[Malkovich Chess] Kirby vs Krill

[Monadology]

This will be a thread documenting a Malkovich-style Chess game between Kirby and myself.

Neither of us are sure if this would be a nuisance to folks on the board who just play Go, so if you think this thread is inappropriate or bothersome, let one of us know!

Let's try some kind of nigiri here. Kirby: take a guess whether the number in the spoiler box below is even or odd. If you get it right, you get to choose which color to play.

[EdLee]

Enjoy.

[Kirby]

I chose 'even'.

Since the number is 4, I will chose to play white.

[Kirby]

I just know the rules of chess. I don't know much else. I did hear one piece of advice, which was to try to control the center in the opening.

[Monadology]

Like in Go, it's my understanding that many opening moves are viable, though there are openings that are taken to have an edge over others. Classically, you try to control the center directly with pawns and then pieces, as Kirby is doing. Since I'm not particularly interested in learning a wide variety of openings yet, I basically always go for the Modern defense as Black and the Nimzo-Larsen as White, which both involve moving a knight pawn in order to fianchetto a bishop early to contest the center indirectly. Both are pretty much viable against any opening, so it makes things easy. They both belong to a style of play called 'hypermodern', and with a name like that, how can you not play them?

[Kirby]

I think this is consistent with controlling the center. I don't have any other particular strategy.

[Monadology]

Not much to say here! Kirby's reply is the best one for W as far as I know, since he can now take the center directly with two pawns! Since I need to put pressure on the center, of course I am going to fianchetto my bishop. My sniper is now perched in his nest, with a diagonal the length of the entire chess board in his scope.

[Kirby]

Here is where I'm lost already. You can see the extent of my chess ability

He has a bishop there that can threaten my pawn. So I guess the best thing to do is to move one of my pieces to protect the square that the pawn is on...

On the other hand, the queen already protects the pawn. So maybe I should try to develop another part of the center?

Not sure.

[Kirby]

My instinct is here, to help out the pawn... Not that I have much chess instinct, yet. But I don't directly see a way that this is bad, so I'm going to try not to overthink it.

[Monadology]

Freeing my other bishop and possibly supporting a pawn push to E5 one day

[EdLee]

Hi Monadology & Kirby,

Which app/webpage do you use to get the board diagrams ?
(and does it work easily with iOS ?
I found out if I use the iOS photo app to crop a chess board
or any iOS screenshot down to size,
then L19 rejects the .png file,
so I can't attached the cropped photo. Thanks. )

[Kirby]

Click on the board and it links to the site.

[EdLee]

Kirby,

Click on the board and it links to the site.

Thanks. I found out the website doesn't quite work with a touch interface ( iOS ). Need a mouse.
I'm also having trouble with a capture move.
I can't seem to get a pawn capture with that website.
How do you do it ? It won't let me move a pawn diagonally to capture a piece.
I also cannot move a knight to capture a piece, either.
Thanks.

[Monadology]

Kirby,

Click on the board and it links to the site.

Thanks. I found out the website doesn't quite work with a touch interface ( iOS ). Need a mouse.
I'm also having trouble with a capture move.
I can't seem to get a pawn capture with that website.
How do you do it ? It won't let me move a pawn diagonally to capture a piece.
I also cannot move a knight to capture a piece, either.
Thanks.

It looks like you have to drag the captured piece off the board and then drag the capturing piece onto its square. It's disappointing it doesn't support capturing, but it does support removing pieces (and moving a piece to any square), so it can simulate capture just fine.

[Kirby]

I don't really know what to do.

On one hand, I feel like moving this bishop out or something so that I can castle:


On the other hand, he has a white bishop open there that can go down to like H2 later, potentially. If I castle, will my king be trapped in there?

For that reason, I guess I'll just build up on the left side a bit more?

Really no idea on strategy here.

I guess this is what it's like learning a new game.