On Mar 29, 4:48 am, "Rob Bakker"
wrote:
Richard,

Did you look at this site?http://www.superchess.nl/indexengels.htm

A Dutch based guy, with a serious chess variant who also created the pieces
in wood for the concepts he designed.

I ran into that. It looks like a good mix of pieces. However, he may
object strongly to people using his pieces for other variants. Also,
my feeling is the pieces make for a decent secondary set of pieces, or
mapping to the modern variety, but as primary pieces, they look too
abstract. I did happen to email them, asking them questions, but they
haven't gotten back to me.

What I find is that the approach most people take with variants isn't
favorable to their growth and promotion, but set up to maximize the
revenues generated from a very small pool. The risk-reward ratio is
often too high for people to consider getting serious about anyone
variant, let alone spending money on it. If it isn't for the money,
it is for the TIME issues. As a result, I believe if there can be a
generic and universal version of pieces that the community of players
of chess and variants can adapt, and use, in a lot of different ways
(decouple the pieces from the rules), it might provide a chance for
them to catch on, and a market get created for the pieces.

- Rich