darth_ender

Nxd5

d5

AHA! *SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC*

e5

I am curious, did you alter your first move?  Not that I mind, but I see the post was edited, and I thought you had moved your tokin to 1iv, not 2iv.  If so, I responded to the wrong move.  If not, I'm a dunce, though I can live with the move I made.

Yeah, it's a tricky game that requires a lot of planning, but it's really fun.  I am enjoying it much more than in the past, just because you're my playing partner.

T-4ii+L

Man, I am so tired and I have to get up early.  I need to get to bed.  Take care, and have a great night!

G-2i+N

How well do you like this game compared to the others?

G*5ii mate.  I will tell you that there was a way out of this, and it would have prolonged the game quite a bit.  If you want, we can go back to that point.  Or we can move on.  Either way, let me describe it to you.  On move 14 you should have moved your king to 3ii.  If I dropped my silver on 4iii, you could have then moved your king to 2iii (anything else would have been mate when I would drop my gold).  At this point I only had one more piece to drop, and I now have a piece to defend.  Once I complete that drop, all my pieces are on the board, and I am not able to do much with them since your king would be behind enemy lines, and most of the pieces are weak to the backward directions (not to mention that moving them would make most of them change to even weaker, more forward oriented pieces.  Meanwhile, you'd have three pieces you could drop near my king.  I'm not sure you could force a mate either, but from that point I think it would be a long game.

S*4iii

Well, I'm not sure I can end the game too quickly, but perhaps I still can push you around a bit.  R-4iv+P

I'm glad you'll follow along.  As much as I love shogi, I can't say I love it more than chess.  Nor can I say I love it less than chess.  I just love them both so much for such different reasons.  I'm glad that you might be find a renewed enthusiasm for good ol' chess.

You can easily do it with Zillions.  Simply right click on a square, and you can change or remove the piece.  I'm not sure if Warbler is using a real board or what software he may be using.

Well good.  I'll try to see if I can still pull off a victory despite such a dreadful move.  Gx4iii+N

Now my already dropped pieces are so impotent, and you have more pieces on your side!

Alright, I'm home and can play now.  Of course it's probably too late to do anything for a few days, but at least I'll get a move in.  G*3iv

Nf6

Well, I'll still try to play in the evenings.  I know you're still up that late, so I will try to be available more then.  I won't be disappearing or anything.  I'll even be available sometimes in the day or mornings, just not as much.  In any case, I look forward to seeing you again.

Definitely :)  Now that I've let you in on my secrets, you've got a pretty good chance of coming off as victor.  Of course I shan't make the same mistake I made this last time, but neither shall you, I imagine.

Well, I wish you weren't sending out the computer because I don't really have the time to play right now, as I'm at work and pretty busy today.  If you want, save the game, and we can pick it up when you get the computer back.  I really don't mind, and I kind of want you to have a better chance of winning.  I feel like sometimes I'm beating you too soundly without any compassion.  A mistake like that typo can almost be like a moment of mercy that could really turn the game around.  It would be a challenge for me to overcome, and I'd be okay if you beat me.  But really, if you'd rather start over when you get the machine back, we can do that too.  Whatever you prefer.  I'm just sorry I can't pick up the game at present.

Thank you for that.  Since I already have something like six slideshows completed, I will probably include those anyway, just to display what I was hoping to accomplish.  Glad I can contribute something since I've borrowed so much from so many others.

G*4ii is mate, which is what I was going for, and I don't think there's any way to prevent it.  Again, I feel like these typos are pretty lame, but I should be more careful when typing, so I will offer another chance.  If you want, I'll stick with my typo.  If you prefer, perhaps we could start another game of Kyoto, or maybe you'd rather move on to a different game.

I will confess that it was much more fun playing you than the computer.  I can actually figure out a working strategy.

You know, there are other interesting "chess" variants that are not even chess at all, despite the superficial resemblance.  They might be worth checking out.

Arimaa - Due to Kasparov's defeat at the hands of Deep Blue, game inventor Omar Syed decided to invent a game that can be played with a regular chess set, can be easily learned and played by humans, but cannot be played well by computers (at least at the present).  The wiki article is really worth the read, as is this link as to why there is such a difficulty in creating a competent computer player.

Ultima - Like Arimaa (though much older in invention), Ultima a.k.a. Baroque chess can be played with a standard chess board and pieces, but is a very different game.  In chess, pieces capture in the same manner, but their moves are different.  In Ultima, pieces move the same way (for the most part), but their means of capturing is different.

I know many folks are working on far more elaborate and time consuming projects than I.  However, I feel that my time has become more and more limited, and I seldom have the motivation anymore to work on the slideshows of the various deleted pictures.  To make it more complex, numerous new pictures are often released in combination with various projects, such as the recent "Making of..." ebooks.  I feel I can never even keep up with the pictures, and has become quite discouraging.

That said, I don't want anyone thinking this project is about to disappear.  However, it will not be so glamorous as I'd originally intended.  What I believe I will do is organize my various pictures and clips into folders with explanatory txt or docx files to describe what the viewers are seeing.  There will be numerous, fairly organized folders with various clones of existing pictures, though usually there are some that are superior to others in one way or another.

This method of organization will then be faster, will still be useful, and can provide others who wish to take the time to organize such pictures with the opportunity to do so.  All the pretty nifty clips I have will be included.  It should still be pretty amazing to folks once they see what I've collected.

I apologize for the weak format, but otherwise I fear the project will never get released.  I want to devote more time to my family and not feel guilty that I'm not getting this project done.  I'll try to get it organized in my much simpler fashion in the near future, then I'll make it available to all.  I can't think of anything else I'd want to add to it at the present anyway.

Well, I feel pretty dumb.  The moment I saw your reply, I knew I'd made a mistake.  On Zillions I put my piece on 5iii, but when I wrote it here, I again made an error and typed 4iii, an utterly stupid move I wouldn't have made.  That said, it might be interesting to allow the game to proceed from here.  So I leave it up to you.  Do you want to let me take my move back and make what I truly and honestly intended, or do you want it to be an opportunity for comeback?  I'm okay with it either way.  I'm just sorry that I'm so prone to typos here, especially when it affects the game so profoundly.  :(

Yeah, it still could be very easy.  T*4iii check.  Thanks for taking it slow for me :)

@Ric, yes, I think the possibilities are very intriguing.  Perhaps we'll pick up a game when we're done with our shogi ventures.

@Warb, I hadn't heard of that one.  Another game that combines the knight with others, but the method of introducing them sounds interesting.

S-4ii+B

Sorry.  I may not be as available in the future, so our games will probably go slower.  I'll try to keep up, but sorry for playing slower.