[Retros] rights & ocassions /answering Andrew

[Kevin Begley]

Your 5 good reasons are all quite sound; but insignificant, I'm afraid,
when you're up against a logic that is willing to forsake a definition.

It's a ram thing -- it has zero to do with chess.



On Tue, May 6, 2014 at 8:55 AM, Andrew Buchanan <andrew at anselan.com> wrote:


> Dear Roberto,

>

> This issue is not *quite* as academic as angel sex - it does affect the

> soundness of certain chess compositions. :o)

>

> The chess programming position, which seems to pass there without

> controversy, is given at:

> http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Repetitions

>

> Now, a SPOILER ALERT :o) for those enjoyably busy reading through the

> matplus discussion of this issue, located at:

> http://matplus.net/start.php?px=1399373473&app=forum&act=posts&tid=1235

> The climactic denouement of the thread is when I quoted senior FIDE arbiter

> Stewart Reuben in May 2013 [my annotations added in square brackets here]:

>

> "Geurt Gijssen and I differ over the repetition rule and castling. His view

> will continue to hold sway for the new version [of the Laws] (probably now

> no change [in that draft version] until 1 July 2013 [when it will be

> ratified, going live in 1 July 2014]).

> Position Qa4 Ka1. ke8, rh8. The laws state that the right is not lost to

> castle until the king moves. Thus 1...kf7 2 Qf4 ke8 2 Qa4 is a new

> position.

> I think that is wrong. We can look into the future and know black will

> never

> castle.

> But Rh2 Pg2 Kf1. ka2 pf4. 1 g4+ Kh3 2 Rh3+ Ka2 3 Rh2+ is the same position.

> Black could never capture en passant.

> To my mind this is illogical. The two possibilities [i.e. castling & en

> passant] should be the same.

> But it is the law and I have no idea whether it has ever arisen. So I do

> not

> care too much."

>

> So Stewart is unhappy the fact that castling and en passant approach things

> differently. I think the position that castling *rights* are what counts

> will survive until 2017. However, then those "troublemakers" :o) who want

> to

> change the criterion for castling may have a champion in Stewart Reuben.

> Stewart is a very nice guy, but is focused on the game, and I don't think

> he

> feels any particular duty to problemists.

>

> OK, so why should castling rights rather than opportunity be the driver?

> (1) It's the status quo. Why change such a tiny thing, which will force

> programmers to alter their core code, if they want to continue to capture

> the exact rules of chess (as many will)? (And some problemists may be

> inconvenienced as well.)

> (2) It's simplest. Castling rights are just 4 bits of information, 4

> characters in FEN, which change only when a king or rook moves for the

> first

> time. Easy to compute; easy to consult.

> (3) According to Guus Rol, there was a FIDE ruling at the time of Fischer.

> (It would be nice to see that.)

> (4) Guus also points out that dynamic interpretations may lead to

> undecidable positions. Although he invokes retro strategy and proof games,

> remember that we are talking about games of chess, where none of these

> retro

> concepts are available. So his argument is even stronger.

> (5a) An interesting question is: why can't we just use the FEN notation to

> represent the state for en passant? Recall: FEN records the en passant

> target square in algebraic notation. If there's no en passant target

> square,

> this is "-". If a pawn has just made a two-square move, this is the

> position

> "behind" the pawn. This is recorded regardless of whether there is a pawn

> in

> position to make an en passant capture. (Clearly the rank number, 3 or 6,

> is

> redundant.) But it would be absurd to use the FEN square as an indicator of

> en passant capability - there may be no neighbouring pawn to make the

> capture. But once we've opened the door to that concern, then why stop

> there? One king may be in check, or there may be direct or indirect pins.

> So

> rather than invent some halfway house, where SOME but not ALL necessary

> criteria are checked, the approach taken is that whether a position is

> different or not depends on whether the pawn can capture legally.

> (5b) So to revert to castling: if we feel that there is need for

> "consistency" between castling convention and en passant approach, and the

> en passant approach is hard to modify, then why not change the castling

> approach? Well, *which* castling approach? We could either look at whether

> the rooks can castle right now, or whether they could castle some time in

> the future? This question doesn't come up in en passant, which is

> now-or-never.

>

> So that's 5 good reasons to leave the current rule well alone.

>

> I have just seen a new tomelike email from Guus arrive in my inbox, so I

> think I will send this one.

>

> Thanks,

> Andrew.

>

> -----Original Message-----

> From: retros-bounces at janko.at [mailto:retros-bounces at janko.at] On Behalf

> Of

> raosorio at fibertel.com.ar

> Sent: 06 May 2014 06:10

> To: retros at janko.at

> Subject: [Retros] rights & ocassions /answering Andrew

>

> Hi Andrew,

>

> Long time without these "sex of the angels" discussions.

>

>

> I hope you find the MatPlus discussion useful. To my mind, it was

> conclusive, and filled the key hole in the following strategy

> *********************************************************************

> I find it useful indeed. I'm afraid I did not read it carefully enough to

> realyze that conclusive side.

>

>

> For example the chess programming community have converged on a

> standard set of rules to judge any engine, and this community agrees with

> the arbiters as to how to work castling and en passant in the context of

> 50M

>

> & 3Rep.

> *********************************************************************

> this is really new for me. Could you please indicate where to find this

> standard

> set of rules? All of the present discussion should start from there.

>

>

> There is a Golden Principle in this, that conventions *only* come in to

> remove areas of ambiguity where we cannot deduce using information in the

> stipulation and logic what must have happened. Any convention which does

> not

>

> respect the Golden Principle is worded in too strong a way, and must be

> toned down because it's taking us into Fairy Chess.

> *********************************************************************

> Simple and common sense.

>

> I think the codex writers had a better lunch, with more wine, than the

> laws writers.

> ********************************************************************

> Yes, but I suspect it was at the same restaurant.

>

> Best wishes,

> Roberto

>

> Hi Roberto,

>

> I hope you find the MatPlus discussion useful. To my mind, it was

> conclusive, and filled the key hole in the following strategy.

>

> There may be always fun ways to interpret wordings of rules. But there is

> surely a vanilla set of rules which is how they are intended to be. This

> intention is not so difficult to discern, because the rules of chess are so

> simple. For example the chess programming community have converged on a

> standard set of rules to judge any engine, and this community agrees with

> the arbiters as to how to work castling and en passant in the context of

> 50M

>

> & 3Rep. I agree with this general interpretation. This allows us to play

> chess unambiguously. This programming interpretation incidentally bounds

> the

>

> scope of chess: it excludes touch move, the clock, responses to errors etc.

> Basic robust vanilla chess.

>

> Now, and only now, do problemists come into the discussion. There is a

> minimal set of conventions which is then needed to make the transfer from

> vanilla game to problem. These fall into two areas:

> (1) history. Just looking at a diagram is not sufficient to see what moves

> may be legal, due to who's move, castling, ep, number of times position has

> repeated, number of moves since last . We have now reasonably comprehensive

> understanding of how conventions will work in this area.

> (2) decision-making. what can players do? stipulation type (#, h#, s#...)

> gives a lot of information, but also decisions about whether draws of

> various kinds would be proposed or rejected.

> There is a Golden Principle in this, that conventions *only* come in to

> remove areas of ambiguity where we cannot deduce using information in the

> stipulation and logic what must have happened. Any convention which does

> not

>

> respect the Golden Principle is worded in too strong a way, and must be

> toned down because it's taking us into Fairy Chess.

>

> A few random remarks to finish...

> - I remember encountering Sergio Orce in the old days in france-echecs.com

> .

> I hope he is well, wherever he is.

> - I think the codex writers had a better lunch, with more wine, than the

> laws writers.

> - Actually, it's not a problem with the writing, but the subsequent

> editing.

>

> Nobel Laureate Ernest Hemingway said: "The first draft of anything is

> s**t."

>

>

> Thanks & all the best,

> Andrew.

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