[HN Gopher] Show HN: Blunderchess.net - blunder for your opponen...
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Show HN: Blunderchess.net - blunder for your opponent every five
moves
blunderchess.net is an open source, peer-to-peer chess app where
every five moves, players each get to make one blunder-move for
their opponent
Author : eviledamame
Score : 111 points
Date : 2025-02-16 00:22 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blunderchess.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (blunderchess.net)
| pbh101 wrote:
| Not seeing any players online.
| jmclnx wrote:
| may take time for people to see this
| jpat wrote:
| Nor am I
| billsunshine wrote:
| let's play
| maxmcd wrote:
| There seem to be errors connecting to peers
| tyre wrote:
| the real blunder was the networks we relied on along the way
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Tried the local version and the only blunder given was to White
| after move 5 & the rest of the game played out normally. Some
| blunders in the code perhaps?
| eviledamame wrote:
| The tricky thing about playing locally is that white and black
| will always alternate- so if you're not paying close attention
| to the turn order at the bottom, it appears as if it is playing
| out as normal chess. However the turn order is five normal
| moves, followed by two blunder-for-opponent moves, repeating
| badgerb wrote:
| Very cool! Maybe the board could rotate when it's your turn
| agin on opposition colour?
| eviledamame wrote:
| yeah good point, something like that could definitely help
| thepuppet33r wrote:
| The font is hard to read. From a usability and accessibility
| standpoint, I'd recommend changing it.
| sudoshred wrote:
| Agree, though it seems that the font choice is so bad it must
| be intentional.
| thijsvandien wrote:
| I once had the idea to take this to the extreme and make a
| version where you only control your opponent's pieces, so in
| terms of this game: blunder after blunder. Hardly having any
| chess experience, I'm not sure how interesting it would be.
| There's a good chance it essentially turns the one to start into
| the winner. Every few moves like here might work a lot better.
| jlund-molfese wrote:
| Sounds like a similar idea to antichess. Antichess is also
| (sadly) a solved game assuming perfect play.
| thijsvandien wrote:
| Ah, yes! That's pretty much the same then, just rotating the
| board.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| antichess is about eating pieces - it differs a lot from
| standard
|
| the "true answer" is sometimes called misere chess - but it
| isn't talked about much or as popular
|
| optimal misere strategy seem to be winning (almost) all the
| pieces - and then forcing checkmate onto yourself with force
| dsjoerg wrote:
| Has anyone worked out good strategy for this variant? At first
| think, I'd think Player 2 has an advantage because they are the
| first player who is able to make a move for their opponent and
| then _immediately_ play a move for themselves that exploits it.
|
| And, I suppose there might be some strategy where it's important
| not to expose yourself to potential shenanigans of this kind.
|
| So I'm wondering how this game looks for skilled players of both
| sides -- is it balanced, are the strategies interesting, etc. Or
| are we trying to work that out right now?
|
| Were these rulesets chosen carefully among many options because
| they result in the most interesting games? Or is this just a
| YOLO?
| elif wrote:
| The cow is probably meta opening NGL it's all about hiding your
| power behind pawns
| eviledamame wrote:
| My observations so far is that this game mode causes a lot of
| draws- because when a player gets a "power play" (moving
| opponent's piece, then immediately own piece) they can nullify
| pretty much any attack. It does seem like restricting mobility
| to your important pieces like the queen and rooks can be
| advantageous- to prevent your opponent from taking them on a
| "power play"
|
| As for the turn order- it generally needs to be "odd number of
| consecutive normal moves" followed by two "blunder for opponent
| moves". I have it set at five consecutive normal moves right
| now. Initially, I tried three, but that was too frustrating.
| Your opponent had too much control over your board. I could be
| convinced that seven normal consecutive moves is better than
| five though. Beyond that, I would think that the gimmick
| (playing for opponent) would occur too rarely. I'm not sure
| though! I'm curious what others think
| CSMastermind wrote:
| I've had a lot of success bringing a knight out first and
| playing a generally defensive game.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I love this concept of taking a game, making one rule change, and
| suddenly the game has a whole new feeling to it.
|
| This may be old news for some but I just discovered this rule
| that makes tic tac toe _incredibly fun_ to play with my kids:
| only the last three moves of each player stay on the board.
| throwup238 wrote:
| I've heard that one of the ways to writing good science fiction
| is to take the world as it is now, and imagine what would
| happen if you changed just _one_ thing. This feels like a good
| rule in general to iterate on things in the real world that
| have been known to work or be fun, etc.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I think that's one reason The Expanse is a compelling series.
| It's largely the same everything except "what if we could
| generate propulsion without the need of massive volumes of
| fuel?"
|
| I think Fallout is also similar: "what if the transistor
| wasn't invented until much later?"
| sockbot wrote:
| You might be interested in 960 chess a.k.a Fischer random
| a.k.a. freestyle chess. There is a weekly tournament on Fridays
| at chess.com if you want an intro.
| eviledamame wrote:
| there were indeed some networking issues which should now be
| resolved :)
| elif wrote:
| Accepted someone's challenge then they gave up after turn 5.
|
| This has the age old probably in online chess of people
| abandoning games and even accounts to preserve their ego
| eviledamame wrote:
| Very true!
| TZubiri wrote:
| Author may be able to adapt stockfish to play this variant
| Townley wrote:
| My teenage niece is getting solid at chess, but I can still beat
| her handily. So we came up with a fun handicap the last few times
| we've played:
|
| Every third turn, my four year old daughter gets to move for me.
| She doesn't know the rules so she chooses a piece and we give her
| the full rundown of options where that piece can legally move.
| Neither of us can influence her choice, but there's some degree
| of psychological play allowed for everyone's entertainment
|
| It's been unexpectedly rich and fun for everyone involved:
|
| - My daughter is slowly learning the game and likes hamming up
| the choice
|
| - I exercise a different part of my brain around guarding
| eventualities and conservative movements
|
| - Pure cackles of joy and glee from my niece whenever my daughter
| reaches for the queen
| bpev wrote:
| tfw "defensive play" is actually just blocking your own pieces
| on purpose
| ryannevius wrote:
| This reminds me a bit of Hand and Brain [1], another fun
| variant with kids. We usually switch to normal chess after a
| predetermined number of moves.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_and_brain
| jarofgreen wrote:
| That's so close to a variant we once invented. There were 4
| of us, 2 of us good at chess and 2 beginners. We played in
| teams, a good person and a beginner on each team. We took it
| in turns to move and you couldn't tell your partner ANYTHING.
|
| As the good player, you had to come up with a good move for
| the board but also for what your partner might do next. Was
| fun!
| SonOfLilit wrote:
| In Go this is known as Rengo and is the most popular
| couples' tournament format.
| eviledamame wrote:
| I love that! A very similar situation was also the inspiration
| for this variant- a beginner friend and I wanted to play but
| make the game less serious and more funny
| aqueueaqueue wrote:
| gg "Linda"
| pmcarlton wrote:
| This is very interesting! I recommend that you add a visual
| indicator of where you currently are in the normal/blunder cycle,
| and whose turn it will be when.
| eviledamame wrote:
| the turn order is shown at the bottom. although i do think it
| could be improved. adding additional highlighting around "power
| plays" (moving opponents piece, then immediately own piece)
| could be helpful
| moomin wrote:
| Penultimate Chess is interesting: you propose two moves, your
| opponent picks which one happens.
| jrockway wrote:
| I don't need any help making chess blunders!
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(page generated 2025-02-16 23:01 UTC)