Mentioned in TFA: This version of chess is given by Martin Gardner in his "Mathematical Games" column of July 1980 (pages 27 and 31) — https://www.jstor.org/stable/24966361 — and the analysis of White's mate is given in the column of August 1980 (page 18) — https://www.jstor.org/stable/24966383.
I do wonder how things would change if the board were 9 cells long; 10 cells long; etc. Also, it seems "in the spirit" to permit castling if neither K nor R has moved yet: i.e., from the position
K _ R N r _ n k
White ought to be permitted to
_ R K N r _ n k
(Or maybe there's a stronger argument for R K _ N r _ n k, actually. The former was conceptually "rook moves halfway toward king, then king moves to the other side of rook"; but the latter is "rook moves two steps in king's direction while king moves to the other side of rook.")
I'm pretty sure this wouldn't change the analysis on the 8-cell board at all, though. I wonder if it would change the analysis on any size of board.
al_borland 2 minutes ago [-]
Maybe I'm not good enough at chess to understand the strategy here, but how would castling be useful in this 1-D game? Castling in a normal game protects your King and activates the Rook. In this 1-D game, your King starts out protected behind the Rook. If you castle and end up in a _ R K N position, your king is exposed and your Rook is trapped behind the King, useless, with no way to ever get it back out. The Rook seems essential for mate, and its power has been eliminated.
asibahi 1 hours ago [-]
This is really nice.
Incidentally, there is an actual 1D game that is one of the most popular games on the planet: Backgammon.
zniturah 15 minutes ago [-]
Good observation. Considering stacking of pieces maybe 1.5D though.
moffkalast 7 minutes ago [-]
Backgammon, the game everyone's seen and at the same time nobody knows how to play :P
gef 41 minutes ago [-]
Reminds me of Edwin A. Abbott's Flatland, where he describes Lineland. A one-dimensional world whose King can only move forward and backward, cannot conceive of sideways, and considers his tiny segment of existence complete and sufficient. The Linelanders are portrayed as pitiable, intellectually imprisoned by their single dimension. Much like us in our three :)
palata 49 minutes ago [-]
It was a lot more fun than I first thought!
kkaske 43 minutes ago [-]
I was only able to beat this after a couple retries. The hint was hard to read.
northfield27 52 minutes ago [-]
Haha, i was taking N4 and N6, but didn’t figure the steps after that.
To win we need to let knight die because rook can move multiple steps to kill the king.
From a third person perspective R2 is a deceptive move that takes advantage algorithm to make the black king back off to kill its knight.
40 minutes ago [-]
bbx 1 hours ago [-]
Oh very interesting. Even with these restrictions, there are quite a few variations, and it seems only one ends up with white winning.
sieste 1 hours ago [-]
It took me an embarrassing number of attempts to win.
schmeichel 1 hours ago [-]
Finally, a version of Chess I can understand. Thank you.
rOOmbambar9 29 minutes ago [-]
It's very interesting and fun!)
vladde 55 minutes ago [-]
i could not beat it, and i can't read that chess notation
qup 25 minutes ago [-]
The first move after the comma is yours (open with kNight to 4), and the second move is apparently predetermined or always chosen.
thesuitonym 37 minutes ago [-]
The letter is the piece to move, and the number is the index to move to, starting from 1 on the left. The first alphanumeric pair is your move, then the computer's move. Comma. Your move, computer's move...
DrammBA 38 minutes ago [-]
the notation is just an array of move tuples, each tuple contains 1 move for white and 1 move for black, where each move is written as <1st letter of piece name><destination square>
28 minutes ago [-]
lschueller 60 minutes ago [-]
Cool idea. This is smart and lean. I like it
tkapin 1 hours ago [-]
Nice! :)
naorz 2 hours ago [-]
Fun stuff, love it!
tintor 56 minutes ago [-]
The first move is always: white rook takes black rook, then the only remaining move for black is to move the knight away, which results in checkmate.
nippoo 55 minutes ago [-]
If you play the game, you realise this ends up in stalemate.
Fabricio20 7 minutes ago [-]
I'm not very good at chess, but I dont get why most things are considered a stalemate? I strategically remove all pieces of the enemy, leaving only the king against my rook/tower whatever its called, the king has nowhere to run. In my eyes it's a checkmate. The game just calls it a stalemate. Would be a stalemate if I couldn't do anything, but I can kill the enemy king.
umanwizard 15 minutes ago [-]
Black can’t move the knight: it’s illegal to make a move that puts yourself in check. Thus black has no legal moves, but isn’t in check, so the result is a draw.
Rendered at 17:32:13 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
I do wonder how things would change if the board were 9 cells long; 10 cells long; etc. Also, it seems "in the spirit" to permit castling if neither K nor R has moved yet: i.e., from the position
K _ R N r _ n k
White ought to be permitted to
_ R K N r _ n k
(Or maybe there's a stronger argument for R K _ N r _ n k, actually. The former was conceptually "rook moves halfway toward king, then king moves to the other side of rook"; but the latter is "rook moves two steps in king's direction while king moves to the other side of rook.")
I'm pretty sure this wouldn't change the analysis on the 8-cell board at all, though. I wonder if it would change the analysis on any size of board.
Incidentally, there is an actual 1D game that is one of the most popular games on the planet: Backgammon.
To win we need to let knight die because rook can move multiple steps to kill the king.
From a third person perspective R2 is a deceptive move that takes advantage algorithm to make the black king back off to kill its knight.