George Duke wrote on Thu, Mar 25, 2004 05:09 PM UTC:
Subject: Game Length:(#M)= Z(Ptd)/(Pd)G; see below.
Ralph Betza frequently submits games-variants not yet played. Randomly
under 'C', under RB: Captain Spalding 'However, my impression is that
the experience of playing the game will not be very Chesslike at all.'
Castlingmost 'It will probably be fun to play OOmost Chess a time or
two.' Chatter Chess 'Therefore, I would expect the game to be quite
enjoyable.' Chess with Mixed Pawns 'Although I haven't examined it yet,
I suspect that it will be a very interesting game.' In fact, I would say
descriptions of majority of Betza's 150(?) games give impression of no
test by across-the-board opponent.
Roberto Lavieri says today, 'All of us are mortal people,' about
avoiding Tai Shogi on its 25x25 and Taikuyoku 36x36. Now I go so far
as to say only a favored sample of us will live 33,000 days.(approx.) Take
that optimistic subset. Even if one starts playing Chess at age 3, as
super-Grandmasters are wont to do, that leaves 30,000 day/nights. Now a
good variant surely warrants 10 days; think of that as 3 games played a
day for a total of 30 games over 10 days, or 4 serious games for a total
of 40, or as one will...
But 2000 variants more or less list on CVP and another 2000 such in
Pritchard, and 4000 variants already exceed the allotment. (4000x10=40,000
days, longer than humans can be expected to live.) Therefore, it can help
to have criteria, other than subjective or self-promotional, to evaluate
CVs,even without playing them. And why a formula too to estimate Game
Length benefits. The included variables are already spelled out in
comments. Where #M is game length in number of moves, Pd Power Density,
Ptd Piece-type Density, Z Board size in squares, G Smith's Piece
Gradient, (#M) = (Z(Ptd))/((Pd)G) , first approximation showing
correlations.
