replies, *only one* forces the win by X, 
    | X |     and *four* allow a win by O.  So if the opponent is unlikely to
              be familiar with the position, (I bet this applies to most readers!)
and unlikely to be interested in mentally working through every possibility,
then you may just score a win, and thus win the series !

(Incidentally, at least 2 of the 4 X-replies are not instantly obviously losing!)

Naturally there is an element of risk !!  

But there is clearly room for non-trivial psychology in tic-tac-toe. The move
by O in the position above could well be called a genuine "sacrifice", to use
a common chess term.  
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
              Bill Taylor              wft@math.canterbury.ac.nz
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                  Sweeping generalizations are always wrong.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 13:51:44 EST
From: jason@stimpy.hq.ileaf.com (Jason Anniballi)
To: xtank@eng.umd.edu
Subject: Compiling xtank on sun4os5?
X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII
Content-Length: 387

I'm having all kinds of problems compiling xtank on a sun4 with the
solaris os and sun's compiler. I finally hacked everything up enough to
get it to link, but xtank dies rather quickly when executed.

Have any other efforts been made to get xtank to work under solaris?

Running a version compiled under the old sun OS works, but dumps core
when I quit.

Any info appreciated,
 -Jason

Xref: sparky rec.games.xtank.programmer:667 alt.sys.intergraph:337
From: bmu@sbfdk.sbf.dk (Boerge Mueller)
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer,alt.sys.intergraph
Subject: Re: compiling xtank under CLIX (GAMES)
Keywords: xwindows SVR3 CLIX intergraph
Date: 4 Jan 93 07:57:27 GMT
Organization: Great Belt ltd. Denmark

Is there by any chance, a way that we could distrbute GAMES for CLIX/environ-V
and/or CLIX/X-window.

Maybe someone already have collected some games, if so, please step forward.

See you

-- 
From:
Boerge Mueller  (Project manager CAD & Technical information systems)
Great Belt Ltd.                    |--------------------------------|
Phone  : +45 3393 5200 x 222       | I don't know what the          |
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer,alt.sys.intergraph
From: dave@hoser.b11.ingr.com (Dave Anderson)
Subject: Re: compiling xtank under CLIX
Keywords: xwindows SVR3 CLIX intergraph
Organization: Intergraph Corp. Huntsville, AL
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 22:17:04 GMT

In article <ken.726247249@point>, ken@point.b17d.ingr.com (Ken Poore) writes:
|> ken@cs.UAlberta.CA (Huisman Kenneth M) writes:
|> 
|> >lidl@rodan.UU.NET (Kurt J. Lidl) writes:
|> 
|> >>In article <1992Dec31.042451.5442@cs.UAlberta.CA> ken@cs.UAlberta.CA (Huisman Kenneth M) writes:
|> >>>I'm trying to port xtank to CLIX - intergraph's SVR3(?) unix, running on an
|> >>>intergraph 2400 series machine.  Anyways, I've got it to compile, but it
|> >>>will not run properly.

>It seems to run slowly however.  I turned on that feature that is supposed
>to limit the number of frames used in explosions, but it didn't seem to help.
>The game is almost unplayable, especially when two people are fighting it
>goes really slow.  I'm sure part of this is the network, but I've run it
>on other slower sun3 machines and had it perform *much* better even under
>similar network conditions.

Since you are on a 2400 I would use the -Atarg=c400 option to generate native
c400 code.  By default, the Clipper compilers generate c100 code.  Some c100
instructions are emulated for the c400 thus reducing speed.  I would also 
suggest that you use optimization level -O3 to speed up execution.  

Finally I would recommend that the fast math library be used rather than the standard math library .

The command line would then look something like:

$ acc -c -O3 -Atarg=c400 -D__cpu_c400__ file.c

and to link

$ acc -o xtank main.o .... -lmath

Or add the appropriate flags to your makefile.

Hope this helps!

+-------------------------+               +---------------------------+
+                         +Brought to you +                           +
+    David Anderson       +     by,       + Tel. (205)730-5619        +
+ System Software Support + KludgeWare-   + FAX  (205)730-6011        +
+   Intergraph Corp.      +  Solutions    + dave@hoser.b11.ingr.com   +
+ Huntsville, AL 35894    +  for the      + uunet!ingr!b11!hoser!dave +
+                         + time being    +                           +
+-------------------------+               +---------------------------+


-dave

+-------------------------+                      +---------------------------+
+                         + For whosoever shall  +                           +
+    David Anderson       + call upon the name   + Tel. (205)730-5619        +
+ System Software Support + of the Lord shall    + FAX  (205)730-6011        +
+   Intergraph Corp.      + be saved. Rom 10:13  + dave@hoser.b11.ingr.com   +
+ Huntsville, AL 35894    +                      + uunet!ingr!b11!hoser!dave +
+                         +    Why Wait?         +                           +
+-------------------------+                      +---------------------------+





Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
From: hevans@estwm0.wm.estec.esa.nl (Hugh D.R. Evans (ESA/ESTEC/WMA Netherlands))
Subject: Xtank on VMS?
Reply-To: hevans@estcs1.dnet.estec.esa.nl
Organization: European Space Research and Technology Centre
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 13:15:32 GMT


Subject says it all.  Has anyone done it, or is it just too difficult?

Hugh.