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"In blitz, the Knight is stronger than the Bishop" (Vlastimil Hort)
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Harald Korneliussen on rec.games.abstract recommended using a pie rule for play balancing of even games like chess variants. First player makes a move and then the second player decides whether to accept it or not. I am curious here if people see that as a possible way to handle unbalanced sides, particularly in the case where what side is stronger or weaker is unknown.
Anyone see this as a possible solution for games like Chess960, where the balancing is unknown for sides?
I think you could use the pie rule to balance Kalah (aka "Mancala"), the national mancala game of the USA (mostly played by children, but that would change if you would balance the game).
Another version that is worth considering is that the start player adjusts how much time either side adds (removing time from either their side or their opponent's side) and then their opponent picks which side to play. The starting player can choose to not adjust things other. This seems to be the purest way to do it.
Rich, do you mean the first player moves AND sets the time for both players (doesn't have to be the same time), and then the 2nd player decides which side he plays?
Normally I don't like the pie rule and I won't release a game that seems to be inordinately in need of the pie rule, but there was one exception: Crossway.
http://www.marksteeregames.com/Crossway_rules.pdf
The whole point of Crossway was to adapt Hex to a Go board, with the minimum possible adjustment to the rules. As in Hex, there's an advantage in moving first and especially in claiming the center point. The pie rule just keeps Player 1 from being too greedy and taking advantage of his rank in the move order. Player 1 has to move somewhere that he feels is equally advantageous to both players, taking into consideration that it's the first move of the game. If he gets to keep that point and his first move status, great. If not, that's ok too.
I still think of the pie rule as an inelegant rule, but it's justified if necessary for otherwise very elegant games. I don't think it should be used for every game unless it's specifically mentioned in the rules, as it is in Crossway.
Mark, outside of pie-rule, what do you suggest as a balancing mechanism for games where one side is clearly favored or where the side favored is unknown?
mindprint, I believe that one player should set the time for either side, and then the second player decides which side to play. Tweaking the clock seems to be the best way to go about balancing without disrupting the basic flow of the game. When I had suggested that, perhaps for chess, a handicap be used by white getting to move so many moves before black went, it was shown to be a problem.
I don't know what to recommend. The pie rule is actually pretty effective all by itself in games with first move advantage. If you move first in a game with first move advantage you have to make a bad enough move to counterbalance the advantage of moving first. Now the degree of first move advantage depends on the game and on the skill level of the evenly matched players. But no matter what you should always be able to find an appropriately bad move to do the trick. So the pie rule adapts itself to various games and skill levels.
For games with second move advantage, I don't know what you do. I don't think it makes sense to use the pie rule after the second player's first move, because the first move player can intentionally make a really bad move and then when he takes over as second move player he has even more of an advantage.
I think a pie-rule regarding time works here. First player adjusts the time clocks of both sides, and the second player then decides what side to play.
That applies to the first two moves only, right? If so it's easy to memorize first moves and the corresponding second moves. Timing isn't really an issue, if I understand you correctly.
The pie rule usually applies to the first two moves. What I am discussing refers to the start player looking at the start position and then adjusts the clock for one side or the other accordingly (reducing time to one side or the other) and the other player then decides what side they want to play. Another version of that would be for the start player to give one side or the other so many moves to win the game by, and the other side then decides what to do.
Oh, I see. In a relatively fixed number of moves game like Othello that might make sense. I have to think about that. In a variable number of moves game like Chess, that would have an effect on gameplay, like trying to create play with many or few moves. It's also beyond the player's control to a certain extent how many moves the game will take, whether it'll be a many moves game or a few moves game. But it will favor one player or the other. So you're taking the luck out of the coin toss and moving into another arena. You can't escape the luck.
In chess, the way they handicap is to toy with the clock.
I would say another way to do balancing via a version of the pie-rule would be (like with Othello), would be points. In a game where players score points, the first player says how much one side or the other has to win by, and the second player ends up deciding which side to play.
like komi in Go
omweso, you mean where one player gets an advantage in the number of pieces on the board to start? That can work for some games, but not all.
No, check http://senseis.xmp.net/?Komi
Even in games without score, you can use a payoff negotiation pie rule to balance. Say the first player says "A win with black is seven points, a win with white is six", and the second player decides what to play as. Of course one would need a way to deal with ties (and they bloody well should be in between a loss and a win in value) and if used in a tournament or similar, the scores would have to be normalized somehow.
omweso, thanks for the Komi link. If I understand correctly, this is similar to how Vegas handicaps football games here in the United States.
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