Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

It's morning here, so not too awake. Thanks for correction, H.G.

Having thus arbitrarily narrowed the search for what a Next Chess looks like, I thought Game Courier might reveal some really good candidates (already) for a (10x10) Next Chess. Of course, something else 10x10 might come along eventually, but people have not made this argument explicitly - instead there seems to be a slight lack of interest here, as if future generations/elite chess players will decide, not us, so why should we even try to explore the question/lay groundwork?

It is interesting to think about what might be the next step for chess; but, supposing there were one obvious choice, what would you do with it? It's interesting to try to find or design likely candidates, but to really become the "next chess" it would need to be promoted somehow. I guess the choice of board size and piece selection and other rules is limited by the need to appeal to existing chess players. Probably most, or all, of the games suggested are good enough in that way. What's really needed to replace chess isn't finding the right game, there are several of those already; it's getting enough of the right people, with the ability to promote such a game, interested enough in one such game to do so.

It would be better, I think, if people didn't think about chess as a specific game, but as a family of more or less related games. Being a good chess player wouldn't mean specializing in mastering one set of rules, but developing skills applicable to many different varieties and being able to adapt to different systems.

Well, I didn't mean to imply by my previous post there would be only one Next Chess - previous posts clarified a plurality may be fine, too. Old threads specifically about a Next Chess explored various types of CVs (e.g. Circular, Oriental, Ultima-like...) and which candidates there might be for each type, if the chess world ever had similar thinking to many of the denizens of this CVP website, when it comes to sampling from a variety of variants.

Once and if a Next Chess (one or more) are popular choices with at least a clique or cult-like following of people, promoting some or all of them is indeed the next challenging step - made easier with the internet these days, though. Some variants in the past were promoted fairly quickly, with no followers initially, even, but then apparently cooled out in terms of popularity (e.g. Chess960).

A question maybe of more interest to people on CVP website is, why haven't chess variants (in general or on this website) already been more than sporadically promoted, and why have relatively few, if any, really taken off to any degree? This returns to the main subject of this thread, if people already see the Next Chess topic as flogging a dead horse. Or would that also be flogging a dead horse, too?

Well, I didn't mean to imply by my previous post there would be only one Next Chess - previous posts clarified a plurality may be fine, too.

I didn't mean to imply that you implied that. I actually like the whole Next Chess idea, whether it's one game or several. Others might have more worthwhile things to say about it than I have.

This returns to the main subject of this thread, if people already see the Next Chess topic as flogging a dead horse. Or would that also be flogging a dead horse, too?

I don't see it that way. It's an interesting topic. Regarding your question, I have some thoughts about that, but I don't know much since I've never been involved in organized chess playing. It seems like whatever variants do achieve some popularity are very conservative, such as 960. Perhaps many who take chess seriously are interested in chess primarily for the shared experience aspect, or competition—thinking of chess as a sport more than as a game. Someone who thinks that way might perceive any suggestion of a significant change to the rules as promoting an entirely different game—a revolution rather than an evolution. Does that make any sense?

Definitely makes sense, to me. Almost all the seven 10x10 Next Chess candidates I picked for my own personal list resemble FIDE chess a lot. Caissa Britannia may be the most different of the bunch, with a different royal piece and some piece types that use complex movements - still, I thought it might seem a cool enough game that might appeal to all but the most conservative FIDE chess players (maybe most of them, unfortunately), assuming they ever think about the Next Chess topic.

My own 10x10 Sac Chess has been played over 60 times on GC, and I was tempted to include it, but so far I (the inventor) have been mostly one of the players of these game logs. There may also be imperfections with Sac Chess, that I think I now see, but I may be wrong. In any case a Next Chess ideally should have a lot of different playable opening sequences possible, early on in the move count.