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Your Active Game Logs + Open Invitations

Listed below are your Game Courier logs plus open invitations. The open invitations were not directed specifically to you, but you are free to accept any of them while they last. To accept an invitation, whether open or personal, click on the link in the Next Move For column, fill out the form with your userid and password, and submit it.

Game	Log	Last Modified	Last Move by	Next Move for
Shosu Shogi	makov333-cvgameroom-2024-122-484	46' 38" ago	Vitya Makov	A. DeWitt
Pocket Shogi Copper	makov333-cvgameroom-2024-122-484	46' 54" ago	Vitya Makov	wdtr2
Seireigi	chessshogi-cvgameroom-2024-120-668	1 hour 24' ago	A. DeWitt	wdtr2
Timurid	timurthelenk-numerist-2024-116-475	2 hours 46' ago	Paul Rapoport	Jean-Louis Cazaux
Obento Chess	arx-timurthelenk-2024-103-854	2 hours 59' ago	Jean-Louis Cazaux	Daniel Zacharias
Grant Acedrex	makov333-cvgameroom-2024-134-485	3 hours 47' ago	Vitya Makov	Daniel Zacharias
Kamikaze Mortal Shogi	makov333-cvgameroom-2024-122-481	3 hours 48' ago	Vitya Makov	wdtr2
Dai Seireigi	chessshogi-bobgreenwade-2024-103-638	11 hours 14' ago	A. DeWitt	Bob Greenwade
Chu Seireigi	chessshogi-cvgameroom-2024-103-762	11 hours 19' ago	A. DeWitt	Daniel Zacharias
Champagne Chess	panther-joejoyce-2024-29-957	17 hours 58' ago	Kevin Pacey	Joe Joyce
Wildebeest Chess	pokshtya-cvgameroom-2024-129-317	19 hours 11' ago	Вадря Покштя	Daniel Zacharias
Courier Spiel	unspeakablegamer-cvgameroom-2024-111-719	19 hours 16' ago	Simon R	Daniel Zacharias
Great Shatranj	arx-cvgameroom-2024-121-092	19 hours 25' ago	Omnia Nihilo	Daniel Zacharias
Modern Chinese Chess	makov333-cvgameroom-2024-128-001	20 hours 10' ago	Vitya Makov	Daniel Zacharias
Shatranji	makov333-cvgameroom-2024-122-483	20 hours 11' ago	Vitya Makov	Daniel Zacharias
Reche’s Super Faceoff M...	cryinto-cvgameroom-2024-111-373	20 hours 20' ago	Daniel Zacharias	Diceroller Fire
Throne Chess	cryinto-cvgameroom-2024-111-424	20 hours 21' ago	Daniel Zacharias	Diceroller Fire
InSteæd (Third Knight) C...	cryinto-cvgameroom-2024-132-538	20 hours 21' ago	Daniel Zacharias	Diceroller Fire
Grand Apothecary Chess 3	arx-catugo-2024-128-951	20 hours 24' ago	Daniel Zacharias	Aurelian Florea
Bigorra	arx-cvgameroom-2024-107-033	20 hours 27' ago	Daniel Zacharias	Aurelian Florea
CC Top	degenschess66-cvgameroom-2024-107-444	20 hours 48' ago	Gerd Degens	Diceroller Fire
Petteia XXI	unspeakablegamer-cvgameroom-2024-130-836	21 hours 17' ago	Simon R	Diceroller Fire
Equal Modern Republican C...	cryinto-cvgameroom-2024-111-394	21 hours 26' ago	Bob Greenwade	Diceroller Fire
Grant Acedrex	makov333-cvgameroom-2024-58-007	1 day, 3 hours ago	Diceroller Fire	Vitya Makov
Chinese Chess with Sparrow	makov333-cvgameroom-2024-116-934	1 day, 6 hours ago	Diceroller Fire	Vitya Makov
Millennial Chess	arx-cvgameroom-2024-87-835	1 day, 15 hours ago	Daniel Zacharias	Vitya Makov
Jungles and Mountains Che...	makov333-cvgameroom-2024-59-487	2 days, 9 hours ago	Diceroller Fire	Vitya Makov
Megalomachy	catugo-arx-2024-113-672	3 days, 1 hour ago	Daniel Zacharias	Aurelian Florea
Overboard	arx-cvgameroom-2024-132-944	3 days, 16 hours ago	Daniel Zacharias	Anyone
Glinski's Hexagonal Chess	duniho-fergus-2018-137-671	3 days, 18 hours ago	Fergus Duniho	Gus Duniho
Ambitious Amphibies VS Fa...	cryinto-cvgameroom-2024-130-736	5 days, 21 hours ago	Diceroller Fire	Anyone
Chess 9x9	bahram-cvgameroom-2024-127-619	6 days, 0 hours ago	per hommerberg	Митя Митя
Shatranj	bahram-cvgameroom-2023-326-531	6 days, 3 hours ago	Diceroller Fire	Митя Митя
Modern Chaturanga	bahram-cvgameroom-2024-73-461	6 days, 3 hours ago	Diceroller Fire	Митя Митя

MySQL

This script queried the GameLogs table with the following prepared query:

SELECT * FROM GameLogs WHERE Lastmod > :earliest AND Priority > 0 AND (Privacy = :privacy OR Opponent = '' OR Opponent IS NULL) ORDER BY Lastmod DESC

To avoid SQL injection, most of the values are passed separately. The values in the query are determined by the values in your URL's query string or by what is entered into the form at top. When you leave a field blank, it normally means that it will leave that field out of the query, not that it will search for an empty value. Here is a recreation of what the SQL query would look like with the placeholders replaced by the values:

SELECT * FROM GameLogs WHERE Lastmod > 1715265476 AND Priority > 0 AND (Privacy = 0 OR Opponent = '' OR Opponent IS NULL) ORDER BY Lastmod DESC

The underlying MySQL is handled by MariaDB. A few fields give you multiple options for how to use them. You can search for an exact string match, an exact non-match, a LIKE match, which allows the use of a few wildcards, and a REGEXP match, which allows for very complicated pattern matching. Since these may slow down the search, they should be avoided unless you have a special need for them.

Filtering by Userid

If you enter a userid, it will list only those games in which that id identifies one of the players. Under the Next Move for column, for each game in which it is that user's turn to move, it will include a link for him to go to the PBM and make his next move. If a given user is playing any games that are not open to public view, he will need to enter his password to view these games on this page. If all your games are publicly viewable, then you don't need to include your password on this page.

How to Delete a Log

To get links for deleting logs, you must first enter a userid. To delete a log, you must be one of the players listed in the log. When you click on the link to delete a log, you will be asked for your password. Enter it and click on the Delete button. If your userid matches one of the players, and if your password is correct, the log will be deleted.

Written by Fergus Duniho

WWW Page Created: 21 July 2017

Credits

Author: Fergus Duniho.

Comments

Game Courier Logs. View the logs of games played on Game Courier.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, May 14 02:51 PM EDT in reply to H. G. Muller from 03:19 AM:

Marking of attacked squares to weed out illegal King moves is just one of the two things the accelerated check test does. The other thing is that it tabulates for each board square which (attempted) sliding moves visit it.

It's not the same thing that you're doing, but I have now made a quicker version of stalemated called stalemated-quick, which does some preprocessing to reduce the work involved in checking for check. It starts by creating an array of the King's location and each space it may move to, and for each location in this array, it makes an array of every location with an enemy piece that has it in its range. The code looks like this:

// Build threat lists
set krange merge fn join const alias space #kingpos "-Range" #kingpos #kingpos;
set threats ();
for to #krange:
  set threats.{#to} ();
next;
for (from piece) fn #enemies:
  set in intersection var krange fn join const alias var piece "-Range" var from;
  for to #in:
    push threats.{#to} #from;
  next;
next;

So it creates multiple elements of an array called threats, each of which is an array of the enemy pieces that include that space in its full range of movement. At the start of Chess, threats.d2 and threats.d1 both have one element set to d8, and the others (elements e1, e2, f1, and f2 of threats) are empty.

To check for check, it first assumes a value of false, and it tries out the move only if there are pieces potentially threatening the space the King is on. That move looks like this:

set checkpos cond == #from #kingpos #to #kingpos;
set checked false;
if count elem var checkpos threats:
  move #from #to;
  set checked fn threatened #checkpos;
  restore;
endif;

Instead of using the checked function, it used the threatened function, which looks like this:

def threatened anytrue lambda (fn const alias space #0 #0 var king) 
elem var king threats 
=movetype CHECK 
=king;

This function expects threats to be populated with appropriate values. So it can't be used everywhere checked can.

In tests with Chess, everything seems to be working. After making sure it worked, I did some speed tests comparing 100 calls to stalemated with 100 calls to stalemated-quick. In each pair, stalemated is first, and stalemated-quick is second. The results show that stalemated-quick is normally quicker.

Elapsed time: 4.7686970233917 seconds

Elapsed time: 2.8460500240326 seconds

Elapsed time: 4.8747198581696 seconds

Elapsed time: 3.0506091117859 seconds

Elapsed time: 4.4713160991669 seconds

Elapsed time: 2.9584100246429 seconds

H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, May 14 03:19 AM EDT in reply to Fergus Duniho from Mon May 13 10:09 PM:

5. It checks whether the King is in check by checking whether any enemy piece can move to the King's space. As an optimization, it returns true as soon as it finds one check.

The efficiency of your algorithm depends on whether there is a fast method to answer the question "does the piece at square A attack square B", which then can be combined to a function "IsSquareAttacked" by looping over all pieces A. But for complex multi-leg moves (pieces that turn corners, or jump over others, or do not end their move at the square they attack) it is hard to find a shortcut even if you are writing dedicated code for it. Often the best way is to just generate all moves of the piece at A, and for each of those test if it happens to hit B. For simple sliders and leapers it would be possible to immediately exclude they are attacking B based on the (x,y) coordinates of the leap from B to A (e.g. x*y!=0 for a Rook), or even tabulate in which direction you would have to move to arrive at B (and then test whether this path is unobstructed).

I could of course classify pieces (or even their individual moves) as simple or complex, and use a fast "does A attack B" function for leaps and straight slides, and only generate the complex moves of all enemy pieces to test whether these hit B. Typically only a small fraction of the pieces will have complex moves, and then this could be competitive.

This optimization might be helpful when not using piece functions, but one thing about it concerns me. While it might be helpful in determining whether a move by the King would be into check, I'm not sure it will work for revealed checks. It is because of the possibility of revealed checks that my code checks for check for the position resulting from every single pseudo-legal move it finds.

Marking of attacked squares to weed out illegal King moves is just one of the two things the accelerated check test does. The other thing is that it tabulates for each board square which (attempted) sliding moves visit it. If such a move did not hit B before, it cannot hit B after a move that would not mutate at least one of the squares that the move visited. E.g. if a Cannon is looking at the King directly it would not check, but during move generation the first leg of the move in the direction of the King would have been attempted, and perhaps even succeeded by capturing something that was behind the King. But whether it succeeded or not, all the squares between Cannon and King would get this Cannon move added to the list of moves that visit them.

If the move to be tested for legality would land on an empty square between Cannon and King, it would see in the constructed table that there was a Cannon that had a move that went over the destination square, and thus will be affected. It will then retry that move of that Cannon, to test whether it hits the King in the new position. Likewise, it would see whether (say) a Bishop had been attacking its origin, and then rerun that Bishop move to test whether it hits the King. This takes care of discovered slides and hopper activation. Moves of other pieces, as well as other moves of these same pieces would not have to be tried; these were not hitting the King before, none of the squares they visited was mutated, so they won't hit the King now.

This is actually the most robust part of the algorithm, which would even work in case of multiple absolute royals: moves that were not checking before cannot check after a move that did not mutate any squares in their path. (But if there are Immobilizers...)

In general the algoritm is very fast: for each move with a royal you test whether the destination is marked as attacked, and for moves with non-royal pieces you only have to rerun the opponent sliding moves that were tabulated as hitting origin or destination (and occasionally other squares that were mutated). And on average there are fewer than 1 enemy sliding moves (i.e. moves that could potentially have continued if the occupancy of the square had been different) to a square, in a typical variant. So in many cases a pseudo-legal move can be accepted as legal by just concluding that the mover was not royal, and the origin and destination of it were not visited by any opponent move. When already in check, it always reruns the move that was delivering that check, as the first test. (Most moves would not resolve the check, and these can then be discarded without further testing.)

Anyway, it is possible to configure the preset to not use the accelerated test, and for a not-too-lage variant (8x8 or 10x10) this will probably work fine.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, May 13 10:09 PM EDT in reply to H. G. Muller from 04:30 PM:

That would indeed be an alternative: do a full king-capture test after every King move. But it would be more expensive, as a King usually has several moves.

It's more than that. I do a full king-capture test for every pseudo-legal move by every piece that can move. My code works like this.

It goes through every piece from the side that can move.
For each piece on the side that can move, it calculates the spaces within its range of movement. This is an optimization to keep it from checking for legal moves to every position on the board.
For each space within a piece's range of movement, it checks whether the piece has a pseudo-legal move there.
For each pseudo-legal move, it tries the position and checks whether it places the King in check.
It checks whether the King is in check by checking whether any enemy piece can move to the King's space. As an optimization, it returns true as soon as it finds one check.
It checks whether a piece may move to the King's space by calling its function for the move from its location to the King's space.
Divergent pieces are handled by writing them to behave differently when the movetype variable is set to CHECK. In the following example, the function for the White_Pawn first checks some conditions any Pawn move must meet, then handles capturing, then continues to handle non-capturing and en passant moves only if movetype is not CHECK.

def White_Pawn
remove var ep
and < rankname #1 var bpr
and < rankname var ep rankname #1
and == filename var ep filename #1
and checkleap #0 #1 1 1
and var ep
or and checkride #0 #1 0 1 == rankname #0 var wpr
or checkleap #0 #1 0 1
and empty #1
and != var movetype CHECK
or and islower space #1 checkleap #0 #1 1 1
and any onboard where #1 0 1 == var movetype CHECK count var wprom
and <= distance #0 #1 var fps
and > rank #1 rank #0;

Pieces with non-displacement captures are handled by writing two different functions for them and using the value of movetype to call the correct function.

So you would have to do enemy move generation several times.

Since my code uses piece functions, this is not a big problem. In tests I ran yesterday, my checked function ran 1000 times in under half a second, and the checked subroutine got called 1000 times in close to a second, and this was on a position in which the King was not in check, which meant it never broke out early. Since your code does not use piece functions, it may handle the evaluation of moves more slowly, which will also cause it to evaluate check more slowly.

Testing whether a destination contains the King is not any more expensive than marking the destination. And to do it, you only need to geenrate all enemy moves once.

This optimization might be helpful when not using piece functions, but one thing about it concerns me. While it might be helpful in determining whether a move by the King would be into check, I'm not sure it will work for revealed checks. It is because of the possibility of revealed checks that my code checks for check for the position resulting from every single pseudo-legal move it finds.

I suppose one optimization that could be made if it were needed would be to identify the pieces that might possibly check the King at its current location, then limit the test for whether a move by another piece places the King in check to those pieces. This could be done by making a short list of every enemy piece whose range of movement contains the King's location and having the checked function use it instead of onlyupper or onlylower. If this list were empty, it could even skip the step of trying out a pseudo-legal move and testing whether it places the King in check.

However, this might not work for non-displacement captures in which the capture occurs outside the piece's range of movement, such as the Coordinator capture in Ultima. So, I have to balance efficiency with the work a programmer has to make to use a piece in a game. The brute force method I use helps reduce the work the programmer has to do to make different kinds of pieces work with it.

H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, May 13 04:30 PM EDT in reply to Fergus Duniho from 03:35 PM:

Why would you take the King off the board for this?

The purpose of the accelerated check test is not only to determine whether the King is in check in the current position, but also to greatly facilitate testing whether the King would get exposed by any of the moves. One contribution to this is to mark every square where the King itself cannot go. The King is taken off to prevent it would block enemy slider moves (or lame leaps), creating the illusion that it would be safe to "step into his own shadow".

The test is NOT done by only processing all pseudo-legal moves. Because that would not reveal which pieces are protected (and thus cannot be captured by the King). For the purpose of knowing where the King could go the move generator should basically work under the fiction that all destinations contain the enemy King. That applies to empty squares as well friendly pieces; these will be marked as inaccessible to the King when the move hitting those is a move that can capture. Even when it cannot capture what is actually there.

The code I use avoids this by trying each pseudo-legal move and checking whether any piece in the new position is checking the King.

That would indeed be an alternative: do a full king-capture test after every King move. But it would be more expensive, as a King usually has several moves. So you would have to do enemy move generation several times. (And who knows how mobile a royal piece can be, in a chess variant?) Testing whether a destination contains the King is not any more expensive than marking the destination. And to do it, you only need to geenrate all enemy moves once. Then for each King moves only have to test whether the destination is marked. And to know whether you are in check it would just have to test whether the square the King is currently on is marked.

But the fiction that every square where you are allowed to capture contains a King should also be applied to locust captures. And this wasn't done.

The accelerated check test would not work in variants where there are multiple absolute royals. (Extinction royaly is no problem; there it just skips the check test completely if there still is more than one royal.)

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, May 13 03:35 PM EDT in reply to H. G. Muller from 01:54 PM:

The issue was that the test for being already in check was done with the King taken off the board

Why would you take the King off the board for this? Couldn't this cause false positives and false negatives from divergent pieces like Pawns or Cannons?

This was a bug that did not yet express itself. A Checker diagonally adjacent to the enemy King would not deliver check if a friendly piece was immediately behind that King, blocking the landing square. But that blocking piece would then essentially be pinned, and its moves should not be highlighted.

The code I use avoids this by trying each pseudo-legal move and checking whether any piece in the new position is checking the King.

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First Created: Wednesday, January 16th, 2002
Last Modified: Tuesday, September 9th, 2003
File Timestamp: Mon, 04 Mar 2024 20:07:52 -0500
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