Best Arrangement of Back Rank

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Does anyone else DARE to challenge my mighty setup?!

You won as white... that is expected. Now play your position as black.

Fritz Won as black. Winboard drew. Those games are in the other thread in pgn. That was a neat game you just posted... too bad there is no option to castle for White... but looks like white did not need it.

You also speculated switching a night someplace other? That might be a nice game to run a few rounds of to see who wins.

P

In any game of chess, based solely on the positioning of the back row, is it possible for either white or black to ALWAYS win, assuming perfect play.

I ran AThousandYoung's setup as black in Junior 9 against itself and black won. I am ready to declare it superior to the standard setup.

Now...

CAN ANYONE DO BETTER?

Xanthos and Phlababit -

I am confused at this point what the statistics are saying about my setup. According to ark13's and my tests, my setup is 1 0 as White and 1 0 as Black against the standard setup. Did you two actually run any other games with a computer against itself?

Phlab, can you clarify what you mean by this?

Fritz Won as black. Winboard drew. Those games are in the other thread in pgn.

Xanthos, can you clarify this?

AThousandYoung: I was mearly posting what Fritz gave me when given the position. It seems to think that the moves I posted lead to an even position. Look at the moves though. They don't make sense to me. Either the engine is looking deeper than I am or it doesn't have a clue what it's doing.

Do you two think that I should modify my 2-0-0 record based on your references in these posts? It sounds like Xanthos isn't confident that his test meant anything. It sounds like Phlab is claiming I should be adding a loss and a draw to the two wins of the ATY setup, to give a current record of 2-1-1. Am I correct?

Originally posted by ark13
I think we need a bit more evidence before declaring your setup superior. I'll run it overnight on Junior 9 with yours as black and a lot of time. If it wins then we can consider it better than the standard setup.

But I think this is really interesting. Which setup really is best? Even if yours wins, I'm willing to bet that there's a better one out ...[text shortened]... with ideas and we'll try them. It may be a fun contest a lead us to some insights about chess.

Even if yours wins, I'm willing to bet that there's a better one out there.

YOU DARE CHALLENGE THE SUPREMACY OF THE ATY SETUP?!

Phlababit -

You also speculated switching a night someplace other? That might be a nice game to run a few rounds of to see who wins.

Yes. I think this one might be as good or better. Or, it might not.

BKRNNRQB

The idea is that the Knights are even more centralized than in the other setup. In addition they can access their traditional positions at c3/c6 and f3/f6 to support the center Pawns if needed. As the Knights will need to develop early to be useful, the Rooks will still get connected early. The weakness of this one vs. my first offering is that the Rooks don't support the center Pawns immediately, and if the Knights go to the traditional c and f positions before those Pawns are advanced, the Rooks get blocked in and need to spend tempo to get to the center. I don't know if the better Knight position compensates for the worse Rook position in the initial setup.

Another possibility might involve an assymmetric setup designed to hit one particular side of the board really hard. Something like this:

RRNNQKBB

This setup would be aiming at the left side of the board (a-side). As the center is more important, however, I think mine is superior to this one.

I'm not in the mood to run these, but if anyone else wants to you're welcome to. I may run them later.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Xanthos and Phlababit -


Phlab, can you clarify what you mean by this?

[b]Fritz Won as black. Winboard drew. Those games are in the other thread in pgn.

[/b]

See this thread, where it all started.

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=19231&page=2

Your position was played by Black. With Fritz, it won (first game in pgn format)

Second game played by winboard was a draw.

I've been a bit busy to run another game... just wanted to clear that up.

P

Originally posted by Phlabibit
See this thread, where it all started.

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=19231&page=2

Your position was played by Black. With Fritz, it won (first game in pgn format)

Second game played by winboard was a draw.

I've been a bit busy to run another game... just wanted to clear that up.

P

Oh, ok. My position has a record of 3.5/4 against the traditional setup then.