CCRL Discussion Board

Posted: **Sat Aug 30, 2008 5:09 pm**

I am interested in citations of games where the players spent a substantial time in 7-man chess (especially with a pair of blocked or facing Pawns) and more particularly in 6-man chess. The idea is to analyse the quality of play demonstrated.

Thanks in advance - Guy

Posted: **Tue Sep 02, 2008 6:34 am**

Hi Guyhaw,

I hope you are familiar with CQL: http://www.rbnn.com/cql/. You can use it to search any big database with the required criteria. If not, I can help in constructing a suitable query. Since there are plenty of 6man games (even more in 7 men), you will have to restrict by number of moves with same material and also rating to get useful results (not too many).

Regards,
Dhanish

Posted: **Tue Sep 02, 2008 8:16 pm**

Dhanish,
Thanks for the CQL suggestion. I have heard of it, and ought to have mastered it but I have not. I gather it's not trivial to use.
Any help you can provide would be most welcome.
g

Posted: **Thu Sep 04, 2008 8:47 am**

Hi Guyhaw,

I don't think it would be difficult for someone who is familiar with programming. There is also Visual CQL, which makes it easier, see http://www.volny.cz/evcomp/vcql.htm. Anyway, here is a simple CQL file which will find all 6men position games lasting for at least 10 moves of players with rating 2600-3000.

Code: Select all

(match 
  :pgn input.pgn 
   :output result.pgn 
      (position 
      :piececount U 6
      :matchcount 10 200
      :whiteelo 2600 3000
      :blackelo 2600 3000
      )
)

Of course, you can use Scid or Chessbase, only you will have to search for a particular endgame like KRPPkr, etc as there is no equivalent command for "any" piece. But it may suffice for your purpose, as there are so many games with this material itself, where the players could not find the best moves over the board.

Regards,
Dhanish

Posted: **Thu Sep 04, 2008 11:08 pm**

Dhanish - again, excellent information. I had not heard of VCQL at all: this will surely make it more usable.

You should not assume I'm a good programmer: it's been a long time - over 20 years - and even Matlab's a bit of a struggle these days. I'm usually ok on algorithms, but not infallible at that level either. However, I have colleagues who are fairly hot on the programming, and can probably help me with VCQL too.

Many thanks - Guy

... http://www.reading.ac.uk/sse/about/Staff/g-haworth.asp

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