Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

It is not my intention to represent every variant position by X-FEN. I
would be happy to cover a lot of variants having gait combinations in
their pieces strongly related to traditional chess. Maybe you noticed
SMIRF naming itself a FullChess engine. SMIRF does it covering dual
combinations of N, B and R. Coming Octopus is intended to cover some
additional combinations, too. 

FEN stems from traditional Chess. Thus I am convinced that using X-FEN
makes sense the more the variants it supports would be related to chess.
My X-FEN approach therefore is not thought to be a base for Zillion
positions. 

As long as X-FEN belongs to that idea, the handling of variant names and
pieces names as a kind of comment will work best. Thus I will remain in
the neighbourhood of Chess.

Ok, here are daily comments on what has been written so far from my last
posting:
1. How effective of a recruiting tool into the world of chess variants are
home made sets?  If someone who plays a game, and likes it somewhat, what
are the odds they will end up continue to play and promote it, if they had
to go and make their own set?  Sure, from a totally dead end activity where
you are the only person who they may play, it is ok, but for promoting the
growth of chess variants, how well does it work?  Let's say someone has
you try a cardgame, and you like it, and then they tell you you need to
make your own cards to play it.  Will you do that?
2. Is anyone else here not confused by those SuperChess pieces?  I look a
them, and I have difficulty remembering which set of pieces is which.  I
commend the effort, but the pieces leave me confused.
3. Hmm... GREAT, there is another factor that wasn't even on my mind
until now.  How and the heck is the chess variant community going to
happen to be able to do notation for games in a way that everyone can
understand?  I believe algerbraic notation is helpful for recording moves,
but board positions?  What do we do then?  I know this will be important
down the road for IAGO, if it is going to be covering a range of chess
variants as part of the IAGO World Tour.
4. Ok, the name of the pieces (what they are as initials, also has me
confused here).  I have to see yet another set of names for games that
Capablanca used and tried to popularize?  Again, my reference at standards
points a bit at this.  If you go by a hard and fast rule that everyone
creates their own games in isolation from one another, you end up with 40+
different names for he same piece.  And actually the same name used with 5+
different pieces.  Yes, you get cool artistic expression, but how is it on
the community?  When I was doing IAGO chess, should of stuck with
'Templar' for the Knight+Bishop piece, and 'Champion' for the
Knight+Rook piece, because my artistic expression demands I do it?  How
helpful is it to the community.  I am not forbidding anyone from doing
this, but asking how reasonable is it to have this as a hardcore rule?
5. On the issue of pawn promotion, unless the chess variant community is
going to abandon completely having physical pieces (not sure how one gets
growth without then though), exactly how does one handle pawn promotion in
games where you can have a piece promote to multiple versions of Queen
power pieces.  Like take a Capablanca Chess game, and you want to get a
second Chancellor or Archbishop into play.  How is this handled?  Are we
going to permanently adapt a flipped chess rook as a 'Joker' piece that
a pawn can promote to, and the Joker can represent anything?  Are we going
to codify flipped rooks as a new piece, or demand people making chess
variants provide enough physical equipment to handle every case of pawn
promotion, or do we give up on the idea of having physical equipment
completely?  We set up a nice place for all traces of chess variants to
disappear if the Internet and all computers ever blew up with do that, by
the way.
6. If you want things to remain exactly as they are, with each game being
seen as unique creations and islands to themselves, then you don't need
to consider standardization.  You don't even need to consider any game a
'chess variant'.  It is just a game.  So, the CV site could also then
break out checkers and Go to, and play those (there are presets on here),
because heck, everyone just plays games.  There is no such thing as
'Chess Variants', just games.  I will say this is unworkable from an
IAGO perspective though, which also needs to categorize abstract strategy
games.
7. One project I am looking at is a protocol system so websites that play
games can communicate their games with IAGO.  Having it handle a wide
range of abstract strategy games, would be of big help here.  I would lead
he way for people to get rated across a categories of games or abstract
strategy games in general. The SuperDuperGames site does this.

I have another heretical proposal.  The next chess is....

SPEED CHESS!

To address a multitude of issues, looks like that the chess world is
taking to speed chess, on the 'sports' level.  The World Mind Sports Games
looks like it is using Speed Chess as the basis of its events.

So, variant community, if this trend continues, the attempt to input this world of chess variants on the rest of the world.

The best direction would be to simply inform players about how they can create their own sets. Instructions, graphics and a list of sources for raw materials would be all that is necessary to assist in the dissemination of real-world Chess variants.

I did this several years ago with my article on making a Chess Variant Construction Set. This seems to me a more practical approach than trying to make separate sets for each individual game. I have recently ordered some new materials and plan to rewrite the article and update it with photographs.

http://www.chessvariants.org/crafts.dir/construction-set.html

The link to Chess Variant Craft Projects could be more prominent on the
Index page of TCVP. Right now it is about halfway down the page and simply
listed as Crafts.

I really like the PDF about Origami chess pieces.

Much of today's discussion in this thread has focused on the details
behind a program I do not use. But one of the things that came up in this
discussion is FEN code, which I know something about, since I have
implemented my own version of FEN in Game Courier. Since I'm not sure
what the issues are concerning the use of FEN, I'll make some general
comments about FEN and Game Courier's implementation of it. FEN is used
to represent the positions of pieces on a board. It lists pieces rank by
rank, using numbers for empty spaces. For Chess itself, FEN only needs
letters representing the pieces and numbers to represent empty spaces.
Game Courier uses an advanced form of FEN that makes it useful for
defining the shape of a board, mainly by letting you specify spaces in the
FEN grid that are not part of the board. It also allows the use of longer
piece labels than single letters, and Game Courier allows the use of
aliases, so that a set can use standardized internal names while players
use abbreviations that make sense within the context of the game.

The FEN code provides only limited information about the game. It doesn't
specify how long a rank is (though I could have coded it that way if I had
chosen to), and it doesn't specify the shape of the spaces used. Game
Courier supports squares, two types of hexagons, circular boards, and any
custom board a developer cares to code in positions for. The same sort of
FEN code is used for all of them. Just to give an example, Shogi and Hex
Shogi 81 begin with the same FEN code for the opening position, but they
differ by being played on very different boards. For two games played on
the same board with the same pieces, it would generally be impossible to
tell what the game was by the FEN code alone.

Reinhard:
It is of course OK to design X-FEN with a limited scope. But that makes it
unsuitable for applications tht require a wide scope, such as WinBoard (or
Game Courier). And when X-FEN includes features that are incompatible with
the needs for the variants in the wider scope, it makes it unacceptable for
use even for the variants it was designed for in that scope.

Fergus:
Is the FEN format you use in Game Courier described somewhere? IMO a FEN
is a device for describing game state, not for identifying the variant, so
that the variant cannot be deduced from the FEN is not really a problem. I
never thought about hexagonal boards and such, but now that I do the
logical way to implement those would be to use another charater than '/'
for separating the ranks of the FEN. E.g. '\' could mean 'start a new
rank, offsetted half a cell left w.r.t. the rank it terminates'.

Rich:

I think you overly dramatize the issue of promotions. In normal Chess the
multiple Queen problem has in practice no importance at all. Flipped Rook
is an excellent solution, and in official tournaments one usually simply
grabs a Queen from the guys playing next to you. Bughouse in theory needs
4 additional pieces to represent N,B,R and Q obtained through promotion
(different from their original counterparts, as they revert to Pawns on
capture). In official Bughouse tournaments I participated in, the rules
were such that the promoted Pawns kept the physical shape of a Pawn (to make sure they were passed on as Pawns on capture), and that the players simply had to remember what piece that Pawn represented. (After the promoting player had yelled the name of the piece he was promoting to, which of couse was always Queen.) When playing Bughouse or Crazyhouse on Internet Chess Servers, the players see promoted Pawns represented as the piece they promoted to. So in that case they will have to remember which Queens will revert to Pawns, and which will remain Queens on capture. Crazyhouse is the most played variant on Chess Servers, and I have never heard anyone complain about this state of affairs...

Crazyhouse of course has an even larger problem with equipment, as the
pieces need to change color there. For OTB play you would need two sets,
and keep good accounting to prevent cheating. The Japanese solution to
these problems turns out inacceptable to Western players.

This whole thing is a non-issue, and addressing it is a waste of time.

As to home-made sets: the standard solution is that people use a normal
Chess set, and agree that in the upcoming game Queens represent
Withdrawers, and Knights represent Chameleons, etc. This is only
troublesome to experienced Chess players. There are plenty of low-tech
solutions to this that are within reach of even the most inept. One could
use Draughts chips or stacks of Draughts chips to represent some pieces.
They might have equipmet lying around for other board games they happen to
have. One could use wooden blocks from a building set. One could make paper
cones of two different sizes. People that feel the use of normal Chess men
is too strong  distraction, will find a solution to this that can be
implemented in 5 minutes. If they really think the game is worth a replay,
they will consider more esthetically pleasing solutions that cost money.

It would be nice, though, if a set with four extra pieces (a pair plus two
unique ones), and two Pawns (for each color, so 12 pieces in total) could
be bought. There is a huge practical problem, though: all Pawns of a Chess
set should be equal, or the solution would look too much improvised to be
worth throwing money at. And the precise shape of Pawns as it is in
standard Staunton sets is no doubt protected as intellectual property.

If I were to construct a piece set for Capablanca Chess, I would simply
buy two standard Staunton sets. The Knights of such a set consist of a
horse figure from the neck up, glued to a base. I would cut those lose
from each other, and glue the head on top of an inverted Rook, to
represent the Chancellor. Then I would glue a Bishop on the remaining
Knight base, and make a second cut in the Bishop's head, symmetrically
opposed to the original one, so that the top part (with the 'knob') comes
off. This would represent the Archbishop. So now I have 2 Archbishops, 2
Chancelors, and 8 Pawns (for each color), and I would still be left with
Kings and Queens. These I would decapitate, to make a pair of
undistinctive pieces that could be used as a wildcard. So in fact I would
have made twice as many unorthodox pieces as I needed for Capablanca
Chess, with some Pawns to spare as well. From 3 normal piece sets I would
have made two 'Capablanca+' sets, and could sell the set I did not need.
If I was not interested in playing on a 12-wide board, I could glue two of
the Pawns on a pedestal (e.g. two stacked Draughts chips of judiciously
chosen size, or just a piece cut from a cylindrical wooden stick), and have another pair of exo-pieces (e.g. usable to represent Ferz in Shatranj, or Commoner in Knightmate).

So, we should then use a flipped rook to represent a Chancellor,
Archbishop, Amazon, Cannon, Fez, and Wazir also, and not just a queen?

Is that going to get codified in rules somewhere?

As for 'why not just have a collection of variants like we have now, and no do some NextChess'. Well, how is this working?

Let me answer this in three parts:

Software Support

Very Good. Zillions of Games and Game Courier both provide software support for numerous variants. ChessV supports several games. Shogi, Chinese Chess, and selected other variants have dedicated programs to play them.

Equipment Availability

Good. When David Howe and I were regularly playing Chess variants together when we both lived in the same city, we never had serious problems coming up with equipment for games. Between us, we had a good Chess variant construction set, and we were able to make pieces for games with pieces we didn't have readymade. In general, Chess variants tend to appeal to creative people, and creative people can usually come up with the equipment for the games they want to play.

Equipment becomes more of a problem if (1) you don't have the interest or creativity to make your own equipment, or (2) you are trying to organize large numbers of people to play Chess variants. Naturally, it will be easier to attract large numbers to Chess variants when you have some readymade equipment they can use. Some variants have sets available, and many other games can use the equipment from these sets. Your present solution is to make a large investment in multiple Chess variant sets whose pieces you can mix and match for different games, along with some mousepad boards you can cut up and piece together into different board shapes. For a cheaper alternative, you can print out piece images and affix them to poker chips or wooden discs.

Eventually, I expect 3D printers to be commonplace. The technology exists. I saw a Wired Science episode that showed them being used to build living organs for transplants. The same kind of technology could be used to build custom pieces from 3D patterns stored in your computer.

Player Interest

Poor. Some variants have fairly large followings and most don't. I'm sure it is also that way with card games, for which most everyone already has the equipment. Most people are simply interested in playing the same games everyone else already knows how to play. In most places around the world, it will be easy to find someone else who plays Chess, but probably next to impossible to find someone who plays your favorite variants. Naturally, the promotion of Chess variants helps, but I don't know what promotion of some kind of meta-game would do in addition to this.

Fergus Duniho:
| Very Good. Zillions of Games and Game Courier both provide software 
| support for numerous variants. ChessV supports several games. Shogi, 
| Chinese Chess, and selected other variants have dedicated programs to 
| play them.

You forget to mention WinBoard and Fairy-Max!

So, far I am hearing odd little items such as '8x8 Chess will be laughed
at' presumable in the not too distant future. - Actually this is a
possibility if the human race decreases in IQ, every exercise of the mind
will be laughed at! 
And forcing chess variant designers to follow standards dictated by
someone or others - *something I as a designer will never do*, 
So how exactly did 8x8 chess evolve? BY PLAYING! 
Instead of wasting this time arguing about forcing others to do things,
why not just organize more tournaments, play more chess variants and see
what comes out of that. With enough people, people will naturally
gravitate towards a few chess variants. 
We have a great tournament going on right now in which each player has 2
favorite variants to play against the others. This has taken a backseat to
this useless discussion. Why were not all the parties involved in this
tournament? 
One thing to note: the chess playing community is very large and  not
interested in ANY chess variant at this point. Feel free to post this Next
Chess idea at any chess forum to see what response you get. Perhaps, this
post is intended for ortho chess sites - it must be - it does not concern
chess variants - as the most important support for chess variants is not
mentioned: PLAYING them! 

However, I do see some benefits to what Rich is doing - probably on the
way to an excellent categorization and possible promotion of chess
variants - both of which alone are good points for IAGO.

Indeed, the prove of the variant is in the playing, as the proverb says.

And this is exactly what the Superchess endeavor is attempting. Oct 12
there will be a gathering of some 40 people that will play Superchess all
day. George might not think much of it from a design or originality point
of view, and my personal preference would go to other vaiants as well. But
this variant is being played. Many others hardly so. I think that makes a
HUGE difference...

I believe that the solution to the dying Chess would not be an entirely new
 game, but something that would exactly solve the problems of Chess. Let us
determine what is wrong with Chess, not simply old.

The Mad Queen variant is not really 'wrong' or 'damaged'. It is just
simply becoming 'simplified' in the collective consciousness.

Eventually(not tomorrow), it will be superseded by another variant(just as
it superseded previous variants during its time). What that one will be is
totally conjecture at this point in time.

But allow me to conjecture(or predict). The 'next chess' could be 3D.
This is simply a logical extension of the wargame. Will it be a 3D
extrapolation of the Mad Queen variant? Or some other creature entire.

Let the argument continue(hopefully rational). Maybe we'll dig this gem
from our brains one day. ;-)

What is making it old, then, exactly? It would become new, I believe, from
the slightest rule change. This change should, if possible, fix some other
agreed problem than just create something random, which these
'NextChesses' seem to do. Let us speak, and formulate, in concrete terms, rather than wade in this theoretical sea.

The 'Mad Queen' mutation of what is 'Chess' works, but ends up adding
extra complexity to the game, which makes it harder to learn, and is a
deterent to new players.  A lot of these complexities come from what was
done with the pawns.  Because of the Mad Queen, Mad Bishop and the pawns,
we now have these additional rules that were added:
* Castling
* En Passante
* Stalemate (Came in the same time) as a draw.

These rules make things more complicated for novices, and hinder the
adopting of chess.  Take the example of Near Chess (as a reference, not
made as a self-plug here) and you can keep the mad pieces, but they don't
pick up the other complicated rules.  'Mad Queen' (Modern) chess feels
like a bunch of 'kludge' fixes to a game that went how it did, and is
needlessly complicated.

I am not sure how just saying, 'Let's add one rule tweak or two that I
PERSONALLY like' is going to end up addressing this also.  By the way, reducing the time to play (Speed/Fast/Blitz) apparently is how the chess is leaning towards addressing its issues.  That and some Chess960 also.

These 'kludge' rules are what makes chess what it is. Take out stalemate
and the beautiful endgame studies of the past are gone. Stalemate is surely
not a win since the objective was to checkmate not to capture the king.
Change this and try this - it does not work. You are making a game with
LESS not more. 
Castling is a king safety rule - that speeds up the game and makes it more
dynamic. Take it away and try it - the game is slower and not as
interesting. Shuffle chess without castling or Fischer random - it seems
people have already decided. 

Eastern variants dont have the queen- Chinese chess the king is confined
to the palace - the stalemate =win seems more logical in that context .. 

The double pawn move and en passant go hand in hand as well. 

I have actually taught kids to play chess - and they have no problem
picking up the rules in one go. If anything, its the movement of the knight
that confuses them. 

I think what is important to note is that even the smallest rule change
has significant effect. Lets call it as it is - we are making different
chess-like games. Maybe for the chess variant community this is still chess
or next chess but for everyone else - it is a different game regardless of
how chess-like it is.

''Even the smallest rule change has significant effect. Let's call it as
it is -- we are making different chess-like games. It is a different game
regardless of how chess-like it is.'' --Charles Daniel
You had to click on extension for that part of comment, so I raised it
here. Lasker agonized to come up with simply switching Knight and Bishop and to grade Draws as to Stalemate etc. differently; only the latter subtle change became his serious suggestion and it was considered wild enough. Of course grand-masters today still revive that for subterfuge. The book with chapter on Lasker's idea for reform is not immediately available for complete accuracy. Capablanca fielded queries on what might improve OrthoChess64, that Pritchard documents under Capablanca Chess (which became 8x10). These matters should not be for idle speculation. ''Fools rush in where Angels fear to tred.'' Hypothetically CVPage could have been built all these years around extreme caution, and anything outlandish outlawed, and still have been considered fringe -- and still be the best potential revolutionary force for change. CVP chose different course, but maybe the same material to work with resides in its depths anyway.

I'm not discouraging creativity of Chess variants. The problem is that
everyone has their own solution to the next Chess, many I think
ill-considered. Some of these solutions are bland and inelegant, like the
dreaded Capablancoids, and others are kludgy or with some random new piece.
The remaining variants, while good both in theory and play, may not catch
on.

New games may also be exhausted, and people do not like constant new games,
so I think one should be created that is less exhaustible. In such we
should look at history of Chess to see all the problems and address them
specifically, as I believe that when exhaustions should be negated, it
makes for better than if new exhaustions are made, which we have with new
variants, whether good or not. If you agree, help the cause:
http://chessvariants.wikidot.com/drafting-page

I want to see creativity in Chess also.  I also would like the variant
community to be more mainstream, and generate more player interest.  What I
see needs to he handled regarding creativity is to have is to that what
people are working on had an ability to generate synergy between different
designs, and ideas can mingle together.  I also would like it to be
structured so we can have an evolutionary migration happen.  Without any
such actions, you will end up with the chess clock being the only thing
tinkered with, any the variant community getting shut out of talks.  Of
course, the variant community could then act like it is 'too good' and
'too smart' for the masses, but that is sour grapes.

Thus, if we are not to be able to reconcile our own works, thinking too
much that our variants are the 'right' one, perhaps we should try
reconciling previous works. That bring us to syncretism. A new wave of
variants shall arrive, giving new life in amalgamation. The more different
the variants the better.