23.09.2007 18:07, M Winther:

But computers have ousted the masters.

And? Is it a problem for athletes or for the spectators of the olympics
that most dogs can run faster than the fastest man on earth? And what
has this to do with playing chess variants? Why should I consider
playing a chess variant just because the top players tend to play draws?
As Phill pointed out for the mere mortals chess over the board doesn't
seem to be in a crisis. To the contrary, chess programs have become very
popular partners to play against or to try to improve ones chess.

I would like to play email chess, but half of my opponents are cheating by
using computers, at least intermittently. Had we played chess variants, or
used a swapping pawn move, then they couldn't cheat.

Adapting todays chess programs to new rules is not difficult (you
mentioned draughts: the world's strongest draughts program, Chinook, was
created based on a chess program within a few months). It would be a
matter of a week or two to adopt an open source chess program to a new
chess variant, resulting in a game which would again beat 99% of all
human players. Shall we switch to different rules every fortnight? There
are even programs out there, where you can define a set of rules and
have a playing partner without writing a single line of code. Might not
be as strong as the specialized programs, but good enough to easily beat
the average chess player. Neither your mentioning of the high number of
draws in top chess nor the existance of chess programs give any solid
argument, why a chess variant might be useful for the chess community.

I also feel that modern people think that chess is a little slow and tedious.

Let them play Poker.

Greetings,
Ralf