Re: problems with amoeba

[John Williams <williams@morinda.com>]

Amoeba should be fixed now.  It was confusing itself while checking
whether your slide was legal (i.e. not undoing the opponent's slide from
the previous move).  Now it knows that a9=Q is not a slide.

I recommend undoing move 54, and doing the move again.  It should work
this time.

The reason a8-a9=Q,a9-b8 did not work is because promotions are always
handled at the end of the turn, by which time there is no longer a pawn at
a9.  This would work: "a8-a9,a9-b8,b8=Q".  The pawn can promote while it
is at b8, because b8 is the last space in that column; b9 is a hole in the
board, so b8 is now the last space.  You could also move some other piece,
slide the empty space at a9 away (so a9 is now a hole), and then promote
the pawn on a8 without even moving it!

~ John Williams


On Sat, 22 Dec 2001, Benjamin Good wrote:
> can somebody who knows something about the amoeba code (meaning not me) take
> a look at amoeba 119 (asdf vs dave)?  a copy of the most recent move is
> below.  you'll note that dave played Qd2 on move 54, but his Q is still on
> g5.  also, i had orginally intended 53 a8-a9=Q,a9-b8, but i got all kinds of
> bizarre error messages, including one that referred to square O`, so finally
> i gave it up.  so my point is that the most likely problem is there's some
> kind of error concerning promotion in the code, we haven't had any problems
> up til this point, and i've never seen any problems in any other amoeba
> game.
>
> thanks,
> ben
> userid: asdf
>
> Summary of Amoeba Board 119
>
> It is asdf's turn.
>
>    White               Black
>    asdf                dave
>   47 Rxe7,d4-d5       48 Rxe7,d9-d8
>   49 b7,b7-a8         50 Rf7,h5-g5
>   51 Be5,b9-b7        52 Qg5
>   53 a9,a9=Q          54 Qd2,h4-h5
>
>
>       a   b   c   d   e   f   g   h
>     +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+    Black (dave)
>   9 |:Q:|###|:::|###|:::|   |:::|   |  9
>     +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+    Taken: RNNBBPPPP
>   8 |   |###|*P*|:::|   |*P*|###|*K*|  8
>     +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>   7 |:::|   |:::|   |:::|*R*|*P*|   |  7
>     +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>   6 |   |:::|   |###|   |:::|   |*P*|  6
>     +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>   5 |:::| Q |:::|   |:B:|   |*Q*|   |  5
>     +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>   4 |   |:::|###|###|   |:::|   |###|  4
>     +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>   3 |:::|   |:N:| P |:::|   |:::|   |  3
>     +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>   2 |   |:P:| P |:::|   |:P:| P |:P:|  2
>     +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+    Taken: RNBPP Gave Extra: Q
>   1 |:R:|   |:::|   |:::|   |:K:|   |  1
>     +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+    White (asdf)
>       a   b   c   d   e   f   g   h
>