No.806 |
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No.806 by Krassimir Gandev – Three promoted pieces pinned by Rose in serial S#! (JV)
Definitions:
Royal piece: Piece that executes a function of the King on the board.
Dummy King (Royal Dummy Piece): A King which cannot move.
Dummy piece (DU): A piece which cannot move.
Berolina Super Pawn (BS): It is Berolina-Pawn but its moves and captures are respectively extended to the entire diagonal and the entire column.
Berolina-Pawn(BP): Walk and capture are swapped relative to the orthodox Pawn. The Berolina-Pawn moves without capturing diagonally (possibly two squares if it is on the second row of its side) and captures vertically.
Super Pawn (SP): Moves straight forwards and captures diagonally forwards through as many empty squares as desired. Promotion is normal.
Reverse Pawn (PP): Moves opposite to normal Pawn and promotes at the opposite end of board.
Rose(RO): (1,2) Octagonal Rider (extents the move of the Knight on a circular path e.g. a4-b6-d7-f6-g4-f2-d1-b2 or a4-c5-e4-f2).
No.806 Krassimir Gandev |
Solution: (click to show/hide) |
White ROg1 Rd2 Pc2
Black DUe1
Neutral BSh5 SPe4 SPh3
White Royal PPf2
Black Royal DUc7
ser-s#7 (4+2+3) |
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Nice idea of triple pinning but…
Not only wRd2 is hardly justified, or the black Dummy for just to be captured, or the concept of a black “royal Dummy” which would better be a black “royal square”…
The concept of “royal Dummy”, as imagined by the author and treated by Popeye, seems as contradictory to itself, due to the very principles of fairy chess.
WHY the white royal Reverse Pawn wouldn’t promote into a white “royal Dummy”?
Popeye finds #1 in the end with white royal Dummy on e1, but doesn’t allow its promotion.
Two points in the comment require explanation, I think.
Firstly, royal dummy is not the same thing as royal square. They differ, dummy is a mass, square is not – they can and cannot be used as a hurdle for hoppers respectively, and they cannot and can be passed by line movers by linemovers (usually friendly). It seems to me that royal dummy is usually the preferred choice of authors if similar aspects are not important,. Here the choice can be further motivated by the fact that the problem uses other three other unorthodox pawns.
And that brings me to the second important point. Dummy used to be called also dummy pawn in the past and it still is called as such in French: pion impuissant. This underlines the fact that dummy as understood by Popeye (as well as WinChloe) is in fact a kind of pawn, i.e. piece that promotes, not is promoted into. In this sense there is no contradiction with principles of fairy chess – as an analogy, presence of berolinas in problem does not mean pawns could promote to berolinas, rather, berolinas promote to other pieces (not pawns).
It looks as a mess. Dummy is considered as a kind of a Pawn without having the mentioned promoting property of a Pawn or any moving ability of a Pawn. It is only colored, which is not an exclusive property of a Pawn.
Dummy’s inability to move or promote, proves that it’s not any kind of a Pawn, or a kind of any other piece, except being exactly “only” a Dummy.
Which absurdities might we accept, that the Queen is a special kind of Pawn which moves like a Queen but cannot promote?
The inverted logic would make more sense, that any piece is a “mobile Dummy”, with a specifically defined movement.
Which explanation about the “Dummy-Pawn”, the programmers found as sensible, I’m really curious?
Royal Dummy could have been defined as a “Dummy-King”, and there is no promotion into the King (as default).
Mathematics was not built as a complex system with excellent view of many aspects at the beginning. It took many centuries of tries, wrong ideas and even in 20th century, with all the knowledge of centuries, the building had to be done very carefully. Who have heard of Nicolas Bourbaki or category theory? Probably those among us with higher mathematical education have heard, others most probably not. My point is that introduction of very precise definitions of abstract terms leading in the final stages of long theory development to some specific useful objects with applications (what Bourbaki has done in mathematics) requires equally well equipped readers and is generally incomprehensible to wide public. Public does not care about abstract terms, it is usually satisfied with concise and operative definitions, with complicating details held back being no problem.
My view.
I don’t see a point. Mathematics was build on “try-concepts” which had some logical motivation and at least a “primitive” mathematical procedure.
A try-concept of any piece as being a “mobile” Dummy would make sense.
A complete nonsense leads nowhere form the very moment of its “creation”.
But OK, wide public is ” satisfied with concise and operative definitions” like the one given before this problem. I was just too stupid to see that “a piece which cannot move” is clearly “a kind of a Pawn”.
Now I see your point, it’s clear that a Dummy cannot move as a Pawn, so it must be a Pawn which cannot move.
Thanks for correcting MY VIEW.