Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

H.G., but then you have a bias toward 'Mad Queen Chess'. Those who love
Fide-chess, which I do, will find my variants interesting. For instance, I
think it's very interesting to investigate the properties of the extended
castling rule, as in Castle Chess, whether it will bring new life into the
King's gambit, etc. To introduce a single new piece, as only change, is
also interesting, because new strategical and tactical motives will
surface. 

It is evident, to me, that most chess variant enthusiasts are very
interested in rather extravagant creations. I have nothing against it
because it is quite creative, as such (even if the particular variant
isn't practicable). So it is almost like an art-form.

However, I take much more interest in the actual *variations* on the board,
tactical motives, etc. This is the *invisible* aspect of chess variants. To
manually alter the setup, as in Alternative Chess, changes opening strategy
to something completely new. If you are very interested in chess openings,
and have crafted variations and stored them in TascBase and Chess
Assistant, then such setup changes become very interesting. 

There is also another important aspect to modest variants. The hardliners
in the chess community will never abandon chess for any of the extravagant
variants, but they will find some of the modest variants interesting. Some
modest variant will prove the future of chess, because Fide-chess is
becoming more and more computerized. So I might be doing an important work,
with all my modest suggestions.
/Mats

I have nothing against Mad Queen per se. It is a very-well-designed
variant. It is only that it has been beaten to death.

But when I turn to other variants, I do it because I want something
fundamentally different. Not just Mad Queen from a slightly different
starting position.

Fide-chess has not been beaten to death. It is the *openings* which have
been beaten to death. The King's gambit is a case in point. This
development took place many decades ago. People realized it was no use to
play the King's gambit, anymore. Spassky, heroically, took it up again,
but after his game against Ornstein in 1974, he declared that 'this was my
last King's gambit'. I predict that in the coming decades GM:s are going
to say 'this was my last Ruy Lopez.' When the main variations (c3 + d4)
in Ruy Lopez are being abandoned, then chess is in a very critical
situation. 

When the King's gambit died, it was a big tragedy, but we could still cope
with the loss. But we can't do without the main variation in Ruy Lopez.
After all, we can't fall back on Four Knights. The opening stage in chess
is more and more becoming a straitjacket. The choices are narrowed down
because systems are cut away where White cannot achieve much. Can White, at
the top level, really squeeze something out of Ruy Lopez, Marshall gambit?
Is there any point in trying to achieve something against the Russian
defence, or should he make a concession and play Qe2? Many people today
play 'inferior' variations (like d3 in Ruy Lopez) in order to avoid
preparation, because they know it's no use to grapple with the Marshall
gambit, for instance. This occurs on amateur level, too. I think we are
heading toward an acute crisis in the coming decades.
/Mats

I take it this tournament is over before it even began?

Sent an email to Carlos. Remind me NEVER to name anything 'free-for-all'
again. Shows you how difficult it can be to organize a tournament. 

Currently, you, Greg, and I have not bowed out. As long as three of us are
interested, we can certainly play the games we intended. It apparently
doesn't need to be in a tournament format, though.

I never understood what was so damaging about that discussion. Can't one
express one's views anymore without hurting people?
/Mats

Why do people take these things so seriously? Many reasons, some, perhaps
most, having nothing to do with the chess aspects. One recent bit of
passion came about from language difficulties. I've seen other tempers
flare over basic questions of design and what is good or not. Some people
put a lot of themselves into their work. At this point, I hope that things
work out well. And I am certainly willing to play the remaining people.
Heck, we could even add a second game to the mix, as each will play only 4
games as it is now.

*******************

Mats, you are exploring the perfection of chess, specifically the FIDE
variant. And, to drop into the typical ocean metaphor, with your
bifurcators, you are racing along miles and miles of unexplored beach,
running far, far down the shore. I, on the other hand, walked up the beach
a bit, back to shatranj, then waded out into the water. I eventually swam
to a couple islands, and then saw another odd little island off to the
side, and that was Chieftain. From that tiny island, I can see the near
shore of the wargame continent, or at least its archipelago. 

I am curious about the shape of chess space, the conceptual area where
chess and its related games exist in our imaginations. In a sense, I am
trying to explore it, using chesspieces as experimental probes. The
difference between our styles can be approached by saying you are
perfecting gunpowder, and I've found quicksilver. I think that analogy
hints at our differences, both practical design and philosophical. 

You find the neatest things on the fringes, things you could never expect.
I've seen a chess animal 'wag its tail' during a move. I realized a
chesimal [chess animal] could develop a 'tail', but I never imagined one
would wag involuntarily. And with persistence, luck, and help, I
demonstrated a forced checkmate with a king and 2 'major' pieces [of the
3 at start, queen and 2 bishop-wazirs] vs a lone king on a 4D board of any
size [notably, over 5x5x5x5] with the Hyperchess rules. Admittedly it's a
limited 4D, but the limits make the game the most playable 4D chess
variant, and no one else, to my knowledge [and I've looked - ask Ben
Reiniger] has managed this. And that I may well be the only one in the
world who cares is maybe a bit disappointing, but in many senses is
irrelevant. I design, pretty much, because I have to.

what Joe is trying to say here is fide chess sucks cause the queen is way
too overpowered for the 8x8 board :))

Lol! ... You made me look, Christine! I have used a queen 4 times.
Hyperchess and Walkers & Jumpers, both 4D, have queens. Texas Two-Step and
Fluid Chess also have queens. I don't think anybody plays those games
here, although Hype apparently has a couple of fans - just not here.
There's also one or two monstrosities in the CVwiki that use queens.
Nobody plays them, either. 

You are right, I tend to not like queens. At least, I don't use them
except in highly unusual circumstances. Or bishops. And the rooks are only
there because they made me do it. Most of my pieces only move 2 or 3
squares - only a handful move 4 squares. And they tend to play on very
large boards.

Those 2 factors, short range pieces and large boards, make initial
placement less relevant, and the idea of very modest variants becomes
effectively irrelevant in games like Chieftain, where the pieces are just
dumped by the edge of the board and left to deploy as they will. 

Questions for all who wish to answer: Did you play chess before you found
chess variants, and how much? Favorite game, take it or leave it, hated it
so I made it different? I stopped playing chess a long time ago, and
switched to wargames. I design with a wargamer's eye, not a chessplayer's
eye. Obviously that affects my designs. How about the rest of you?

I used to regularly play Chess after school on an electronic Chess set. I
tried Chess club, but I didn't like it. After I beat my electronic chess
set at its top level, I soon got an Amiga and bought a Chess program for
it. Since playing Chess on the computer could give me eyestrain, I bought
another electronic Chess set at 30. When I got a PC later that same year, I
bought Chessmaster. Since I liked Battle Chess, I also tried that out. I
loved the animation, but it played poorly. Then I discovered Battle Chess
II, which was actually a Battle Chess version of Chinese Chess, which led
me to seek out software for playing other Chess variants. Zillions-of-Games
appeared shortly after that. With that, my interest focused mainly on Chess
variants, and I have since played Chess very rarely.

Yes I played chess before discovering chess variants. I played for my school team and at university, and when I got my first job for a London based insurance firm I played for them in the London Insurance Chess League. I also played in some local leagues and chess tournaments.

These activities came to a halt with the arrival of children and a career change from insurance to IT. Although I still play chess, my real passion is for wargaming (also started way back in my school days) and much of my gaming time is taken up with perfecting my own set of rules for my own particular circumstances.

Most of my CV designing is inspired by ideas from other activities - like my degree studies with the Open University - and tend to be very conservative in terms of pieces used.

It would be nice if we could get along to just play a tournament ..  

I must say I am a bit disappointed with the way the site is heading now --
It is not a good sign that George Duke is banned -- I had quite a few
issues with him - but I occasionally enjoy his posts and think he
contributes positively to the site despite some of his eccentric behavior
and 'trolling'. 
I feel the only posters that should be banned are those that post spam. 

Just my opinion.

Charles, glad to see you're in. I'll send you 1 or 2 invites tonight.
Would you like to add a second game? Greg has added Brouhaha, and I am
adding Grand Shatranj, as a simple sort of variant. If you do not wish to
play 2 games, I won't send the 2nd invitation. 

As for banning, I do not oppose a 'time-out' for egregious conduct. I do
oppose permanent banning except in the most extreme cases. I expect the
editors will review this situation later.

You can add Wreckage as my 2nd choice of game.

Two games each -  Awesome!  

I'll try to get my preset updated and invites sent out - thanks go to
Fergus for creating my linked presets :)  Unfortunately, I'll probably be
working really, really late tonight...  Trial coming up :(

Like most, i started playing regular chess, then at icc (internet chess
club) i first played shatranji. I then did a little searching on the net
and found this site and zillions of games. It's all your fault lol.

I created Shatranji. Are you saying they're playing one of my games at ICC?

oops sorry, i meant shatranj, i think u knew :)

I suspected as much, though I would have been pleased to learn that my
games were spreading around.

The results of the first Potluck Free4All are in. Since it was a small
event, each of us played 4 games against the other two opponents. The
results:
 1. [tie] Charles Daniel 5-3
 1. [tie] Joe Joyce 5-3
 3. Greg Strong 2-6

I offer a sincere thank-you to the participants. I enjoyed it, and hope you
did, too. There were some memorable games, including the final game between
Charles and myself, where Charles forced the tie by winning that very
back-and-forth game. It's rare to see a game with simultaneous serious
mating attacks/attempts. It was very enjoyable, in spite of the result!

The tournament was scheduled to run 10 months and began in February. Each
player was given 5 months of reserve time for each game, and no other time.
All 12 games were started at once. 

This tournament was [also] an experiment to see if a CV tournament can be
run in under a year. It was successful enough that it's clear players
could complete a dozen games easily in the time allotted, and probably
more, rather than the 8 each actually played. The format seems to be very
good for small to medium-sized tourneys online. I encourage others to try
it as a way to speed tournaments, if 10 months or so can be considered
speedy.

Finally, I'd like to suggest another one starting next year. In view of
the somewhat disastrous start to the just-completed tourney, I will change
the format slightly to allow knock-out votes. That's undoubtedly better
than knocking out people.