I started searching and reading about the topic... This Wiki
gives a decent overall idea about it and even has a table to
compare the complexity of tens of games. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_complexity
I also remembered that some years ago even a chess variant
played with dice was talked about here but I don't remember
much about what the topics were, nor do I know about how it
is played. Are there people here with knowledge and interest
about it to contribute comments?
I also remembered that some years ago even a chess variant
played with dice was talked about here but I don't remember
much about what the topics were, nor do I know about how it
is played. Are there people here with knowledge and interest
about it to contribute comments?
MK
On 6/12/2022 2:56 AM, MK wrote:
Are there people here with knowledge and interest
about it to contribute comments?
Here's one version of dice chess. http://math.lfc.edu/~yuen/dicechess/index.html
https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/273767481
I played this a lot as a boy, oddly similar to backgammon.
Apparently there are even about a dozen variants of
"dice chess"... Again, who play these? Has anyone
here ever played "dice chess"?
Is dice chess harder or easier than regular chess?
If easier, then I would've expected that it would attract
some gamblers who aren't smart enough to play plain
chess but who want to brag about being smart enough
to gamble playing "games of skill"...
On 6/12/2022 9:11 PM, MK wrote:
Apparently there are even about a dozen variants ofThe version of dice chess that I linked to was created by
"dice chess"... Again, who play these? Has anyone
here ever played "dice chess"?
David Yuen, who used to be a consultant for my company.
On Monday, June 13, 2022 at 1:50:53 PM UTC+1, Tim Chow wrote:
On 6/12/2022 9:11 PM, MK wrote:
Apparently there are even about a dozen variants ofThe version of dice chess that I linked to was created by
"dice chess"... Again, who play these? Has anyone
here ever played "dice chess"?
David Yuen, who used to be a consultant for my company.
Wow! You have a company!
Why not plug it here?
Wow! You have a company!
Why not plug it here?
I might invest.
Paul
On Monday, 13 June 2022 at 20:55:34 UTC+1, peps...@gmail.com wrote:
Wow! You have a company!
Why not plug it here?
I might invest.
Paul
You want to invest in a guy who drives fast cars recklessly around the US in the hope of getting pulled by the cops and, I believe the phrase is, "getting content" for his YouTube channel?
Don't forget the big bucks I'm raking in because of Eraser.
---
Tim Chow
The version of dice chess that I linked to was created
by David Yuen ..... popularized it at my company and
many people played it. The reason he invented it was
to "level the playing field" somewhat. ..... In dice chess
the weaker player always has a chance.
Can adding luck to an easy skill game, (i.e. playing a simple, solved,
skill game like tic-tac-toe with dice), make it actually harder, more complex/difficult? Any thoughts??
Similarly, can eliminating luck/dice from games like backgammon also
make them even harder, more complex/difficult?
I was totally astounded that there are over 2000 chess variants,
excluding who know how many more "trivial" ones not worth
mentioning. Wow! But I wonder who, if any people, play any of those
variants? Are they perhaps invented just for the sake of it? Too see
how much more complex/difficult variants one can create or in the
opposite, to come up with ones easier to play?
I found out that a game we used the play as youngsters is
commonly called "ludo",
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludo_(board_game)
as one of many variants of an old dice game called "pachisi"
I couldn't fins anything about the branching factor, etc. in
ludo/pachisi. I wonder if any of our resident mathematicians can
figure it out based of number of pieces, squares/points, possible
positions, etc...??
Why should it be harder for a human to play backgammon than chess
because it is harder for bots to play backgammon than chess..!?
Because of the dice and luck, in backgammon no checker or cube
decision is as consequential as in chess
Thanks fro this interesting info. If you feel like like it,
can you tell more about what people tought about it,
if it's still played, etc. especially "by what factor did it
level the field"? (in terms of ELO, for example)
But what I would really like to further discuss is "his
reason" which seems to be the generally accepted
about difficulty of games, i.e. injecting elements of
luck makes them easier.
When a colleague told me about a tournament of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_random_chess
I read about it a bit. The bottom line of Fischer's idea for me is to
(at least initially) compensate for the smaller (compared to backgammon) branching factor and quickly get into uncharted terrain. To have 960 different starting positions is roughly similar to what backgammon has
after the reply roll.
On 6/18/2022 9:36 PM, MK wrote:
...
But what I would really like to further discuss is "his
reason" which seems to be the generally accepted
about difficulty of games, i.e. injecting elements of
luck makes them easier.
I don't know what "easier" means.
...
On 6/19/2022 3:55 AM, Axel Reichert wrote:
When a colleague told me about a tournament of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_random_chess
I read about it a bit. The bottom line of Fischer's idea for me is toChess960 tournaments are still occasionally held at high levels.
(at least initially) compensate for the smaller (compared to backgammon) branching factor and quickly get into uncharted terrain. To have 960 different starting positions is roughly similar to what backgammon has after the reply roll.
I think there are two ideas behind it. The first is to combat the
intense memorization of "opening books" that dominates top-level
chess nowadays. The second is to generate interesting positions
that would never occur in ordinary chess.
It's hard for a new game to catch on, so I think that's the main reason Chess960 hasn't caught on more. A secondary reason is that Chess960 is
still basically chess, so the best Chess960 players are pretty much the
best chess players. If it were different enough that the top Chess960
players were different from the top chess players, then maybe that would
help increase its popularity among spectators.
---
Tim Chow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_random_chess
I read about it a bit. The bottom line of Fischer's idea for
me is to (at least initially) compensate for the smaller
(compared to backgammon) branching factor and quickly
get into uncharted terrain. To have 960 different starting
positions is roughly similar to what backgammon has
after the reply roll.
MK <mu...@compuplus.net> writes:
Can adding luck to an easy skill game, (i.e. playing a simple,
solved, skill game like tic-tac-toe with dice), make it actually
harder, more complex/difficult? Any thoughts??
Not if the full game tree is known (tic-tac-toe) to all players,
IMHO. For chess (game tree not fully known) I assume that
more exotic parts of the game tree might get visited more
often (e.g. weird openings). No thoughts about the complexity.
can eliminating luck/dice from games like backgammon
also make them even harder, more complex/difficult?
Depends on the choices that are left. Vice versa, just inventing
a game with a huge will not necessarily make this interesting.
MK <mu...@compuplus.net> writes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludo_(board_game)
Kids here in Germany probably all know
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensch_%C3%A4rgere_Dich_nicht
When I learned backgammon and the neural nets playing it,
I was wondering whether adults tend to underestimate Ludo
et al.'s complexity and whether an AI would show us how to
play this REALLY well. I never explored this further, though.
The branching factor should be rather small (referring to the
German variant): On average you have 2.5 pieces and one of
6 numbers on the die, which makes for 15 as a positional
branching factor. 2.5 moves to consider. Very, very roughly,
of course.
MK <mu...@compuplus.net> writes:
Why should it be harder for a human to play
backgammon than chess because it is harder
for bots to play backgammon than chess..!?
Because the mathematical difficulty of the
game are independent of whether hard- and
software or wetware is used.
I don't know what "easier" means.
Here's one possible definition. Take the best player in
the world; call that player A. Find someone, B, who can
consistently achieve a score of 25% against A. Then find
someone, C, who can consistently achieve a score of 25%
against B. Continue until you can't find any more levels.
The number of levels is the "difficulty" of the game.
Is that what you mean?
Here's a different possible definition. The difficulty of a
game is measured in terms of how much effort needs
to be expended to find the best move in a given position.
A secondary reason is that Chess960 is still
basically chess, so the best Chess960 players
are pretty much the best chess players.
This makes better sense to me than the approach used
in the Wiki page I previously gave a link to. Being based
on actual results, it seems more realistic than the ones
based on theoretical/mathematical extrapolations.
Did you come up with this? If so, is 25% a random pick?
Or is this actually used to rank players in some games?
This made me look at game complexity (i.e. skill
required vs luck) from yet a different perspective:
"how long a game lasts on the average".
Related:
| ...
| In any competition including academic tests, athletic
| events, and company management where there is an element of
| luck that causes performances to be an imperfect measure of
| ability, there is an important difference between
| competitions among people with high ability and
| competitions among people of lesser ability. If four work
| friends play a round of golf and one player is much better
| than the others, the winner is determined mostly by
| ability. If four of the top golfers in the world play a
| round of golf, the winner is determined mostly by luck.
| This is the paradox of luck and skill: the more skilled the
| competitors are, the more the outcome is determined by
| luck.
| ...
<https://mindmatters.ai/2019/08/the-paradox-of-luck-and-skill/>
(Written by Econ Prof, Gary Smith)
I can't offer any branching numbers, etc. but I have the feeling
that it can get pretty darn complicated...
MK <mu...@compuplus.net> writes:
[Ludo, Pachisi, ...]
I can't offer any branching numbers, etc. but I have
the feeling that it can get pretty darn complicated...
I imagine that the "terrain", as perceived by an
optimizer, is very flat, meaning that the equity
difference between the (few) possible moves
will be tiny, similar to long races such as this:
GNU Backgammon Position ID: sG+3AACwb7cAAA
Match ID : cIkEAAAAAAAA
There are more than 40 moves within 0.01 equity
of the best move.
On August 13, 2022 at 7:21:13 AM UTC-6, Axel Reichert wrote:
I bet it would really upset you if Ludo proved to need more skill than gamblegammon
MK <mu...@compuplus.net> writes:
I bet it would really upset you if Ludo proved to
need more skill than gamblegammon
Just because equity differences between moves are tiny
(think "greedy" bear-off versus optimal bear-off) does not
mean that the game is a difficult and skillful game.
Imagine a toin coss experiment where.....
Skillful? Maybe.
Dominated by luck? For sure.
Boring? You can bet.
Most stages of Ludo to me fit this picture.
On August 28, 2022 at 4:25:09 AM UTC-6, Axel Reichert wrote:
Skillful? Maybe.
Dominated by luck? For sure.
Boring? You can bet.
I totally agree that these are true about gamblegammon
way too often. And I would also say more often than Ludo.
MK <mu...@compuplus.net> writes:
On August 28, 2022 at 4:25:09 AM UTC-6, Axel Reichert wrote:
Skillful? Maybe.
Dominated by luck? For sure.
Boring? You can bet.
I totally agree that these are true about gamblegammon
way too often. And I would also say more often than Ludo.
Then please try your luck in rec.games.board,
just around the corner.
On 6/21/2022 9:57 PM, MK wrote:
This makes better sense to me than the approach used
in the Wiki page I previously gave a link to. Being based
on actual results, it seems more realistic than the ones
based on theoretical/mathematical extrapolations.
Did you come up with this? If so, is 25% a random pick?I did not come up with this. I don't know who first came up with
Or is this actually used to rank players in some games?
it, but it dates back at least to Bill Robertie in 1992.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190112044437/https://thegammonpress.com/comparing-games-skill-chance/
On June 22, 2022 at 8:40:48 AM UTC-4, Tim Chow wrote:
it, but it dates back at least to Bill Robertie in 1992.
I learned from Ken Regan that the idea of measuring the "depth" of
a game in this way seems to be due to Laszlo Mero, who described
the concept in his 1990 book, "Ways of Thinking."
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