A really fun Crokinole write-up
I've known about Crokinole for a while. I don't own a board for it, but I definitely could see myself owning one eventually.
|
A Little Wordy
From my brother Adam, the maker of The Oatmeal webcomic has a month-long daily word game.
|
Chess variant idea
There is a variant of chess called "Hand & Brain," which is two players. One is the "Brain" and they can only verbally name a piece on the board with no other context or hint. The "Hand" then has to guess which of the relevant pieces they mean and move it.
So, for example, if the Brain says 'King' that is easy as there is only one on the board. But, if they say pawn, then you have to do your best to guess which pawn they are referring to.
So my idea is to utilize this for chess training by having a computer engine act as the brain, it tells you the piece, and you try to figure out the piece and move it. This isn't a new idea, this site does exactly that. But in this case you're playing against a computer engine. I'd like to try this variant against another human + computer pair, playing the same model. Obviously the engines and players would need to be equal for the "best" games of chess. But I can imagine that this could be a good way of learning. If your human play instinct is to move a threatened piece and the computer engine tells you a completely different piece it makes you realize that your threat assessment was wrong. And I feel that that learning will be more powerful in the middle of the game rather than afterwards in analysis and review.
|
