[HN Gopher] The Kilobyte's Gambit: Can you beat 1024 bytes of Ja...
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       The Kilobyte's Gambit: Can you beat 1024 bytes of JavaScript [at
       chess]?
        
       Author : msszczep2
       Score  : 34 points
       Date   : 2021-03-07 21:49 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (vole.wtf)
 (TXT) w3m dump (vole.wtf)
        
       | gnarcoregrizz wrote:
       | I can't distinguish the pieces well enough to play a good game.
       | Anyone have this plugged into lichess?
        
       | user_error wrote:
       | It was great to play against the AI this weekend, rekindled some
       | of the love I have for chess. I know the rules but I'm a very
       | novice player. Took me 6 tries to checkmate. I cheered loudly.
       | The style is very neat as well!
        
       | bschne wrote:
       | I loved this footnote:
       | 
       | "NB: if puzzled by a pawn move, please check for en passant
       | before reporting a bug"
        
       | iamevn wrote:
       | it went with a non-standard response to a queen's pawn opening
       | and lost most of the pawns on the kingside falling into checkmate
       | after getting baited into a trade that was good for it on
       | material but devestating on position
       | 
       | really cool
        
       | CamelCaseName wrote:
       | That was a blast! I'll echo the sentiment that the pieces were
       | hard to differentiate, but the aesthetic was awesome.
       | 
       | Seems like it only really looks out one move ahead, taking
       | whatever has the most value, otherwise protecting.
       | 
       | Thanks for sharing!
       | 
       | ...now imagine what you could do with 2048 bytes!
        
       | adflux wrote:
       | Love it, hard to discern pieces though. Would guess this thing
       | has an elo of 400-800, coming from someone who is 1800 so take it
       | with a grain of salt
        
       | crazypython wrote:
       | I loved the visuals.
        
         | Laforet wrote:
         | Maybe it's just me but enemy pawn and bishop are sometimes very
         | hard to distinguish.
        
           | phkahler wrote:
           | Yeah, I made a trade and then noticed the mistake...
        
       | WalterGR wrote:
       | If you're into retro CGA-like graphics, you should check the link
       | even if you're not into chess. It's really quite well done.
        
       | Laforet wrote:
       | Well this is certainly very cool. It reacts well enough to my
       | moves but I get the feeling that it does not know any of the
       | established openings so each game starts a bit weird. Will keep
       | going and try to beat it though.
        
         | Swizec wrote:
         | If it keeps winning, maybe the established openings aren't that
         | useful :P
         | 
         | But that's the problem with solved games: You compete on the
         | familiarity with and memorization of established patterns.
        
           | YawningAngel wrote:
           | Chess isn't a solved game and the established openings are
           | good enough that playing without prior analysis is extremely
           | difficult for even the best human players
        
       | thom wrote:
       | If anyone's interested in the guts of this, you can get Oscar
       | Toledo's annotated source of the C version of Nanochess at:
       | 
       | https://nanochess.org/chess3.html
        
       | andrelaszlo wrote:
       | I'm a novice player but I reached a stalemate in my first game. I
       | am not a big fan of the graphics, they're really really cool but
       | I made at least two big mistakes because I misread the pieces -
       | and now I have a headache :D
        
       | alkonaut wrote:
       | Wow it took me 40 or so attempts to beat it. I'm a chess novice
       | but you'd think a human novice should be able to beat a small
       | chunk of JavaScript.
       | 
       | This code must be pretty compact even if expanded to readable
       | form? Is there a repo anywhere with this type of chess engine
       | explained and expanded to human readable commented code?
        
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       (page generated 2021-03-07 23:00 UTC)