Talk:1287: Puzzle

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 23:35, 6 November 2013 by SleekWeasel (talk | contribs)
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So is there an answer to the puzzle? Clwhisk (talk) 19:06, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Black thinks he's playing Go and white thinks he's playing chess. Although a 7 x 7 board is a bit small for go, it is not unusual for a beginner to play on such a board -- hax (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

It is a 9x9 go board! (usually used for learning,  as its smaller, less strategic, and quicker to finish game, whereas regular go is played on 19x19 intersections). Olivier.  108.162.229.17 (talk)  (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
You beat me to it. "Less strategic" also means "more tactical". In my experience, 9x9 boards are rare (mostly, people would just use part of a 19x19 board), but when they do exist, they have 4 handicap intersections marked with dots. Homunq (talk) 08:28, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
9x9 boards are great for variety and getting through games, and for beginners of all levels! Go on a 9x9 is about as hard as chess, in terms of playability, state space, and only recently seeing pro strength computers. Clwhisk (talk) 18:59, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

The picture on xkcd.com is changed. The bishop on e4 is removed and the one on c1 moved to d2. 141.101.93.11 08:48, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Would it be better to use algebraic notation instead, seeing as FIDE stopped recognizing descriptive notation in 1981? -- Banak (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Possibly - I was trying to distinguish between Go moves and Chess moves by using the older Chess notation as a disambiguation, but... eh. I'm ambinotational - I read metric and imperial and barely notice the conversion. :) SleekWeasel (talk) 11:18, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Then you may have a career at NASA ahead of you... ;) 141.101.98.214 14:26, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Haha, NASA approached me once about designing a catsuit, based on my stretchy.org website, thinking that I lived in Cambridge Mass, not Cambridge UK. SleekWeasel (talk) 23:35, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

It would be helpful to give a description - or at least a primer (or a link to one) - of the notation used for chess moves (i.e. Q, N, R ... x, +, #, ... which sides of the board are alphabetic vs. which are numeric). 108.162.221.228 16:55, 6 November 2013 (UTC)