Chess and Abalone - comparison of marbles' and pieces’ impact



The first image shows the bishops' impact. The second is a simple example for a slightly good (White) and a real bad bishop (Black), related to the structure of the pawns.
There are many other elements of strategy in chess (Pawn-structure: weak/strong places, Hanging-Pawns, Double-Pawns, Isolated-Pawns, Neighbour-Pawns, Pawn-chain, Pawn-minority/majority, etc. Figures: good/bad bishops, horse vs. bishop, bishop/horse vs. rook,  double bishop, rooks on a (semi-)free-line, etc.)

A Beginner in chess is - most of the time - only "thinking" for a mate-attack. But an advanced player tries to integrate as many strategy-elements into the attack. "Mate" can be one element of an actual strategy, but has not - material or any other advantage (tactical, strategical) is equivalent.

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First I want to compare the impact of marbles (Abalone) and the pieces (chess).
Second I compare the relation between the marbles(-groups)/pieces and  the game-structure.

1. pieces and marbles

In chess, there are pieces (figures) with a determined impact - pawn, bishop, Knight etc. [1 image].
You can attack with two pieces together a spot, but the impact of the piece does not change: the result-impact is the analytic sum of both impacts. And the result is a "relation between two pieces" (2.) and not a "new  piece".  

In Abalone, its different, I think so. The impact of a group of marbles is not the sum of the marbles impact, because one marble cannot push, but can have defensive-functions. If you have two marbles, then there will emerge an emergent impact.

My assumption is here: Abalone is the game of the emergent patterns: Emergence" is an important marble-impact-element of Abalone. A "group of marbles" has functions like a piece in chess. And this can be a very complex group.

If you don’t share this assumption, then the comparison will be different, that's obvious.

(The term "Emergence" is used in other topics "Complex systems", "Constructal theory", "Dynamical system", "Emergentalgorithms", "Epiphenomenona", "Fractal", "Interaction-theories", "Self-organization-systems", and many others)


2. the impact-relation of a piece and marble/marble-group to the game-structure

Here, I think we can find more similarities. The relation between the different pieces in chess is a sum of the pieces.
If we regard of a static-point of view, thus if we regard only the threat-impact of a structure, than there are good and bad bishops like in Abalone: there are good and bad conditions for a infected-Daisy-pattern (Compare: GeneralTheory/Elements IV.2.3))

But there is the difference, that the "marble-groups" will change their impact move by move. So a "dynamic point of view" shows again, that there are emergent elements in Abalone even in the relation between the marble-groups, because they change their impact move by move and this leads to emergent structure-effects.  


(-> By the way: my message does not change my opinion, that chess and Abalone are similar complex ;-) and that there will be a time that Abalone-players will analyse tactically 4-5-average moves deep in a long-time-game.
http://148009.aceboard.net/148009-1838-1191-0-neural-network-versus-evaluation-fonction.htm)  

--Last edited by SilverSurfer on 2005-10-31 01:35:51 --