Musketeer Chess Variant pieces available at HouseofStaunton

[hgm]

I don't know what to think about the Spider and Fortress evaluation, i think that they are much overestimated. They are super pieces when there are many pieces and they loose strength when pieces are exchanged. In the endings they are probably less effective than a Rook. This makes their value range between 450 and 750.

450 is way too low. My estimates would be 800 for Fortress and 900 for Spider.

[musketeerchess]

Hi
I agree with you.

Some new photos of the pieces (Leopard Cannon Hawk Elephant Chancellor Archbishop) with Classic Chess pieces.

http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=58708


commercial Links to buy combos of Musketeer Kits with an excellent Plastic Triple weighted Classic Chess set:

Archbishop and Chancellor with a variety of Triple Weighted Plastic Chess Set
http://www.houseofstaunton.com/catalog/ ... ic-pieces/

Leopard & Cannon with a variety of Triple Weighted Plastic Chess Set
http://www.houseofstaunton.com/catalog/ ... ic-pieces/

Hawk & Elephant with a variety of Triple Weighted Plastic Chess Set
http://www.houseofstaunton.com/catalog/ ... ic-pieces/

[Evert]

Release candidate 1 of SjaakII 1.2 is now available, and it includes a definition for Musketeer Chess (and you can easily change the configuration for a different piece set in the configuration file). It uses Seirawan gating rules. Beware though that SjaakII is not particularly strong...

[musketeerchess]

Hi
Thank you very much.

I'll try it asap

[Evert]

There are a few bugs in the definition for musketeer chess that comes with SjaakII 1.2RC1. Replace it with the following (which will be in 1.2):

Code: Select all

################
# Musketeerish #
################
Variant: Musketeer
Board: 8x8
FEN: "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR[EAMCHDULeamchdul] w KGFDCBQkgfdcbq -"
XBoard pieces: "PNBRQ.EAM..CLF.S.HD.UKpnbrqfeam..cl....hdsuk"
FEN: "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR[CLcl] w KGFDCBQkgfdcbq -"
XBoard pieces: "PNBRQ......CL........Kpnbrq......cl........k"
XBoard parent: "seirawan"

Zone: rank8 = a8,b8,c8,d8,e8,f8,g8,h8
Zone: rank7 = a7,b7,c7,d7,e7,f7,g7,h7
Zone: rank2 = a2,b2,c2,d2,e2,f2,g2,h2
Zone: rank1 = a1,b1,c1,d1,e1,f1,g1,h1

# Define the pieces
Piece: Knight
Move: leap (2,1)
Symbol: "N", "N,n"
Value: 320

Piece: Bishop
Move: slide (D,A)
Symbol: "B", "B,b"
Value: 325

Piece: Rook
Move: slide (H,V)
Symbol: "R", "R,r"
Value: 500

Piece: Queen
Move: slide (D,A,H,V)
Symbol: "Q", "Q,q"
Value: 950

Piece: Dragon
Move: slide (D,A,H,V)
Move: leap (2,1)
Symbol: "D", "D,d"
Value: 1200

Piece: Chancellor
Move: slide (H,V)
Move: leap (2,1)
Symbol: "M", "M,m"
Value: 875

Piece: Archbishop
Move: slide (A,D)
Move: leap (2,1)
Symbol: "A", "A,a"
Value: 825

Piece: Elephant
Move: leap (2,0)|(2,2)|(1,1)|(1,0)
Symbol: "E", "E,e"
Value: 500

Piece: Hawk
Move: leap (2,0)|(2,2)|(3,3)|(3,0)
Symbol: "H", "H,h"
Value: 300

Piece: Leopard
Move: leap (2,1)
Move: step 2NE,2NW,2SE,2SW
Symbol: "L", "L,l"
Value: 500

Piece: Cannon
Move: aleap (2,0)|(-2,0)|(0,2)|(0,-2)|(1,0)|(-1,0)|(0,1)|(0,-1)|(1,1)|(1,-1)|(-1,1)|(-1,-1)|(2,1)|(2,-1)|(-2,1)|(-2,-1)
Symbol: "C", "C,c"
Value: 500

Piece: Unicorn
Move: leap (2,1)|(3,1)
Symbol: "U", "U,u"
Value: 300

Piece: Fortress
Move: aleap (1,2)|(-1,2)|(1,-2)|(-1,-2)|(2,0)|(-2,0)|(0,2)|(0,-2)
Move: step 3NE,3NW,3SE,3SW
Symbol: "F", "F,f"
Value: 700

Piece: Spider
Move: leap (1,2)|(0,2)
Move: step 2NE,2NW,2SE,2SW
Symbol: "S", "S,s"
Value: 800

Piece: King
Move: leap (0,1)|(1,1)
Symbol: "K", "K,k"
Flags: royal
Castle: white e1-g1 with h1
Castle: white e1-c1 with a1
Castle: black e8-g8 with h8
Castle: black e8-c8 with a8

Piece: Pawn
Move: step N
Capture: step NE,NW
Special: rank2, rank7, step 2N
Symbol: " ", "P,p"
Flags: set_ep,take_ep
Promotion: rank8, rank1, "CLQRBN"
Value: 100

Rule: checkmate = win
Rule: stalemate = draw
Rule: repeat3 = draw
Rule: gate drops

[musketeerchess]

Hi
Unicorn and Hawk piece values should be more than 300 (even the knight is 325). I suggest you put them to 420. In fact the additional attacking abilities for these pieces improves their value with almost 1-1.5 pawns at least. They are probably stronger in the opening and middle game where many pieces remain on the board and become probably weaker the more pieces are traded.

Spider is probably worth 570, stronger than the rook in the middle game and probably slightly weaker in the ending.

Fortress 660.

Leopard and Cannon probably worth 480 (slightly weaker than the rook) but slightly stronger in the opening and middle game.

The Dragon is a monster, it's stronger than the mathematical addition of Queen and Knight values and i suggest it has a value of 14000. The Dragon becomes more and more powerful in the middle game and the more pieces are traded.

Can you make your engine play against it self with these changes? One version includes your standard values and the other with my evaluation of the pieces.

By the way can you post here a link to download your engine (with the default settings and my settings) and a clear procedure on how to implement it on winboard sothat the engine autoplays with the different settings?

[Evert]

Hi
Unicorn and Hawk piece values should be more than 300 (even the knight is 325). I suggest you put them to 420. In fact the additional attacking abilities for these pieces improves their value with almost 1-1.5 pawns at least. They are probably stronger in the opening and middle game where many pieces remain on the board and become probably weaker the more pieces are traded.

Correct, I didn't look at their moves but just at the estimate that SjaakII makes if no piece value is specified. This doesn't measure the more distant moves and so it underestimates the value.

Spider is probably worth 570, stronger than the rook in the middle game and probably slightly weaker in the ending.

I suspect it's much stronger than that (the leaper moves alone should put it in that ballpark), but I haven't measured it.

Fortress 660.

I doubt my estimates here are accurate to 40cp, so it could well be.
Note though that if they're within 100cp or so of their correct value the engine will already avoid bad trades.

Leopard and Cannon probably worth 480 (slightly weaker than the rook) but slightly stronger in the opening and middle game.

Possibly. Note that none of the piece values (in any of the variants!) are "tuned": they're all rough estimates.

The Dragon is a monster, it's stronger than the mathematical addition of Queen and Knight values and i suggest it has a value of 14000. The Dragon becomes more and more powerful in the middle game and the more pieces are traded.

The Dragon is more generally known as the Amazon; I think it's value is actually fairly reliable at 1200.

Can you make your engine play against it self with these changes? One version includes your standard values and the other with my evaluation of the pieces.

Well, I could - but I don't really have the time.

I can tell you how to do it yourself though. Note that I'm guessing a bit with the menu commands in X/WinBoard (I normally run things through a script that passes command-line options).

1. Make sure you have two copies of the definition for Musketeer Chess in different files (say "musketeer1.txt" and "musketeer2.txt")
2. Adjust the piece values in one of the two files
3. In X/WinBoard, go to Engine->Load new 1st engine...
4. Point the "Engine Directory" to the directory containing the "musketeer1.txt" file.
5. Point the "Engine Command" to the engine. Add the name of the variant definition file (musketeer1.txt) to have it loaded automatically.
6. Give the engine an identifiable nickname.
7. Repeat steps 4-6 for "musketeer2.txt"
8. Load the two engines from the list to play against eachother.

By the way can you post here a link to download your engine (with the default settings and my settings) and a clear procedure on how to implement it on winboard sothat the engine autoplays with the different settings?

Sure, the download link is here: http://www.eglebbk.dds.nl/program/chess-download.html
Let me know if the above step-by-step is clear enough or not, I'm happy to elaborate where needed (and where I'm able, I'm not so familiar with Windows).

[musketeerchess]

Hi
Instructions are clear enough. Thanks

[hgm]

Can you make your engine play against it self with these changes? One version includes your standard values and the other with my evaluation of the pieces.

Note that this is a very inefficient way to optimize piece values, which might take a million games or more to get anywhere near.

Much better is to start games from setup positions that contain a material balance, like Spider vs Rook + Knight in the presence of the full FIDE set (so opening positions). Then you just need a few hundred games to see wich (combination of) pieces have the upper hand, and the score advantage they produce can be converted to Pawn units by measuring how much score an extra Pawn for one side brings in.

[Nordlandia]

Does the value of the pawn enhance slightly due to new promote options?