Comment by logicallee | Hacker News Reader

Comment by logicallee | Hacker News Reader

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hey that's incredibly clear! From your description I thought it'd be practically pointless - but actually you can see each sides strategy developing quite interestingly.

I actually saw people play out of sequence - some buskers or homeless or whatever people - just used to playing so many games against each other they'd get through the openings quickly by each person making several moves. It seemed too fast for me to see that they kept a correct pace, but maybe. I believe the games were very rapid. they stopped and started switching turns normally as soon as they were out of the opening. (so this refers to just a handful of moves at most.)

so with a bit of sportsmanship it's possible to actually play that way over the board with somebody who's cooperating with you to get through the opening quickly.

Thank you! I was inspired by something I read about the early history of chess:

"In order to save time, and to prevent useless exchanges, it was agreed that the first player should make his (let us say) fifteen moves all at once, without, however, crossing the middle line of the board; after which the adversary was entitled to play up at once an equal number of counter moves... these preliminary maneuvers the Arabs called Ta'biyat, which signifies 'the drawing up of troops in battle array'."

(quoted from Duncan Forbes "Observations on the Origin and Progress of Chess", 1855 - I first came across the variant in Edward Lasker's "The Adventure of Chess".)

thanks! that's also really interesting. (though in what I saw, there wasn't "after which" the other player made their first few moves - instead they moved over each other, like two people talking over each other. I couldn't figure out how they kept track of the turn or that they made the correct number of moves each - it was all much too quick. I even suppose that it's possible they didn't keep strict track and one player may have made 1 more move than the other or that sort of thing. Really bizarre!)

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