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I don't know how profound a CV thinker I am, but I do enjoy good design,
good play, and a decent amount of innovation. Or so I claim. Actually, I'm
probably one of the more opinionated people here, and tend to think
'good' is stuff I like. But I've been here over 5 years now, and have a
bit of experience with which to judge. This leads me to make statements
online which can come back to haunt me, because 5 years is pretty new in
this field, and I might have read 10% of what's available on CVs. So let
me embarrass myself in the future again by giving my impressions of the
games I played or am playing in the current tournament, since I'm no
longer a participant.

Eurasian Chess, by F Duniho, is an excellent game that gives players the
problem of dealing with some enemy pieces that need to be blocked to keep
them from capturing your pieces, and other similar enemy pieces that need
that interposed piece there to capture the one behind it. The game plays
very nicely as opponents try to balance their defenses against 2 types of
pieces with an opposite characteristic. There's a very nice strategic
tension built into this game. It is slightly counterbalanced by the general
weakness of the cannon-type pieces added, as they are minor and very minor
pieces, and lose effectiveness in the endgames as the western sliders gain
power. The set-up is nicely minimal [one of my prejudices - for] on a 10x10
board, which enhances the game by not cluttering it. As it is both larger
than FIDE and the average piece value is less than FIDE, the game is likely
to last a bit longer on average, I'd guess.

The Ajax [J Carillo] mutator is an excellent idea, and complements FIDE
very well. The 2 dropped ministers [orig - pasha: DWAF], while pushing the
density and power/piece up a bit by introducing 2 more major pieces per
side, work well in this context because they are short range, with
knightlike mobility rather than being long range sliders like the B, R, and
Q. All in all, a fine game for the tournament.

Circular Chess [? Byzantine era?]provides another interesting mutator which
can be applied to many games, but one that I find personally less
interesting. The geometry of the board, 4x16 and circular, so there are 2
lines of attack toward the opponent, constricts the pieces a little too
much for the novelty of the board to counterbalance, in my opinion. The
rooks always move 16 squares, max, the bishops 6, and the queens 22. The
pawns have a 50-50 chance of being able to only capture 1 way. The king has
a 50-50 chance of being able to move to 1 of either 8 or 5 squares, the
knight, 1 of 4 or 6. The rook is slightly improved, everything else is
weakened - by the board geometry only - most pieces being noticeably
weaker. The combination provides a very different game with some good play
value, but the game itself must have less depth than FIDE chess, and
probably much less. 

Modern Carrera's [P Carrera] is a standard 10x8 with BN and RN pieces. As
such, it should be considered a scenario of Carrera/Capablanca Chess, and
not actually a game in its own right. Of course, then the 10x10 Grand Chess
[C Freeling] is both the scenario generator for 10x10 FIDE + BN + RN games
and just a larger scenario in the Car/Cap family of games. This category
also includes Euchess [C Cetina], a Grand Chess variant.

Finally there's my game, HyperModern Shatranj. Other than commenting that
I was surprised by the rather effective pawn play in the game, demonstrated
by my opponent, I'll leave discussion of this game to others who've
played it - lol, not many!