Talk:Chess/Archive 1

message: The chess-related pages all seem to be well-written and well-researched (knowing little more than the basics of the game, I guess I cannot really judge). What I found striking though is that at the beginning of the chess article it is not mentioned what the goal is, i e who the winner is. Could you add this for the benefit of those who read this article because they don't already know the game (shouldn't be a surprise considering this is an encyclopaedia)?  --KF 12:57, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Should we make articles more accessible to non-chess players?

message: Opening Moves / White - Black
White
Fantastic article on Chess, esp. the beginning about the # of possible moves, exactly what I was looking for when i entered it in :).
Perhaps the next logical step is to do the opening moves, and it is quite easy to do white:
2*8 possible pawn moves (each of the 8 being moved either 1 or 2 steps) +
2*2 possible knight moves (each knight forking left or right) =
20 possible opening moves for white.
I know many of their names, and I have a few chess webpages bookmarked as well.
Does anyone know how to tackel black's opening moves?  Usually they are in response to white's move so its a little more complex.  I'll draw up a list of white moves and then we can go from there. --ShaunMacPherson 05:05, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Opening Move count

message: I have just made a few changes to the chess entry and when I get done picking my jaw up off the floor I'll finish typing this...
`
 \
  *
Okay I'm ready now.
I find it very alarming that no mention was made in the overview that each player has 16 of the pieces for his own, only that there were 32 pieces. Would communists assume each player "owns" half the pieces? Yes, nitpicking, that's what we do here, we pick nits. Also no mention is made that the pieces are differentiated (usually by color though not always) and the squares on the board are also differentiated. There are many pictures, but what about the blind? Let me know if I'm too aggressive hunting nits here. To put it bluntly, that overview sucks a$$...
Scrolling down, however, we find over one hundred links to chess history, chess literature, chess moves, chess games, chess people, chess places, chess everything and this *BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP* lousy overview.
I think the priorities of people around here are SERIOUSLY out of whack. - Plautus satire 14:54, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I see one of my shadows has come along and "fixed" my edition less than seven minutes after I made it. Thanks for watchdogging me, Raul654! - Plautus satire 14:57, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I edited this article 2 weeks ago, and it is still on my watchlist. But I think you have enough people keeping a close eye on you already. →Raul654 14:59, Feb 25, 2004 (UTC)
Any excuse will do, Raul654. (I do find it interesting that you were the first one to quibble in that intervening seven minutes. - Plautus satire 15:03, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

text: Hi Plautus, I don't think we've met before. A quick tip - if you have a problem with an article, even if you think it so bad that it makes you angry, please don't get rude and aggressive (like using caps in summary comments, feigning swearing), just calmly lay out what you think is wrong with the article, and what might be done to improve it. Then people will read the suggestions and a consensus will be formed. People don't mind being told that an article they have contributed to isn't perfect, but they can't help get a bit defensive when they get really lambasted, after all they are only human. Thanks. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:05, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: That's very good advice, Pcb21. I am calm, however, thank you for your concern. I was attempting thematically to illustrate the hypothetical frustration some people might experience while contributing to wikipedia. I did not mean to trick anybody into thinking I was boiling hot mad, and I apologize if I took this joke so far that it became offensive, as that was not my intent. Thanks again for your constructive comments. - Plautus satire 15:12, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops, sorry, I got completely the wrong end of the stick! Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:37, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Priorities Really Far Out Of Whack

message: I would like to see a defense of the use of the word "luck" in this entry on chess. I feel the word "luck" has a meaning that is so arbitrary that it is useless in an encyclopedia except in the entries directly related to describing the phenomena itself. Luck is not quantifiable or really qualifiable in any objective sense, so it should not be used as an accurate qualifier or quantifier in any context where accuracy is important. - Plautus satire 15:02, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Wouldn't "chance" be a better word than "luck" for that particular sentence? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:06, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried "determination," since that seemed most applicable for games. What is "luck" used to do? Determine. Winner, loser, whatever. Apparently this word "determination" was deemed "POV" or "non factual" or "better elsewhere" or maybe, perhaps, it's just my fringe conspiracy theory about chess. - Plautus satire 15:14, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

text: No explanation was offered for why "luck" was reinserted preferentially to "determination", so I can only speculate, as I am unable to read anything in Raul654's mind. - Plautus satire 15:16, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: "Game of chance" has a more familar ring to it than "Game of luck" or "Game of determination", so I'll change it to that word to make the article that bit clearer. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:37, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your help in reaching this compromise, Pcb21. I for one have no objections to "chance," as it seems at least on the surface to be quantifiable and qualifiable (likelihood and confidence). - Plautus satire 15:44, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Defense of Luck in the Entries

message: I see that the empty link for the Thai national variant of chess has been changed from an empty link to Makruk into an active link to an existing article on Mak-yek.  Something is wrong here.  If we compare the rules of Makruk as given here http://www.ishipress.com/makrook.htm it seems clear that either one of the articles is wrong, or they aren't the same game.  My hunch is that Mak-yek is too far removed from chess to be considered a lineal descendant like Makruk and Shogi and Xiangqi, just like Go-moku is not really a variant of Go, but I don't know enough to be sure.  Can anyone help?  Thanks, --Fritzlein 23:35, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thai chess 

message: The article mentions without references that there can be as many as 218 possible moves. Any comments on this ?
/Martin
The number of legal positions in chess is very large and computers didn't solve chess so I think that 218 is not the maximum number of possible moves in chess from a position.
Luming
Typically an average position has thirty to forty possible moves, but there may be as few as zero (in the case of checkmate or stalemate) or as many as 218.
At any one point in time, there are a maximum of 218 single moves from that position.  If you look 10 moves ahead there are way more (assume 40 moves per position, that would mean 40^20 (~10^32) choices for the next 10 moves) but at each position, there is (apparently, although I have no proof of the exact number) a maximum of 218 moves.  Think about how much each piece could move if it were placed in one of the four centre squares (K=8, Q=27, R=14, B=13, N=8) or on the second row (P=2) which means (counting both sides) 2(8+27+2(14)+2(13)+2(8)+8(2)) = 242 is the maximum number of moves, if none of the pieces could be blocked.  So 218 sounds about right (if you include both sides) but it's mathematically too much for one side alone (which is what is implied by the stalemate comment as both sides can't be in stalemate at once).  Anyone know if 109 is the one-sided number (I'd guess not as symmetry doesn't have to be conserved)?  Telso 02:59, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: See this web page. Actually 218 is the best found so far and it is for one side (you forgot that pawns could get promoted to other pieces). However the page does not say that 218 is a known maximum - just that it hasn't been improved upon in 40 years. Thus Luming may well be right. Pcb21| Pete 10:58, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Up to 218 possible moves 

message: A link in article was recently add:
*WikiTeX chess supports editing chess games directly in Wiki articles.
Any idea how could this be integrated into Wikipedia? --andrejj 17:01, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I would love to use this in articles such as Fork (chess).  What we have there is already an editable chess diagram, but the table is large and the image size is large, so I'm ready for a LaTeX replacement.  The trouble is, I can't figure out how to use it.  I cut and pasted the sample text verbatim, and when I preview the article I don't get a diagram, I just get the text back again.  Is there a special trick to using this template?  TIA --Fritzlein 20:04, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiTeX and Chess 

message: This article now has some sections duplicated twice.  --BadSanta
:Duplicated twice... Quadruplicated? --ZeroOne 20:55, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Cleanup done.  I had to remove some information from the page; see User:Samboy/Chess zapped to see what I removed from the Chess page.  Samboy 02:23, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Huge Mess Alert