Is there something I need to read before watching the video
The video is 17 seconds long in its entirety. Why haven't you watched it already?
Can you tell me anything about this strategy
(I don't know what the actual name of the strategy is, but I think the most well-known name for it is "Wayward Queen Attack: Bongcloud Variation". Or something.)
I originally saw this strategy in a book. The book was discussing a peculiar rule where an illegal move (and/or possibly touching a piece with no legal move, it's not clear) forces the player to move their own King. In essence, a forced Bongcloud. The only reason the rule is notable is because of a game popularly cited (
Lindemann vs. Echtermeyer, 1893) where a player was forced to do a Bongcloud that immediately loses (or would have if Black not missed it, depending on the source; apparently, historians can't even agree on what happened after that!). The book gives the color-switched variant using the Wayward Queen Attack. So that's where I got this idea.
As for how I found out in the first place that this strategy would work in Chessmaster: There is no intelligence involved. In fact there is only stupidity. I stupidly played the Wayward Queen Attack and it worked. That's all there is to it.
How hard was it to TAS
Actually not that hard. I did mention in the previous submission that there was a timer at 0x623. I don't really know how it works, except that I used this as a guide to judge how long delays were so I can reduce the delays as much as possible. Cursor movement is also used to manipulate this.
Is this actually an improvement
Of course it's an improvement. Among other things, it uses a more accurate emulator (previous one used FCEUX, this one uses BizHawk 2.8 NesHawk core).
Is this really a meme
I'll leave that for you to decide.
Actually, I can cite circumstantial evidence. There is the
previous submission. There are
speedruns of this game as well as
for the SNES version where the strategy is the same. There are also countless threads on the AnarchyChess subreddit (search wayward queen attack bongcloud) running the meme into the ground. (Warning: The subreddit I just mentioned is extremely dank. I wouldn't stay there for a prolonged period of time.)
So, why did you do this TAS
Because I can. Also it's an improvement to a previous submission. Also board games have become acceptable since last year.
nymx: Claiming for judging.
nymx: I've been a chess player for many years, and I have never heard of the "Bongcloud Attack". As I researched it, I see how terrible this move would be to use in a serious manner on any opponent; however, this was perfect against this game.
Another point that I wish to bring up, is the fact that a fast win doesn't always mean that great moves were made. If a chess AI was used against this game, it would certainly have taken longer...due to making serious moves, instead of blunders. In fact, we have seen chess submissions that break the CPU's logic and produce bad moves that allow a player to move in easily and quickly for the final attack.
I'm happy about board games being accepted now, and the fact that you improved on your work from 13 years ago. This movie meets the classification of "No Major Skips".
Accepting to "Standard" for publication.
