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George Duke wrote on Mon, Dec 28, 2009 05:40 PM UTC:
Score: Bifurcators including Venator > Great Shatranj > Mastodon > Three Player > (#5)Unicorn Great > Big Board > Centennial > Eurasian > (#9)Schoolbook > (#10)Kings Court > Wildebeest > Fantasy Grand > Black Ghost > Eight-Stone > Modern > Templar > Courier de la Dama > Switching > Seirawan. The Internet and Next Chesses represent this orderly evolution. The cons are reviewed here: http://www.chessvariants.org/index/listcomments.php?subjectid=FatallyFlawedM/C The pros of Carrera compounds RN and BN on 8x10, of which Schoolbook is representative, include: (1) long-time popularity of Carrera-Bird-Capablanca on 8x10 and 10x10; (2) their logic and immediate grasp as atoms Knight, Bishop, and Rook in combination; (3) excluding promotion to RN or BN, that end-games often practically reduce familiarly to plain old strong-Queen on 8x10. Pint-size 8x8 as vagary versus full 8-10 end-games can show subtly different outcomes with the same piece mixes. Assuming Champion(RN)s and Centaur(BN)s are captured early, standand end-games of (K+P) versus (K), or (K+N+N) versus (K+B+P), etc., are worthwhile comparing between the two size boards, despite 8x8's ongoing burgeoning obsolescence. The closer to the end, the somewhat more likely the 16 fewer squares are to become the critical determining factor. Keeping as far as possible the general orientation of any 6 or fewer pieces for an illustrative end-game study, White may win on one size, Black on the other, or vice versa, in even conflicting results imaginable (though infrequent), from case to case on different paired size boards. The Carrera-Bird-Capablanca-Schoolbook deep 400-year eternal renewal helps fix these shifts and shadings as out of the original authentic over-all Caissan gestalt. As a starter CV easy to learn, Schoolbook for ranking above, one of the about ten important initial arrays of groundbreaking Carrera, is not so inventive as Eurasian, more playable than Wildebeest, and safer than Fantasy Grand. There it is now pointedly slotted with continuing high precision. http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=24303