Anyone able to read Thai?

[Evert]

I was trying to find some information about strategy/relevant evaluation for Thai Chess (Makruk), but just about the only information I was able to find in English is a handful of websites that discuss the rules, a quote by Kramnik that it's a more strategic game than Western Chess, and Tim Krabbé's notes on the game, none of which are particularly useful.

So I decided to try and find out if there was anything useful in Thai, with the help of Google Translate (the relevant search term, thanks to Wikipedia, is "หมากรุก"). So I ended up at http://translate.googleusercontent.com/ ... RaiUNbUeMA, which seems reasonably useful, but part of the content is in videos (which I can't watch because they require flash) and behind a pay-wall anyway. Google translate is somewhat suboptimal (ahem), since the page I linked to above seems to be about pawn structure, but is titled "the next great sex" and starts off with some gibberish about horizontal lesbian couples and continues further down with trying to get it on with multiple partners (from the diagrams it seems to be about a d4/e4 pawn centre). There are some other priceless gems on there as well, if you're feeling bored.

Anyway, I was wondering if there might not be someone here who would be able to do a better job than Google on some of this?

[Evert]

With the help of putting individual words into Google Translate I was able to make some more sense of what this is trying to say.

When the google text talks about a "base" it actually refers to the Bishop-replacement pieces (either called bishop/elephant/noble man/mask/silver general in other places).

A "premium", as is clear from the context, is a pawn (or "cowrie shell") and a "face premium" is an overturned (ie, promoted) pawn. A "tied premium" refers to a rammed defended pawn (ie, a pawn ram with a backward pawn on the file beside it).

References to "eating" are with respect to capturing, as might be expected. The "feed" refers to the capture victim. "Unfortunately fattening" seems to refer to immobile pieces (that have no safe places to move", but this isn't as clear.

References to "seed" or "grain" refer to the Queen, which is expected.

A "couple" is just that: a pair of identical pieces.

It seems that at least some of the gibberish about sex refers to the two players of the game, but I haven't figured that out completely.

Anyway, the main chess-related point to take away from the link I posted before is that concepts like "pawn majority", "isolated pawns", "pawn chains", "blocked pawns" and "doubled pawns" seem to be equally relevant in Makruk as they are in Western Chess. This isn't immediately obvious because of the lack of long-range pieces, and the relative weakness of promoted pawns.

Any further insight is still appreciated, but I'll just leave the following gem here for your amusement either way:

Unfortunately
Means that the feed can not walk. Means that the feed can not walk. And no other piece walk by. It is always a chess board. Whether there is a shortage of advantage, however. But if there are so many pieces to walk. I have to move to another And opponents May move to Brooklyn in the absence of fattening them for this. And is not always win

Points will rain

[stegemma]

[...]

...And opponents May move to Brooklyn...

Really, this is the best!

[Evert]

[...]

...And opponents May move to Brooklyn...

Really, this is the best!

Well, the "Hot Lesbian try to get in the middle of the game." at http://translate.google.nl/translate?hl ... rev=search is pretty funny too (it seems to refer to a pawn that is pushed too far into the enemy camp, so it becomes a weakness).

I found some more useful links, namely the one above and https://translate.googleusercontent.com ... y9pM1sirCA which seems to have mostly the same content as the first resource I found, but with some extra bits. It has pointers on piece placement and relative piece values (err... at least I think that's what it's about). If I can make some sense of this I'll try to write it up for anyone else with an interest.

By the way, a "two sex assault" is apparently the KFFK (KMMK) ending (which is a general draw).

On a slightly different question - is anyone familiar with translation tools that are somewhat less colourful in their translation than Google?

[Evert]

By the way, any progress on your Makruk experiment?

[stegemma]

By the way, any progress on your Makruk experiment?

I'm debugging alfabeta for now then i want to come back working to Makruk perft, that is not perfect at all. I'm busy for business applications that i need... to pay my new Intel i7 desktop, so chess software should wait a little.

I plan to complete the "dual-modal" satana engine this may month.

For the translation of the web sources, maybe it would be easiest to pay 20$ someone on freelancer . I would suggest you to change the word "sex" with "gender", to minimize strange phrases effect.

[hgm]

Well, what would you expect for a game where one strives to mate a King with multiple Queens?

[Evert]

By the way, any progress on your Makruk experiment?

I'm debugging alfabeta for now then i want to come back working to Makruk perft, that is not perfect at all. I'm busy for business applications that i need... to pay my new Intel i7 desktop, so chess software should wait a little.

I plan to complete the "dual-modal" satana engine this may month.

Cool, should be interesting.

For the translation of the web sources, maybe it would be easiest to pay 20$ someone on freelancer .

Hmm... I'll have to keep that in mind; unfortunately I can't really afford to sink money into this at the moment. Fortunately, however, Teerapong Tovarit has kindly offered to look at the pages I found and translate some of it. I'll be happy to share those if he thinks that's ok.

I would suggest you to change the word "sex" with "gender", to minimize strange phrases effect.

Honestly, content-wise that seems like the least of it, but it makes browsing those pages not so appropriate in situations where someone might look over your shoulder...

[Evert]

Well, what would you expect for a game where one strives to mate a King with multiple Queens?

I guess Google uses some context pointers to decide on the correct translation of different words and phrases. How it decides context I don't know, but I guess it relies on user feedback (in terms of offering better translations). Clearly no one ever uses google translate to look for information about chess on Thai websites!

[stegemma]

[...]Honestly, content-wise that seems like the least of it, but it makes browsing those pages not so appropriate in situations where someone might look over your shoulder...

That's nothing, if you think that you're talking with the... creator of Satana!