It is finally time to announce:

[Vinvin]

This chess variant is so "forced" that I bet (and I hope) we will find a forced win for white with a top engine.

My best,
Vincent

[smrf]

Maybe including 10x8 chess (CRC or something else) could be interesting.

There is a need to specify, which protocols have to be supported then, and whether engine programmers also have to be present during the event.

[Vinvin]

I just installed your WB and Pulsar, it seems there's a bug somewhere : sometime there's no explosion .
The game :

[Event "Computer Chess Game"]
[Site "VINVIN-PC"]
[Date "2010.11.08"]
[Round "-"]
[White "Vinvin"]
[Black "pulsar2009-9a.exe"]
[Result "*"]
[TimeControl "40/300"]
[Variant "atomic"]
[Annotator "1... -0.20"]

1. Nf3 f6 2. e4 h5 3. Bb5 Nc6 4. d4 e6 5. Bf4 e5 6. Bxc6 *

After 6.Bxc6, no explosion :-/

I get the joke!

If there are at least two Atomic-Chess engines and if you include the protocol in Winboard so they can play each other then something will be arranged!

WinBoard has been supporting Atomic Chess even from before the times I got involved with it! But of course I added some nice frills: it actually animates the blast wave of the exploding pieces, which wipes out the surrounding squares. (I even ported that to XBoard, a few weeks ago!)

I am aware of only one engine that plays it, though: Pulsar (one of the reasons included that in the standard binary download). Or does Sjeng support -variant atomic too?

[Graham Banks]

I will be holding the first annual, World Atomic Computer Chess Championships, in the spring of 2012. It will be held in or around the area of Youngstown, Ohio. Hopefully at the Youngstown State University's Computer Center. There will be a $120,000.00 prise fund put up and guarantied, by me.

There will be open sections and also 'open source' only sections. Everyone will be required to compete using only an onsite single core Intel Atom processor. Also some prize money will be set aside for variants and Shogi if there is enough interest.

I will need to assemble a team of qualified volunteers to man a rules and oversee committee. All the work and planning needs to be done. This announcement is the first step that has been taken, except the accumulation of the prize fund, which has already been accomplished!

Further details will be announced as they are confirmed.

Great stuff Michael. I hope that your event is a raging success and the first of many.

[CThinker]

I'm pretty sure that Thinker will show up, because it is a held in the US (a rarity these days) and the hardware is uniform across the participants.

I might even show-up to cheer for Thinker.

[silentshark]

Well, I hope it goes ahead. Sounds like a fun event. Uniform platform is cool, too.

If the field is wide enough (i.e. its not just a small bunch of mega-engines), and other programmers are going to be there, I might be tempted to enter. I've done a few of the WMCCC events, and they were a blast!

[George Tsavdaris]

I will be holding the first annual, World Atomic Computer Chess Championships, in the spring of 2012.

One question.
Chess rules are governed by FIDE and they are unambiguous by all means.

Atomic Chess rules on the other hand, does not have such organization to have some specific rules. So there are FICS rules, ICC rules, Wildchess.org rules, Goldtoken rules, Brainking rules, etc.
FICS rules suck at my opinion and the best are either Brainking or Wildchess.org, although there is a certain degree of ambiguity in Wildchess rules as described in their page as they do not cover everything.

So by which rules are you gonna play the tournament? The rules differences between all these are minor to write but become major OTB and in countless situations a win is a draw and the opposite.

[George Tsavdaris]

WinBoard has been supporting Atomic Chess even from before the times I got involved with it! But of course I added some nice frills: it actually animates the blast wave of the exploding pieces, which wipes out the surrounding squares. (I even ported that to XBoard, a few weeks ago!)

Any link for that?

I am aware of only one engine that plays it, though: Pulsar (one of the reasons included that in the standard binary download).

KKF-Chess plays Atomic Chess also(http://freespace.virgin.net/andrew.fankk).

BTW what rules for Atomic Chess, Winboard supports? FICS i think right?
They are the worst Atomic chess rules i believe!:lol: They severely restrict many beautiful combinations and situations that can be made in Atomic Chess.

The best rules for Atomic are either the Brainking rules which unfortunately give some unnecessary ease on the endgame play for the winning side or the one's in the http://wiki.wildchess.org/wiki/index.php/Atomic which is of the wildchess.org site, although even they do not contain all possible situations.

The best variant(and the easier to describe i think) is a mixture of Brainking rules fixed(for correcting the flaw that enables easy play for the winning side in endgame and the extra rarity the BrainKing rules have for stalemate) and mixed with Wildchess rules and in fact can be easily be described:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
•All normal Chess rules apply unless there is a contradiction with the following rules, where in that case the following rule predominates and applies.

•The explosion of pieces occurs as described in all of the sites i listed(it's identical to all).

•There is no check or checkmate.

•Castle can be done, if the King is threatened or the squares he will pass to make the journey to his destination square are threatened.

•Moves causing own King's explosion are not allowed.

•The player who causes explosion of the opponent's king wins the game(his King obviously and according to the immediately preceding rule, should remain in the game after the opponent's King explosion).

•If one side has no other legal moves (as described in the above rules) to make, other than legal move(s) that would put his King into check(with regular Chess terms) and his King is not threatened(be in check in regular Chess terms) in the original position, and the final position to not have the 2 King touching each other, then the game is stalemate and is drawn.
If the final position has the 2 Kings touching each other(being on adjacent squares), then game is not a stalemate.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

That's real Atomic Chess! FICS rules restrict your play so much that you can't breath.

[George Tsavdaris]

This chess variant is so "forced" that I bet (and I hope) we will find a forced win for white with a top engine.

That was my impression many years ago that i played Atomic Chess. I created a superb opening database/book that i managed to restrict black's play into only 1 line(after 1.Nh3)! All other continuations were losing for black!!
But this line resisted into months and months of tries to find a win for white, and i remember it was not even a draw, it was rather unclear.

Before finishing and so saving and releasing my database(i hoped for a solution(weak obviously) of Atomic Chess) my old computer's HDD crashed and all data vanished.
That was the end of Atomic Chess for me. My colossal work was for nothing and countless hours have gone pointlessly.


But anyway a game which is seemingly in much of white's favor at first glance(a game where 1.Nf3 should be met by f6 or f5 only) because of black's super restricted play initially, is actually not so much one-sided.
In fact i think it's not one-sided at all!
OK sure, black must play very conservative plays initially and only some specific one's also in the first 2-3 moves, but after the position stabilizes, both have equal chances to win.

[Michael Sherwin]

I will be holding the first annual, World Atomic Computer Chess Championships, in the spring of 2012.

One question.
Chess rules are governed by FIDE and they are unambiguous by all means.

Atomic Chess rules on the other hand, does not have such organization to have some specific rules. So there are FICS rules, ICC rules, Wildchess.org rules, Goldtoken rules, Brainking rules, etc.
FICS rules suck at my opinion and the best are either Brainking or Wildchess.org, although there is a certain degree of ambiguity in Wildchess rules as described in their page as they do not cover everything.

So by which rules are you gonna play the tournament? The rules differences between all these are minor to write but become major OTB and in countless situations a win is a draw and the opposite.

I couldn't help peeking before Friday. Sometimes I just have no willpower.

I did not know that there was such a thing as Atomic Chess.

The word Atomic in the event title just is a reference to the Atom processor and has nothing to do with Atomic Chess.

However, room can be made for any variant that generates enough interest.

It should turn out to be a huge event overall if enough side groups show up that want to do their own thing. I am not keen on diluting the prize fund too much on side events. I will favor small token prizes of a couple hundred dollars though. But, only if there are enough engines of any particular type to make for an interesting match up. So, if any group wants to introduce others to a particular variant then they are welcome.