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        Arimaa >> General Discussion >> Use captured pieces again
        
(Message started by: djvaios on Sep 24^th, 2010, 10:14pm)

Title: Use captured pieces again
Post by djvaios on Sep 24^th, 2010, 10:14pm

Hello

I would like to suggest a rule change for the game of Arimaa.

It should be possible to return captured pieces
to the board and to use them as one's own.

That is if I capture a piece of the opponent I
can return it to the board again and use it
as my own.

This is similar to the Japanese Chess variant Shogi.

Returning captured pieces to the board should
count as one step of a turn.

A piece that has already been captured can be
put onto any empty square of the board.
This counts as one single step of a turn.

There should be restrictions for returning
rabbits into play.
Putting them back into play should be restricted
to any empty square in one's own half of the
board.

Or maybe even further restricted to the first
two ranks of one's own side of the board.

This measure will increase Arimaa's huge game
tree complexity even further.

The game of Arimaa should be played with
circular flat disc pieces
that are labeled on both sides with the same
symbol in two different colours.

Those symbols represent the different pieces
that are used to play Arimaa.
I suggest to use the same symbols that are
used for dices.
Then one point corresponds to a rabbit,
two points correspond to a cat and so on.

This way it is easy for a captured piece
to change sides (and colours).

Title: Re: Use captured pieces again
Post by 722caasi on Sep 26^th, 2010, 12:11am

This could be an interesting variant, but there is the possibility of never ending games. This idea could totally eliminate the endgame. If both players take a defensive, rabbit pulling route, instead of reaching the endgame, like in normal Arimaa, where someone would eventually win, it might go on forever. I could see games between evenly matched, defensive players being effectively drawn..

Title: Re: Use captured pieces again
Post by clojure on Sep 26^th, 2010, 4:01am

How about if one could replace existing piece with a captured one? So that if I trap opponent's dog, I can put it to a place where my cat is and take the cat away from game?

Title: Re: Use captured pieces again
Post by ocmiente on Sep 26^th, 2010, 1:12pm

on 09/26/10 at 00:11:38, 722caasi wrote:

Seems like this would lead to quicker games, rather than slower. I was reading the post to mean that if I took an opponent's rabbit, then on my next move I can flip over the rabbit piece to change it's color, and put it on the board as my own. So, instead of being up just one rabbit, I'm now up two.

Since being up by one piece can be a significant advantage, this would make the advantage of piece capture even higher, leading to shorter games. Am I missing something?

Title: Re: Use captured pieces again
Post by Nombril on Sep 26^th, 2010, 2:58pm

Yeah, it sounds like this would be the case for the first player to get an advantage. It would more quickly turn the balance.

But as 722cassi points out, matches between close players could go on for awhile. Not just trading rabbits in defensive games, but also other even trades in offensive styles.

Title: Re: Use captured pieces again
Post by 722caasi on Sep 27^th, 2010, 12:15am

on 09/26/10 at 13:12:52, ocmiente wrote:

I was talking about simultaneous, even trades. Even these will eventually end a game of Arimaa, but not in this new variant.

Title: Re: Use captured pieces again
Post by ocmiente on Sep 27^th, 2010, 6:12pm

Thanks. I think I understand now. I've read about Shogi, but never played it, so it's hard for me to grasp what this mechanism would do to Arimaa. The more I think about it though, the more I would like to try it out.

I might try Shogi first though, since it seems to have a strong following and has been around a while - before trying adding this mechanism to Arimaa.

Title: Re: Use captured pieces again
Post by omar on Sep 28^th, 2010, 2:06am

I tend to agree this would allow the side which captured first to get more of an advantage. Might have to make introducing a piece back into play use up 4 steps to compensate. Another possibility is that opponents captured pieces can't be introduced into the game, but once the same type of piece has been captured by both sides they are returned to the original players and can then be introduced back into play. For example if I capture my opponents cat, I can't put it back into play. But after my opponent captures a cat we automatically exchange the cats so that we now have our own cats again. Now I or my opponent can put our cat back into play. This would eliminate the need for the pieces being discs and would not require extra pieces. But as 722caasi mentioned it might result in never ending games. So to prevent that you might have to have the exception that rabbits can't be reintroduced. djvaios, I suggest trying it out and letting us know what you find.

Back in June 2005 Wayne Schmittberger (of GAMES magazine) and I were discussing the Mtel chess tournament which was supposed to prevent mutually agreed draws and make the games more interesting.
http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2405

At the time I had proposed some ideas for making chess drawless.

Quote:

Yes, I was following it too. It was very interesting,
but a bit disappointing that there were still
so many draws.

I was thinking that maybe a few additional changes
to the rules should make chess a lot more lively.

1. The repitition rule should be changed so that
the player causing the same position to occur
for the 3rd time loses the game.

2. To fix the problem with insufficient material
for mate; borrow the drop rule from shogi, but with
a slight modification. When the players have traded
off the same type of piece (for example
we captured each others queen) they must exchange
the captured piece with each other (like exchanging
prisoners in a war). A player may then drop their
own piece back into the game, but placing it on one
of the unoccupied squares of the first row; provided
two bishops are not on the same color. Only
major pieces are exchanged, pawns are not exchanged.

3. Maybe also adopt Fischer Random chess rules so
that the players have to start thinking right from
the begining.

That should liven things up a bit :-)