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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.