I was delighted this week, when I thought I managed to construct a delectable Chinese chess puzzle, pretty much by accident and chance. It contained a somewhat less commonly used theme as well as an accidentally set sacrifice. Happily, I chugged it into the engine for sidelines, and maddeningly, about 3 strange defences materialised out of thin air, defences I had never considered. In the end, I hereby resign to my sad puzzle-setting fate and present you the somewhat correct (but not a mate) puzzle.
Uhh... how do I write the plaintext for it again? Meh.
###AK#PR#
####A##H#
EP#######
##P#P##H#
P####P##H
#########
P#####PPR
####E####
######RP#
R####K###
Red to move and win, of course.
More on how my puzzle failed in a later blogpost, if I remember and can be bothered to make the effort. It's late and I'm braindead too. But in the meantime, enjoy the puzzle.
Just in case I remembered my own notation wrongly, the one presented is as follows:
P -- the most important, powerful, and prevalent piece (Darwin's theory!) on the board.
E -- elephant, minister, whatever. The mascot of Chinese Chess (Xiang Qi)
A -- The advisor, or "shi".
R -- Rook, or "ju", but probably not "che"
K -- The lousiest piece on the board -- never have I lost a game not because of it
H -- Knight (or was it N?). Either way, the "ma".
C -- Not featured in this puzzle, the sneaky cannon, or "pao".
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Saturday, June 16, 2012
A badly played Chinese Chess match
Clearly I haven't been playing Chinese Chess seriously in quite some time; I'm blundering pieces left, right, and center, for the most trivial of reasons. But the thing that takes the cake (it's a lie group!) is that I've not been sacrificing for initiative as much as I probably should. That will take some time to reset. And being cooped up in a place without access to the Internet (well, not much of it) for five days every week (all right, maybe six), I don't think I'll have time for quality chess any time soon. However, I did manage to find an average-ish player on a particular chess website today, and lo and behold! -- here is the chess match, with a slight bit of commentary on why I moved certain moves and my failings.
(As a side excuse, it was a 5 0 game.)
Black: Me Red : ???
1. C2.5 c8.5 2. H2+3 h8+7 3. R1.2 r9+1
4. C8.7 h2+1 5. H8+9 r1.2
At this point I was waiting for the response R9.8 to play C2+4. No I don't remember the theory, but that kind of moves look theory-ish. Also, we probably had deviated from main theory lines by then, so...
6. P9+1 r9.4
7. A4+5 c2.3
At this point I rather liked my setup. Sure I wasn't exactly winning, but it looked like I might have an attack along the right side (in my POV).
8. R2+4 p5+1
The start of my troubles.
9. P5+1
Doh!
9 ... a6+5
?? move. Now I'm in a little bit of trouble. Sigh. Since the formatting looks a bit weird, I guess I'll just take this space to comment on my next few moves. His pao, sitting on the middle, is strong and attacking my king. Even though my cannon is pretty much doing the same thing, I have insufficient coordination, and hence I thought it might be safer to just trade every thing off the board... and my cannon could easily be replaced anyway. Following that, I just threatened to kill his xiang as best as I could, and I would even have happily sacrificed my ma for it, but... he just didn't accept. Aw... so much for being an aggressive maniac.
10. P5+1 c5+5 11. E3+5 c3.5 12. R2+2 r4+7
13. E5-3 r2+4 14. C7.5 c5+5 15. E3+5 r2.5
16. R2.3 h7+5
Yet another occasion that I played a dubious move. Now my xiang dies. And before his. Better was probably R5+3 R3+1 R5=7 R3+2+ A5-6, and now I'm threatening a stupid one move mate, and his shuai must move out, whereupon I can check him and put his king in an extremely dubious place vulnerable to harassment by the side, which is rather sneaky and difficult to defend against. My usual defence against this kind of things is just hoping my opponent doesn't see. Either that or trade off the 'ju's off the board and run away in fear.
17. R3+3 a5-6 18. H3-4 h5+ 19. P3+1 h7+5
Just moving my ma along with the flow. I wanted to go there anyway. Yet the bing move was somewhat necessary to prevent a faster check (which could be fatal since his shuai cannot move).
20. R9.8 h5+7 21. H9+8 h7+9
And I thought I was being obvious. Not obvious enough, apparently :(.
22. H4+3 h9+7
Oops, unstoppable mate out of nowhere in particular. And from this moment on I was just being an irritating troll warlord. But he resigned :(. Aww.
23. K5.4 r5.6 24. A5+4 r4+1
25. K4+1 r6+3 26. K4.5 r4.5 27. K5.6 r6+1
(As a side excuse, it was a 5 0 game.)
Black: Me Red : ???
1. C2.5 c8.5 2. H2+3 h8+7 3. R1.2 r9+1
4. C8.7 h2+1 5. H8+9 r1.2
At this point I was waiting for the response R9.8 to play C2+4. No I don't remember the theory, but that kind of moves look theory-ish. Also, we probably had deviated from main theory lines by then, so...
6. P9+1 r9.4
7. A4+5 c2.3
At this point I rather liked my setup. Sure I wasn't exactly winning, but it looked like I might have an attack along the right side (in my POV).
8. R2+4 p5+1
The start of my troubles.
9. P5+1
Doh!
9 ... a6+5
?? move. Now I'm in a little bit of trouble. Sigh. Since the formatting looks a bit weird, I guess I'll just take this space to comment on my next few moves. His pao, sitting on the middle, is strong and attacking my king. Even though my cannon is pretty much doing the same thing, I have insufficient coordination, and hence I thought it might be safer to just trade every thing off the board... and my cannon could easily be replaced anyway. Following that, I just threatened to kill his xiang as best as I could, and I would even have happily sacrificed my ma for it, but... he just didn't accept. Aw... so much for being an aggressive maniac.
10. P5+1 c5+5 11. E3+5 c3.5 12. R2+2 r4+7
13. E5-3 r2+4 14. C7.5 c5+5 15. E3+5 r2.5
16. R2.3 h7+5
Yet another occasion that I played a dubious move. Now my xiang dies. And before his. Better was probably R5+3 R3+1 R5=7 R3+2+ A5-6, and now I'm threatening a stupid one move mate, and his shuai must move out, whereupon I can check him and put his king in an extremely dubious place vulnerable to harassment by the side, which is rather sneaky and difficult to defend against. My usual defence against this kind of things is just hoping my opponent doesn't see. Either that or trade off the 'ju's off the board and run away in fear.
17. R3+3 a5-6 18. H3-4 h5+ 19. P3+1 h7+5
Just moving my ma along with the flow. I wanted to go there anyway. Yet the bing move was somewhat necessary to prevent a faster check (which could be fatal since his shuai cannot move).
20. R9.8 h5+7 21. H9+8 h7+9
And I thought I was being obvious. Not obvious enough, apparently :(.
22. H4+3 h9+7
Oops, unstoppable mate out of nowhere in particular. And from this moment on I was just being an irritating troll warlord. But he resigned :(. Aww.
23. K5.4 r5.6 24. A5+4 r4+1
25. K4+1 r6+3 26. K4.5 r4.5 27. K5.6 r6+1
0-1
In conclusion, I was still down by a bing at the end. This reflects a deterioration of my skills. *sigh*
Till next time then.
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