The match against the J

Evaluations: 1 bing is worth 1 bing, the rest of the values are exaggerated by 1000 times. (or more)

"FORMAT WXF
RED ~50141 ; 0 ;;
BLACK ~50142 ; 0 ;;
RESULT 1-0
DATE 2010-01-22 11:41:59
EVENT KGP Game ; 10m+0s
START{
1. P1+1 h8+7 2. P3+1 p3+1 3. P9+1 h2+3
4. C8.5 r1+1 5. H2+3 r1.4 6. H3+4 r4.6
7. H4+3 c2+3 8. H8+9 c2.4 9. H9+8 e3+5
10. C2.3 r6+6 11. C3-1 r6+1 12. C3+1 r9+1
13. R1.2 c8+6 14. A6+5 c4.9 15. H8-6 c9.8
16. H3-2 r9.8 17. C3+5 r8.3 18. C5.6 a6+5
19. C6-1 r6-2 20. R2+1 r6.5 21. H6-7 r5.3
22. H7+9 r+.1 23. H2+1 h3+4 24. R2+8 a5-6
25. H1+2 r3.7 26. C3+2 e5-7 27. R9.8 r1.8
28. R8+8 r7.2 29. H2-4 r2.6 30. R2-6 r6+1
31. E3+5 r6+3 32. R2.6 r6.1 33. R6+2 e7+5
34. R6+2 a6+5 35. R6.5 r1.3 36. C6.8 r3.7
37. C8+7 k5.6 38. R5-1 r7.6 39. R5.9 r6.2
40. H9+8 p3+1 41. E5+7 a5+4 42. R9.6 k6+1
43. R6+1 k6.5 44. R6+2 k5+1 45. H8+7 k5.6
46. A5-6 k6-1 47. H7-5 k6.5 48. R6-2 k5-1
49. C8.6 k5.6 50. H5+4 k6+1 51. C6.7 k6-1
52. C7-3 }END"

ok that's the game score. Now for the "analysis".

I will mostly be giving from my point of view.(ie red's point of view)

To understand my first 3 moves, you must first delve deep into my understanding of chess as of now (amid an insanity streak). Bings are awesome (even though they imbalance the game), but there is actually something even more awesome than a bing. If you guessed its the jiang, then you are wrong, because according to standing M theories of chess, the only thing more awesome than a bing is a bing that has crossed the river.

1. P1+1 h8+7 2. P3+1 p3+1 3. P9+1 h2+3

So let's go back to the game. The first move pushes a bing. The second move pushes another bing. The third move also pushes a bing. On the other hand, my opponent, minusing off the crushingness of losing by 5 whole bings from the very beginning (actually its 5 bings - 5 zus, but not if you consider it to 3 significant figures). Coupled with the 3 advanced bings waiting to cunningly cross the river, I evaluate the position as +0.1 bings.

4. C8.5 r1+1 5. H2+3 r1.4 6. H3+4 r4.6?????

As you can see, I deviated from my perfect strategy of advancing bings because there were actually no more bings that could be safely advanced. You might think that P5+1 is a safe place for a bing, but after advancing it, there is little you can do you protect it from a rampaging centralised pao.

At this position, I have a free zu that can be taken with immediate effect. Also, it provides me with 1 piece across the river, but he can move his rook across too, hence I evaluate the position +1.2 bings up for me.

7. H4+3 c2+3 8. H8+9 c2.4 9. H9+8 e3+5

So... what happened was i won a zu. Cheers. And his pao moved over the river, which I personally don't find aesthetically pleasing. But that's just me. And I would rate the position about errr... +2.4/2=1.2, because a zhong xiang delays practically every win. :(.

10. C2.3 r6+6 11. C3-1 r6+1 12. C3+1 r9+1

Action! J crazily chased my cannon around 2 times! (and gained a free tempo!) Also interesting (and fail) was 11. N3+5?? C8=5 12. C3+5 C5+4+, which wins the zhongbing and will make me hate my position in general :(. So anyway back to the main line, I think I just failed and didn't see the counter. So it's +1.2 to me (!!)

13. R1.2 c8+6 14. A6+5 c4.9 15. H8-6 c9.8

The previous "analysis" was written years ago and my brain has rusted, so this will continue in a more unpredictable (random) fashion. 13. R1.2 chases the pao away, but then 13...C8+6! makes my che/ju... which shld I use... Rook! uhh... sort of stuckish, but then since he is using 2 pieces to make my 1 piece stuck, it's sort of worth it I guess. 14. A6+5 is a turtlish move showing utterly no intention of displaying the manliness of sacrifice, and amidst the turtling, J played 14...C4.9 (xP)! As another bing fell, it was sort of traumatic for me; furthermore, my ma was under attack, and it seemed like I had to react quickly. Seeing as there was no zu to munch on, I got a little completely lost and confused, and played the weak move 15.H8-6, retreating and reinforcing the already turtle-like turtle that my defense was.

But as turtle as turtle is, there is no good way to attack and destroy a turtle (apart from being fantastically good at chess), and in the midst of his plans to force a turtle soup, J played the somewhat blunderous move 15...C9.8, hanging his pao in limbo.

16. H3-2 r9.8 17. C3+5 r8.3 18. C5.6 a6+5

I happily munched on his free pao. It tasted somewhat good. 16... R9.8 gained a tempo back as revenge for the extremely brave and/or stupid pao... if I wasn't such a complicated person. 17.C3+5 (xH) raised the complications a notch higher. (from 0 to 1), and J played 17...R8.3, which was a psychological blunder, since it now appears that he just wasted his previous move. With the newly found tempo, I sneakily played the sneaky move 18.C5.6. It is indeed quite hard to determine for sure, but I do theorize that J was suffering from a psychological condition called Suspicion Bonus (Medical name: Nyudunkopemybeengormaorpaoorzuoranythingofmineandalsonotcheckmatemeorstalemateme Somethingtomakethemedicalnamelongerophobia), and he tried to turtle behind the turtle of a move 18...A6+5.

*gulp* I forgot to mention a semi-important variation to waste more of an unwary reader's time. 17...R8+4 18.C3.7. Or perhaps even 17...R6-6 18.H2+1 (free BING zu!!) R8+2 19.C3+1

19. C6-1 r6-2 20. R2+1 r6.5 21. H6-7 r5.3

19. C6-1 appears to have won a piece, but since it's my move, it follows that there's nothing much about the move worth talking about. Following the move, J got a free bing as compensation. It was a zhongbing too! And followed by another bing (T_T).

22. H7+9 r+.1 23. H2+1 h3+4 24. R2+8 a5-6

I got my revenge and gobbled a zu. Strangely enough, he wasn't too sure my bing was tasty. Weird behavior. Probably Suspicion Bonus. Then, I attempted to aggro.

25. H1+2 r3.7 26. C3+2 e5-7 27. R9.8 r1.8
28. R8+8 r7.2 29. H2-4 r2.6 30. R2-6 r6+1

A failed attempted tactic by me. What's there to talk about. Really.

31. E3+5 r6+3 32. R2.6 r6.1 33. R6+2 e7+5

I mobilised my elephant to turtle, then got some sort-of-free ma to fill my stomach. J got another bing. I have 1 last bing left :*(.

34. R6+2 a6+5 35. R6.5 r1.3 36. C6.8 r3.7

I happily feasted on the bulk of an elephant and attempted a cheapoe, but instead I lost my last bing. Talk about fail.

*fast forward* 41.E5+7. REVENGE! I got all his zus! *smile*

*fast forward, again* move 52... resign/timeout. :( (no opportunity to attempt a symmetrical kill)

Summary:
1) I fail. Massively.
2) J finished off my soldiers before I wiped his army out.
3) In the opening, J demonstrated his devastating opening powers and managed to grab a few bings.
4) I got lucky, and managed to win back every single soldier I lost :)
5) I fail. Really.

The King's Indian Attack

After reading a blog column from some chess columnist, filled with great examples of how to thrash your opponent with an utterly crushing attack with the King's Indian Attack (KIA), it looked for a moment that it would be something that I would play. Hence, I tried it.

However, my sheer lack of theorectically knowledge meant that I managed to get myself into not just a losing position, but a defensive position, when the position was supposed to have one clear plan to attack. In fact, out of the 3 games I played as white, I managed to misclick moves in 2 games due to the sheer intensity of stress of failing to attack and failing to tactical traps. (most of the time hanging pieces)

Time to look for some new opening that gives a good sacrifice I guess...

A decision...

A bold decision: to post!

Qianhong bashing

Qianhong bash much!
(Not sure whether it was level 1, felt easier than before, used a few takebacks (doh))


A mere 93 moves!! :)

Drumroll!

Could I have a drumroll please, for this blog... is going to be messier from now on, for now there are two authors of the blog! Introducing the new poster... M!

Ok, credentials for M. Hmm... he plays International Chess, Chinese Chess, and shogi on the same or higher level (quantum shell) as me. Which means he can post stuff on that area as well. Also, he was the inventor of the nice theories I have on Chinese Chess, which enable you to play on a level of about a mere 50% lower than the average player!

So, you can expect more shogi coming up, and the replacement of chinese terms for shogi (technically wrong) with japanese terms (eg guima --> kema).

So... this blog will hopefully be more active from now on??

Shogi!

So... new topic. Again. It's ok. I'll just explain the rules. I don't feel like typing particularly much. So... I'll just go by the chinese names, since I can't like read japanese.

bubing (pawn) -- Moves only 1 square forward.
xiangche -- Moves only forward (any number of squares)
Guima -- Moves 2 squares forward and 1 square sideways simultaneously (no dingmajiao)
yinjiang -- Moves 1 square diagonally or forwards by 1 square
jinjiang -- Moves 1 step in every direction except diagonally backwards
yujiang (king) -- Moves 1 step in every direction, and could possibly fly if a player gets disgusted with himself
feiche -- Rook
jiaoxing -- Bishop

Now for dropping rules. You can drop anywhere you like, but keep in mind that the objective is to win your opponent's king before he can win yours so you can't randomly plant while you're in check blah blah blah... Bubings can't be found on the same file. I think you can't plant pieces which can't move until they're captured (etc bubing on opponent's end of the board), but I'm not too sure about that one. For me, stalemate is a win for the side that stales the other person, just because playok.com goes by that rule. Bubings can't be planted in checkmate. Pieces are planted unpromoted.

So... promotion. A piece can promote if it gets to the last 3 ranks of the board (viewed from their perspective). Bubing promotes to jinjiang, xiangche promotes to jinjiang, guima promotes to jinjiang, yinjiang promotes to jinjiang, jinjiang can promote to jinjiang, but nobody really cares. King can possibly promote to jinjiang, but playing without a king is suicidal, so you might as well resign. Bishop promotes to bishop with all the functionalities of a jinjiang, and rook promotes to rook with all the functionalities of a king, jinjiang, yinjiang and a drunken elephant.

There are times that promotion is bad, especially with jinjiang, guima and xiangche, and other promotions can be bad as well, due to the weird rule that says bubings are too fail/awesome to plant in mate with :(.

And that wraps up all the rules I can think of. I might be giving a complete guide to bashing a person who has given you everything but his king soon, but that isn't my point for today. So that ends the post! (OMG short post)

On SCP-797

SCP-797. It's that red-looking thing. See http://ringmaster-sanctus.blogspot.com/2008/12/scp-797-hydrophobic-string.html. So today I present to you my experiments on SCP-797 as well as my experiences with it.

Since I am by no means a good writer of reports (see arr-ee), I will present the stuff I want to say all over the place, since it is a mere recollection of scattered thoughts.

So firstly, colour is important. To back up what I am going to say (actually to just set the background), I shall quote from an expert on the topic: "Each strand of SCP-797 has been either one of two colours, red or black. However, items woven of it have been observed to be black, green, red, brown, copper or gold, depending on the viewer." However, upon closer experimentation using a high-speed camera, the hair appears to be flashing between black and red at differing frequencies, depending on the situation, and sunlight (although not its constituents individually) appears to make the hydrophobic strings red for longer periods of time as compared to black. However, this extremely rapid changing of colour confuses the eye, and leaves the image open to the brain's interpretation. As a result, there have been people reported arguing over whether the same sample of SCP-797 looks red or black over the same period of time. This is suspected to be linked to an underlying psychological factor, which might lead us to uncover our evolutionary history.

"Such items are also extremely durable, withstanding temperatures upwards of 7000 C and pressures of 400 atmospheres." According to my experiments, hydrophobic string appears to melt at temperatures around 42314.15 degrees Kelvin, or close to 42041 degrees Celsius. However, this has been discovered to be an illusion, as the melting point is close to 424242 degrees Celsius. Why it might exhibit such strange behaviour is still an unknown, but a link has been proposed between that and humor on the part of the creator of the universe, although such a link is possibly inexistent.

Next, on to one of the most important properties of the hydrophobic strings: the hydrophobic-ness. Many many years ago, hopefully before you were born, Newton discovered forces that acted from a distance. Possibly he wasn't the first person, but I think he did discover that. So, whether this hydrophobic properties are able to act from a distance has remained a huge question, and as such I have created specific measurement tools to determine the strength of the repulsion across distance, and have discovered it appears to follow a trend of an inverse aeckerman's function when expressed in picometers. In short, the repulsion reduces quickly over extremely small distances, and only would succeed in keeping itself dry.

Of course, all these experiments are a special class of experiments known to many as thought experiments, and since they are created and carried out by me, their accuracy is suspect, and anybody who chooses to believe this does so at their own risk.