Talk:Gothic chess/Archive1

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Image for Gothic Chess

Ed Trice, the inventor of Gothic Chess, sent me the following picture (at right) and agreed to license it under GFDL in Wikipedia. Should we use it instead of what we have now? Andreas Kaufmann

No, I don't see the point of that. It's better to have similar graphics in both of the images so that the starting positions are easy to compare. --ZeroOne 13:30, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Ok, this was valid point when Gothic Chess was described inside Capablamca Chess article. However as now it is a separate article, I think a new picture is slightly better - the pieces are larger and the same diagramms are used in another articles on Gothic Chess. Andreas Kaufmann 15:49, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I think Ed's picture is better and reflects that this is, to some degree, Ed's invention and game more. Samboy 01:40, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

(ChessV image removed at author's request)

Gothic Chess. GC in an older version of Gothic Vortex.
Gothic Chess. GC in an older version of Gothic Vortex.

a beautiful variant

Gothic Chess in my humble opinion is better than Chess 8x8 which I have played for 20 years with huge fun.

I have somehow forgotten the old Chess 64. Today I am now only interested in chess engines which are able to play Gothic Chess, the king of games for me.

I must admit I like the new game of Chess very much.

It´s another kind of chess with a (by feeling ) more infinite strategic vision, pieces´ teamwork (they have hardly to calculate values which can vary a lot), it leads to tactically difficult, open, aggressive and mobile matches, often with material sacrifices, and it is more balanced than earlier Capablanca startup settings and the whole pawn structue is better defended at the eaarly start. White and Black win rather exactly 50% of the points and you are bounced to act. There is no comparism, for me, personally, it´s more fun, more adventure. My ELO in Gothic Chess is 2050, in classic chess 1550, that´s fun, too. Against all kinds of opponents and under all circumstances.

If you wanna spread your horizon then the old 8x8 chess with its 10^128 possible games still cannot fill the void because it´s somehow always the same, too much book wisdom, too much thinking in shematas. To much staring on just one desisive move, not any action which I still would call so !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_Chess describes Gothic Chess on wikipedia.org, ChessV is also describd on wikipedia and it is free, a cool program for many variants. Use Birds chess and save the first five moves to get Gothic Chess with it. Smirf is another engine and Gothic Vortex, an 80 bit engine, the winner of the Computer World Championship, is the strongest engine for Gothic Chess, there are some more.

Strangely, Gothic Chess (indeed a grat invention but for me not a big one) is patented in he US. But there are many ways to play it even for free and the products of the Gothic Chess federation are truly affordable. The inventor is the best player.

brainking.com is a server to play against human beings for free or with a small yearly donation like he most users use it.

Just a little off topic remark about chess engines to let you know where I have gone to. ;-) I still play

"US patent grants are effective only within the US, US territories, and US possessions." - source IP Watchdog | Patent Law--BadSanta

copyrightability

is the simple idea of combining "rook+knight", "bishop+knight" and using a 10x8 board copyrighteable? I mean, "gothic chess", "archbishop+chancellor" may be trademarkable as names, but I find it unlikely that the simple rule extensions can be intellectual property; after all, there are lots of chess variants, and you could just patent a couple of dozen by mechanically combining piece capabilities. therefore, the insinuation that you can only 'legally' play 'gothic chess' on authorized engine seems a bit fishy to me. 130.60.142.65 14:07, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

The pieces "rook+knight" and "bishop+knight" are known since 17th century (Carrera chess), the names "chancellor" and "archbishop" respectively were given to them by Capablanca (see Capablanca chess). What is new in Gothic chess is a starting position, which is protected by USA patent. There are a lot of such starting positions on 10x8 board (more then 100.000), this is why it can be patented. I think the name "Gothic chess" is a trademark by Ed Trice as well. Andreas Kaufmann 15:24, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
To be pedantic, there are 252,000 different opening positions if the bishops are on opposite colors. So, yes, Gothic Chess is, IMHO, unique enough to be patentable. Samboy 23:42, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Answering "copyrightability"

GothicEnthusiast 00:27, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

The concept of the Chancellor and the Archbishop are not "copyrighted", so the entire question above, as it is asked, in no way applies to Gothic Chess, nor any other chess variant for that matter. Ed Trice has never claimed to have copyrighted these pieces, nor are the pieces "patented", nor is the artwork or 3D composition of these pieces patented.

As I see it, the legal profession gets very little respect, as the average person feels they can comment extensively regarding almost any field of practice or specialty that involves law. After all, there are plenty of TV shows that center around the practice of law, and, by osmosis, anyone who watches TV should be automatically be given credits towards the law school of their own choosing.

That was humor in case you did not recognize it. Back to the matter at hand.

I find it interesting that nobody here would challenge Hasbro by making their own Monopoly game, yet these same people feel they can make their own Gothic Chess sets and sell them as Gothic Chess sets, write their own Gothic Chess programs, etc. and so forth. Monopoly is protected intellectual property, and those "knock-offs" that do exist were required to pay licensing fees to Hasbro, the business entity that also now owns Parker Brothers and Milton-Bradley.

Some would say, "But Gothic Chess is not all that unique, whereas Monopoly clearly is." To this I would say, "The United States Patent & Trademark Office disagrees with you." You see, Gothic Chess is not merely Capablanca's Chess with the pieces in "slightly different" starting arrangements. So many "strong defenders" of Capablanca's Chess overlook the fact that "all Capablanca did" was switch the location of Henry Bird's 1874 configuration slightly.

To create Capablanca's board from Bird's, interchange the positions of the Archbishop and Bishop on the queenside, and Chancellor and Bishop of the kingside.

Why then, are there no complaints about Capablanca having just modified Bird's board?

I have attended no less than a dozen presentations where Ed Trice has demonstrated to a lecture hall full of attendees how much work he put into creating Gothic Chess.

To all of the skeptics, I have two tasks for you.

1. Download this paper: http://www.GothicChess.com/80.pdf and actually read it.

2. Try and come up with your own 80-square variant that defends all of the pawns in the starting configuration while still permitting King's Indian formations with fianchettoed Bishops being possible, castling being a help and not a hinderance, that still retains much of the qualities of the standard 8x8 chess game.

To those who actually do both, post your variants here. Show them for others to judge. Show how easy it was for you to come up with the configuration. Listen to the game critique that follows. If your game has a hidden flaw, as deemed here, go back to the drawing board, and try again.

Then, perhaps, you will start to understand, it is very difficult to create a variant that has appeal to the masses that is also similar to chess and free from blemishes.

And from the posts I have seen, people think the patent is aimed at preventing a user from playing or enjoying the game.

This is not the case at all.

A patent exists to protect the time, effort, money, and manpower that was needed to create an invention. One way to look at it is to help a potential startup company recover its "R & D" costs before "vultures" realize it is a hot commodity that they can readily profit from under the direction of their own business entity.

Companies who want to promote and distribute patented products need to pay licensing fees. The most common form of fee comes in the form of royalties. Other fees require a startup or buy-in amount in place of, or addition to, the royalty.

That is basically the gist of it. The patent keeps an external company from mass marketing the game while the Gothic Chess Federation grows and builds its own client base. It is a part of our 3- and 5-year plans to increase our drop-ship orders, and engage in contracts with other producers of the game. We are not excluding companies, we are including those who can set aside the required capital and resources to build up this segment of their business.

I welcome all comments of a non-inflammatory nature.

Mysterious Typo

"This has functionally thwarted a rapid development of opening theory but many common tabias do occur in play."

The above is found in the "openings" section. "Tabias" is not a word in English. Does anyone know what the meaning of this sentence should have been? It needs to be corrected. --AceVentura


Re: Mysterious Typo

See this link:

http://austinfilmfestival.org/online/chess/3606.shtml

Look for the post by "stendhar" on 3/20/2006 03:04:42 and you will find:

"I think it has an Arab origin and it designates a position that makes the transition between the opening and the middle-game. The old satranj masters would used predefined and mutual agreed position to save time in the opening phase. They were symmetric and counted somewhere between 12-20 moves."

GothicEnthusiast 22:56, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Will SMIRF ever go away?

I saw that the SMIRF programmer was posting a link back to his own site, claiming to have a license for the play of Gothic Chess with his own engine. I would just like to say emphatically that Reinhard Scharnagl (or however you spell his name) is currently "persona non grata" in the eyes of the Gothic Chess Federation. He has been banned from the GothicChessLive.com site for ruining the 2005 Computer World Championship.

You can read all about what went on here:

http://z13.invisionfree.com/Gothic_Chess_Forum/index.php?showtopic=189

Sorry to butt in here, but I need to clarify something. I talked with Greg Strong, the creator of ChessV, and he assured me that, not only has he never had a disagreement with Reinhard Scharnagl, he, in no way, shape, or form, has authorized anyone to use ChessV to play Gothic Chess as it was played here. I do not know who has been using the ChessV program to play in the tournaments, but it was not Greg Strong. Just to clarify 15:20, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

He also takes the opportunity to spout forth meaningless conjecture at any given moment. See this link for example:

http://brainking.com/en/Board?bc=34&ngi=544714

I would like to ask the guardians of these pages to continue to patrol posts wherein the SMIRF operator claims to have some form of strategic alliance with either Ed Trice or the Gothic Chess Federation. We have merely asked for a public apology for his ludicrous behavior in order to be fully reinstated, yet he continues to ignore this simple request.

I also cannot fathom why he wants to "promote" his program as a Gothic Chess engine while stabbing this very successful organization in the back with his far-flung inuendo.

GothicEnthusiast 21:23, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I am the one who innocently placed the link to SMIRF based upon a false impression given by a field existing for a license key to play Gothic Chess. I apologize. I now understand and respect the reason for its removal. I promise NOT to reinstate this link which has become inappropriate. --AceVentura

Scharnagl 28 June 2006:

I wonder, why the discussion on SMIRF's discontinuing a championship at Ed Trice's GC server inable to appropriatedly reestablish broken games has been restarted here. It has nothing to do with the definition of the Gothic Chess variant itself. Instead of "banning" a serious person I recommend him to patch his GC online program to become able to handle tournament games, even when been broken by whatsoever.

Moreover I have never claimed to own a lifetime license for GC, despite Ed Trice promised me something like that e.g. in his forum as he also did concerning matching written material. I never have received such announced material. SMIRF is showing its ability to play GC by providing a still unsupported license key field (some few beta testers excepted).

See: http://z13.invisionfree.com/Gothic_Chess_Forum/index.php?showtopic=23&st=105 at Sep 28 2005, 09:13 AM for: "As a gesture, I would like to offer to you and SMIRF a Gothic Chess license for SMIRF through 2019. I will send to you a document for you to sign and get back to me."

This has been long before Ed Trice's "banning" act, and may put some light on that all.

The "Reinhard" way

GothicEnthusiast 06:39, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Reinhard, you continue to post your nonsense to PUBLIC discussion boards, both in Germany in your nature language, and in English on other boards such as BrainKing. Yet, you NEVER answer my emails, you NEVER admitted any 'wrongdoing', and you CONSTANTLY blame everyone but yourself.

As for the GothicChessLive.com tournament, I will AGAIN say that everyone was having problems with the intermittent disconnections early on, myself included, yet all of the programmers were able to work through these issues, EXCEPT YOU. Zillions disconnected, that operator, from Greece, was able to log back in and replay the game. ChessV disconnected, and that operator was able to reconnect, and replay the game. I disconnected, and was able to replay the game. You were the only person FORCING DEMANDS that were UNREASONABLE. You were telling people to put LESS time on their clocks than they had when they disconnected, and you were MAKING WRONG MOVES for your own program when replaying the game after reconnecting! Yet, you still blame the site for YOUR problems.

Again, whoever the operator for ChessV was, it was not Greg Strong, and Greg Strong has not authorized the use of ChessV to play Gothic Chess. Just to clarify 15:24, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

As for the document I sent to you, twice, you DID NOT agree to the conditions, and YOU DID NOT sign it and return it to me, so the offer was subsequently RESCINDED.


End of discussion.


So, here we are again, you refuse to email me, and instead you elect to continue this "fight" in public. Well, guess what? Until you apologize for your behavior, YOU WILL NOT be granted any leverage at all. I don't care how much you post, you don't apologize, you don't exist as far as I am concerned.


You ruined the tournament, and you ruined the chances of getting sponsors, probably for many years. Recall the previous year $10,000 was offered with $0 in entrance fees, something that has never even happened in the chess world!


And, since your banning, we DID make an automatic reconnect feature, and we did put a "beep" after every move, so don't tell me we don't consider some of your suggestions. It's just you were DEMANDING these features to be added INSTANTLY, despite the fact that the reconnection algorithm is about 2100 lines of source code that was not easy to figure out.


AS I have said before, make a public APOLOGY on the Gothic Chess Discussion board, and we can talk. If you avoid it and want to wage your meaningless war, you will be continually denied the ability to sell Gothic Chess licenses with SMIRF.

Scharnagl 29 June 2006:

Well, a bonus point for you is, that people still are able to read the contrary postings on my decision to terminate participating that event. So they also could read my proposal how to solve that problem by establishing a missing modus operandi for such situations, which has been ignored, and which better had been prepared by the organizer in time. That time I have got the impression, that it has been more important to celebrate a "banning" than to solve that problem. The moment instead pressures have been threatened to me was the moment, the tournament lost sense for me.

But there are bad points, too. I abstain from citing unbelievable contributions. Why I am accused to reanimate that discussion? I am just reacting! Printed license matter never has reached me. Neither has it been honored, that I have respected the GC patent within SMIRF and discussions, despite of any need to behave like that here in Europe. Maybe it is an element of the US American culture to avoid compromises, in contemporary Europe it isn't.

And of course creative people mostly are not to be handled easily. This also seems to be true concerning myself. I hope for your Gothic Chess activities to have good success and to find a lot of tough opponent programs finally beaten by Vortex.


About the Fischer vs. Karpov Gothic Chess Match

GothicEnthusiast 18:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

As of December 16, 2006, the Fischer vs. Kaprov Gothic Chess match had not been cancelled. The most recent communication from Gardar Sverrisson, a close personal friend of Bobby Fischer's, was that the non-stop fight with the USB bank regarding the unauthorized transfer of $3,000,000+ of Fischer's was taking a "...great deal of time and energy..." Fischer also made the request to "observe" another match prior to the one he agreed to play with Karpov. See this hidden [1] link for the signed contract.