[HN Gopher] "Death" one of 5 ways to lose at Chess, according to...
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"Death" one of 5 ways to lose at Chess, according to PGN standard
Author : heydemo
Score : 107 points
Date : 2021-09-26 18:06 UTC (4 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (www.saremba.de)
| vardump wrote:
| Please _never_ show these rules to a general AI and ask it to win
| a chess match...
| catlifeonmars wrote:
| As an aside, would it be ethical to restrict an AGI to a single
| purpose? It sort of reminds me of Rick's butter robot from Rick
| and Morty
| amelius wrote:
| Unless you implement Asimov's first law of robotics.
| zepto wrote:
| You still have to worry about the Zeroth law.
| dogorman wrote:
| The Zeroth law, which permits a robot to harm individuals
| if it's good for the collective humanity, is certainly
| cause for concern. But it's scarcely the only concern. The
| three laws are _riddled_ with holes which Asimov used as
| plot generators for his robot stories. Consider the
| Solarian formulation of the first law: _Robots are not
| permitted to kill humans [where 'human' is defined to only
| include Solarian.]_
|
| But even when the laws haven't been tampered with, they're
| still filled with holes, traps, oversights, etc. The first
| law states _" A robot may not injure a human being or,
| through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm."_
| This law _requires_ a robot to intervene when a human is
| doing something the robot considers risky. A robot
| operating under this rule might grab you off your
| skateboard, because it judges skateboarding to be risky and
| is required to take action to prevent that possible harm (
| _" A robot may not [...] through inaction, allow a human
| being to come to harm"_) That inaction clause could be
| removed, but that introduces other problems.
| zepto wrote:
| Right, imagine an army of androids rampaging through the
| streets snatching cigarettes and junk food out of
| people's mouths. Perhaps we'd see public executions of
| Zuckerberg along with cigarette company executives and
| various figures from the military industrial complex,
| etc. etc.
| Tommah wrote:
| Years ago, I read a tongue-in-cheek list of tips on how to win at
| chess. One of them said, "Never resign. There's always a chance
| that your opponent will drop dead before he can checkmate you."
| rawling wrote:
| Or indeed draw, presumably.
| Closi wrote:
| Nope, the rules clearly state if you die you lose.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| What if both players die at the same time?
| bcraven wrote:
| That question doesn't make any sense in a turn-based game.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| So the rule "whoever dies, loses" only applies to players
| whose turn it currently is? I thought it was a bit more
| universal.
| evanb wrote:
| If you see the other player die, you can make literally
| any legal move and win.
| keketi wrote:
| And so begun the feign death meta...
| ivalm wrote:
| Yes, as they can no longer complete the current turn.
| Traditionally chess is played with time limits, so it
| makes sense that death causes the current turn, and only
| the current turn, player to lose.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| This is logical, but the situation when the other player
| dies needs some solution too. Because the living player
| finishes their turn and then ... what? There isn't even
| anyone to _have_ a turn anymore.
|
| So for the sake of completeness, I would expect the rule
| to cover all deaths at the table.
| ivalm wrote:
| If the other player dies presumably you can pass the turn
| to them (and claim victory).
| catillac wrote:
| For practical purposes this is not correct though. It
| would be trivial for the person whose turn it is to make
| _any_ legal move to shift the current turn over to their
| now-deceased opponent and as such win the game.
| tedunangst wrote:
| Sounds like both players didn't die at the same time
| then.
| Closi wrote:
| I think there is an edge case where both people die at
| the same time, but one is about to make a move and drops
| the piece as they die, and it lands on the board. Is that
| move valid? Or not as they are already dead when it
| lands?
| toast0 wrote:
| Only the other player can challenge a move as illegal,
| right? If they're dead, they won't challenge and won't
| move, and thus lose?
| JonathanMerklin wrote:
| I propose the alternative that death is instant
| disqualification regardless of game state, which
| incentivises murder as a strategy and adds an additional
| psychological tax but also a necessity to resolve
| disputes in a way that really makes the Han/Greedo
| distinction an important one and would make for a fun
| "spaghetti western involving but not necessarily for
| intellectuals" flick.
|
| (EDIT: I hope the jest is clear. Murder is bad.)
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > spaghetti western involving but not necessarily for
| intellectuals
|
| It would have be scored by Ennio Morricone, who was
| passionate about chess: "When I was a kid I had two
| ambitions, to become either a physician, or a chess
| player, not a musician." [0]
|
| [0] https://www.chess.com/blog/RoaringPawn/in-memoriam-
| ennio-mor...
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Which in the context of chess is extra funny, as the game
| is basically an abstracted battlefield and losses of
| figures are abstracted deaths.
|
| Even the expression for the end of the game, _shah mat_ =
| the king is dead (in Persian).
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I'd assume the player who could not complete their turn
| would be the losing player.
| max-ibel wrote:
| Somehow, this thought has me think of a hypothetical Agatha
| Christie novel.
| xondono wrote:
| Now we will start to see tournaments on certain countries with
| all GMs over 80y...
| [deleted]
| ummonk wrote:
| You'd think it would be subsumed under "emergency"
| rmetzler wrote:
| Chess is played over (snail) mail a lot, so it's possible the
| player dies a natural death and it's not "an emergency". I
| guess an emergency is more like you leave the board in a hurry.
| vadfa wrote:
| It's funny to think that someone put all of those values in an
| array of some computer code somewhere.
| anderskaseorg wrote:
| The rules of chess are defined by the FIDE Handbook
| (https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018), not the PGN
| standard. Although the FIDE Handbook makes no explicit provision
| for the death of the player, it does say:
|
| "6.9. Except where one of Articles 5.1.1, 5.1.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.2,
| 5.2.3 applies, if a player does not complete the prescribed
| number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by that
| player. However, the game is drawn if the position is such that
| the opponent cannot checkmate the player's king by any possible
| series of legal moves."
|
| Therefore, a draw due to player death is also possible.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Makes perfect sense. You can't win king vs king+pawn ever. As
| such even if opponent died in such situation you don't get win.
| Someone wrote:
| > You can't win king vs king+pawn ever
|
| Pawns can get promoted, so there are are many king vs king +
| pawn positions that are a win for the player having the pawn.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Point was that you having only king can't win against
| person with king+pawn ever. Even if such player was dead
| and thus played to lose.
| spicybright wrote:
| I mean hey, some rules are written in blood.
| chaorace wrote:
| "death": losing player called to greater things, one hopes.
|
| It's not often that a standard written by committee leads me to
| ruminate on the nature of life.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| "called to greater things, one hopes"
|
| The player did not lose, they were recruited to St. Peter's
| Celestial Chess team.
| nkrisc wrote:
| And to think, I could have won all those matches I lost simply by
| killing my opponent.
| fallingknife wrote:
| No that would be under "rules infraction"
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Well, one of them at least. Getting another match is kind of
| tricky with that strategy.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Tell that to Death.
| iaw wrote:
| Excellent reference to "The Seventh Seal" [0]
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpKrvkussjw
| rex_lupi wrote:
| Tennison gambit ICBM variation or Albin countergambit nuclear
| powered submarine variation? https://youtu.be/E2xNlzsnPCQ
| bserge wrote:
| Love that guy :D
| shironandon wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing
| phonebucket wrote:
| This occurred in a game of mine.
|
| I play(ed) international correspondence chess. The games can go
| on for years. In one of my games, my opponent sadly passed away.
| The game was adjuticated to a draw nine months after we had
| started.
|
| I did not have much personal connection with my opponent or
| interaction beyond our moves and an initial greeting, but it was
| obviously an extremely sad way for the game to end.
|
| Edit: the termination string in my game was actually that of a
| draw by adjudication, but I do want to make it clear that a death
| during a chess game is not as uncommon as one might expect.
| Aulig wrote:
| Im not familiar with chess - why do some games last that long?
| Or was it multiple games?
| phonebucket wrote:
| It's one game that lasts so long.
|
| This was traditionally played by players exchanging moves via
| letters sent by post.
|
| Naturally people use the internet more these days, but with a
| lot of time allowed between moves to keep the slow pace of
| correspondence chess.
|
| Allowing this amount of time between moves completely changes
| the character of the game. There's ample time of deep
| analysis and research. There's more incentive to leave the
| beaten track if you need to push for a win.
|
| It's an extremely different game to over-the-board chess.
| kgwgk wrote:
| > Allowing this amount of time between moves completely
| changes the character of the game. There's ample time of
| deep analysis and research.
|
| It can also end in chaos:
| https://maxxwolf.tripod.com/woody.html
| leblancfg wrote:
| I imagine if this was ever used, it would be mostly for
| correspondence games, which can last up to many years.
| ex3xu wrote:
| _" death": losing player called to greater things, one hopes._
|
| An inspiringly optimistic spiritual outlook from the PGN
| standard, so thank you for that.
|
| Technically, over the board one could just wait until their
| deceased opponent flags to claim a win, but in practice, for
| every occasion I'm aware of in high level tournament play, the
| remaining player will adjudicate the game honestly according to
| their evaluation of the position -- even if that means resigning
| out of respect for his or her opponent. See Karapanos-Zoler
| (2009), or Meier-Niyizibi from the 2014 Olympiad [1].
|
| One more thing to note is that playing high level chess is in
| fact a strenuous activity; one grandmaster playing while wearing
| a heart monitor recorded burning 560 calories in two hours. [2]
| Top players like Carlsen or Caruana keep themselves in peak
| physical condition in addition to their chess preparation.
|
| And although chess players as a demographic may have certain
| increased predispositions to conditions like Asperger's,
| schizophrenia, or cardiovascular diseases (likely due to the
| sedentary nature of the game), I'll relay something one older
| player once commented to me: that he has never found a documented
| case of a high level tournament chess player succumbing to
| Alzheimer's disease.
|
| [0] https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1554879
|
| [1] https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1771703
|
| [2] https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27593253/why-
| grandmaste...
| lenzm wrote:
| I don't think that's too surprising, I doubt you can play chess
| at a high level with early stages of Alzheimer's.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| I think what they meant was that they'd never heard of
| someone who was _at any point in time_ a high level chess
| player eventually succumbing to Alzheimer's.
| forty wrote:
| I'm not sure what to conclude of that though. Does it mean
| that playing high level chess lower risks of contracting
| Alzheimer's or does it mean that people with low
| Alzheimer's risks have higher chance to become high level
| chess players?
| tialaramex wrote:
| We know a bunch of other intellectual capabilities have
| mitigating effects on mental decline, presumably because
| they exercise brain plasticity which will then later be
| called into play as things fail.
|
| For example being multi-lingual is reported to help.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| It might also mean that high-level chess players contract
| Alzheimer's at the normal rate, but it goes undiagnosed
| because their lower functioning still seems fine to
| everyone else.
| shreddit wrote:
| Is "unterminated" the default value? or can a game end with the
| value unterminated?
| CrazyStat wrote:
| You can have a pgn for a game which is still in progress
| (indeed, this is common these days with major tournaments being
| livestreamed). "Unterminated" covers this case.
| hirundo wrote:
| checkmate (n.) mid-14c., in chess, said of a king when it is in
| check and cannot escape it, from Old French eschec mat (Modern
| French echec et mat), which (with Spanish jaque y mate, Italian
| scacco-matto) is from Arabic shah mat "the king died" (see check
| (n.1)), which according to Barnhart is a misinterpretation of
| Persian mat "be astonished" as mata "to die," mat "he is dead."
| Hence Persian shah mat, if it is the ultimate source of the word,
| would be literally "the king is left helpless, the king is
| stumped."
|
| If checkmate is the death of the Shah, death is a common ending.
| If you also consider the other pieces it's usually a massacre.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| So it does mean that the chess assumes that the king is never
| "killed"? It always stood out to me as, what I assumed to be
| medieval code of conduct that required not killing kings
| (killing queens is ok)
| bsza wrote:
| You can think of it this way: the goal is to kill the king,
| but the last two half-moves are trivial, so they are not
| actually played.
| [deleted]
| kzrdude wrote:
| That it is called a queen is also cultural, in Russia, Arabic
| speaking countries etc it is not a queen but a called a
| vizier or similar (a high ranking official). Looks like the
| Europeans changed to queens in their interpretation of chess.
| tropdrop wrote:
| And "shahmaty" is what chess is called in Russian - shakhmaty.
| The expression for check and mate is shah i mat (shakh i mat)
| also, but "shah" (shakh) in Russian sounds almost exactly like
| the word for a step (shag) - it sounds a bit like saying here
| is my final step, my final move.
|
| Growing up, I thought that's where the expression came from,
| and had no clue it was from Arabic! Thanks for this.
| usrusr wrote:
| Somehow I would have hoped that the rules for death during a game
| of chess would be a deep dive into the succession laws of when-
| and wherever those rules were established.
| lom wrote:
| Does this imply killing the opponent is a viable strategy in
| chess?
| Natsu wrote:
| You'd assume the other person would have it decided against
| them for a rules infraction first.
| contravariant wrote:
| Or does it mean you could win a game of chess against Death
| itself on a technicality?
| MerelyMortal wrote:
| Technically yes, but it is likely not a lawful defense to
| murder.
| catillac wrote:
| Expanding slightly to say, "...not a lawful defense to murder
| in the jurisdictions of which I am aware." :)
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Never accept an invitation to play chess in the Idaho
| section of Yellowstone.
| fouc wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_Death_(Yellowstone)
| im3w1l wrote:
| Could it be possible to exploit differences in how death is
| defined? What if one were to stop the heart of the opponent,
| and then immediately resuscitate them?
| Verdex wrote:
| Not quite. There is also a "rules infraction" where failure to
| adhere to the laws of chess OR the event regulations can cause
| you to lose.
|
| Murdering your opponent will almost definitely be considered a
| rule infraction.
|
| Although there might be some edge cases if the murderer was an
| absolute ruler of the current country. Or maybe if you happened
| to kill your opponent in self defense somehow.
| icelancer wrote:
| Feel like you'd lose by "rules infraction"
| jarofgreen wrote:
| Pyric victory - technically you won but the resources you have
| to sacrifice (your imminent loss of freedom while in prison)
| make it not worth while.
| anonporridge wrote:
| It would certainly get your name in the history books and
| secure a legacy of infamy.
|
| A high ego grandmaster on the decline may decide loss of the
| remainder of their freedom in life is worth the sacrifice.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| You have to be in a Stronger passion before your opponent
| died.
| stardenburden wrote:
| Death' Gambit
|
| You sacricifive your next dozen or so free years for the
| victory.
| franky47 wrote:
| Deep Blue vs Kasparov could have taken a very different turn.
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