On Jun 9, 11:17*am, Nick Wedd wrote:

A British friend was very keen on 10x10 checkers. *But she had
difficulty finding information about it on the web. *A Google search
using its French name "dames" yielded many hits, none of them at all
relevant.

I looked for a long time, and eventually found that they could be
ordered from the Dutch Checkers foundation:

http://www.kndb.nl/cms/staticfiles/kndb_bondswinkel.htm

All in Dutch, but it's decipherable enough. They can also be contacted
by mail. I haven't ordered mine yet, but I intend to do it soon.

I think this bridge should be a recognizable GM who picks a few variants of his /her liking and promotes them by playing other GMs.
If this were to happen, the chessvariant community would greatly benefit now understanding what a high level chess player is looking for in a chess variant.

For example if Anand, Carlsen, Kramnik or Kasparov were to play Herculean Chess:
http://chess.computerwebservices.net/herculean.php

It would be a major breakthrough. This should however not be a particular Gm simply endorsing a chess variant just to make money - it should be an honest evaluation.

There is no way, though that a larger board variant or one with new pieces will EVER catch on with regular players simply because this makes the game much harder to play. Any game with new pieces is "harder" to play and there is zero motivation to do so.
Changing the rules is even more unpleasant for chess players. e.g use of cards to choose openings/balloting etc

However, the simpler solution most likely to be adapted in about 10 yrs time is to use a few "balanced" starting positions from Fischer Random. Anand already said that some positions gave white a much bigger advantage while some were about equal. Kasparov said many positions should be "thrown" out and that just one position should be played for one year. These suggestions will be taken seriously and are most likely to be adopted.

Simply switching the king and queen positions would change a lot of opening lines.

Another interesting position: switch the queen and queen bishop and switch the king and kings bishop.

It seem much more likely for these changes to take place.

Variants and rule changes will most likely be discarded until perhaps another 100 yrs.


I believe a savvy promoter could make a few high level GMs play some of these large board variants and generate a lot of publicity in doing so. A variant could develop as another game played alongside std chess and this is the best possible future of chess variants.

On Jun 9, 3:28 am, Peter Clinch wrote:
Rich Hutnik wrote:
The issues faced by this is that people can't buy 10x10 boards
anywhere.

For some values of "anywhere". They're standard in continental Europe
AFAICT. My Dutch wife's chess/checkers board has 8x8 on one side and
10x10 on the other. She expressed surprise that I expressed surprise,
she not having realised checkers was played on anything other than 10x10
and me not realising it wasn't always played on a chess board.


At least in the United States, you can't find them anywhere. They
aren't even online here.

- Rich

At least in the United States, you can't find them anywhere. They
aren't even online here.

L'ssociation québécoise des joueurs de dames in Canada advertises
10x10 and 12x12 boards, so at least there is a North American Source.
See

http://www.fqjr.qc.ca/dames/materiel.html

Completely in French, though I suppose you can do a Google traduction.

On Jun 9, 6:18 pm, " wrote:
At least in the United States, you can't find them anywhere. They
aren't even online here.

L'ssociation québécoise des joueurs de dames in Canada advertises
10x10 and 12x12 boards, so at least there is a North American Source.
See

http://www.fqjr.qc.ca/dames/materiel.html

Completely in French, though I suppose you can do a Google traduction.

Ok, Canada, in French :-) How about the United States in English?

- Rich

Rich Hutnik wrote:
On Jun 9, 6:18 pm, " wrote:
At least in the United States, you can't find them anywhere. They
aren't even online here.
L'ssociation québécoise des joueurs de dames in Canada advertises
10x10 and 12x12 boards, so at least there is a North American Source.
See

http://www.fqjr.qc.ca/dames/materiel.html

Completely in French, though I suppose you can do a Google traduction.

Ok, Canada, in French :-) How about the United States in English?

So "anywhere" actually means "anywhere in my own back yard"?

If it's something you want and are looking for, is that really too big a
step?

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

On Jun 10, 1:50 am, Peter Clinch wrote:

So "anywhere" actually means "anywhere in my own back yard"?

If it's something you want and are looking for, is that really too big a
step?

In this case, his concern isn't primarily with finding a board and
checkers for himself for the game itself, but rather with how
generally and easily available equipment for alternate forms of Chess
and Checkers are, so that their popularity might increase.

So it's not actually a question of laziness on his part. I remember
checking around here in Edmonton, Alberta, in Canada, and even a store
which sold French-language books and a few other miscellaneous items
to the French community here didn't bother with a board for Canadian
Checkers, so apparently the interest in that game is limited even
among French-speaking Canadians. (Not living in Quebec, I don't know
if the 10 by 10 game is the usual one there, but I suspect not.)

John Savard

Quadibloc wrote:

In this case, his concern isn't primarily with finding a board and
checkers for himself for the game itself, but rather with how
generally and easily available equipment for alternate forms of Chess
and Checkers are, so that their popularity might increase.

Fair enough, but I don't think in this day and age the fact that you're
mail ordering from Quebec, Canada or somewhere in NL or wherever is
actually a major barrier compared to ordering from some bit of the US
you don't live in. International shipping really isn't that exceptional
any more.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

On Jun 10, 11:18*am, Peter Clinch wrote:
Quadibloc wrote:

In this case, his concern isn't primarily with finding a board and
checkers for himself for the game itself, but rather with how
generally and easily available equipment for alternate forms of Chess
and Checkers are, so that their popularity might increase.

Fair enough, but I don't think in this day and age the fact that you're
mail ordering from Quebec, Canada or somewhere in NL or wherever is
actually a major barrier compared to ordering from some bit of the US
you don't live in. *International shipping really isn't that exceptional
any more.

Right, but the language barrier is significant. I searched the net a
long time for 10x10 boards, and on boardgamegeek forums you also see
several other people asking for it. Right now, I suspect most people
who don't speak French, Dutch or Russian will never find a board
online, even if they go looking for it.

I suppose this really means that the International Draughts community,
despite the name of the game, make very little effort to market the
game outside their individual countries.

Harald Korneliussen wrote:

Right, but the language barrier is significant. I searched the net a
long time for 10x10 boards, and on boardgamegeek forums you also see
several other people asking for it. Right now, I suspect most people
who don't speak French, Dutch or Russian will never find a board
online, even if they go looking for it.

Stock joke comparing the Dutch to the British: they're taller than us,
and their English is better... All you really have to do is ask.

How do you find a game store? Well, I put aside my limited knowledge of
practical Dutch and Googled for holland games shop and that led me to a
couple of useful looking places on the first page, especially
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/15712 which is a list of Dutch
game shops. Even with no Dutch it shouldn't be too hard to find email
addresses on the sites suggested to ask about a 10 x 10 board in English
(I have some rudimentary Dutch, and soon found a selection of 10x10
boards at http://www.moenen-en-mariken.nl/producten/ with prices as low
as €6.95 before shipping).

In other words, the practical barriers to a 10x10 board are not being
bothered to spend more than a brief time period armed with a web
browser. It may be as much as an hour to find one... just how
interesting is it as a game if you can't spend that sort of time? Just
how interesting is it as a game if you can't get some board and a magic
marker and make up your own? (I have a perfectly serviceable Go
half-board that took the back of a wooden chess board, though a bread
board would have been fine, a carpenter's square and rule and a magic
marker and a bit of time and care to make).

We're not the realm of having to hand-carve the pieces or anything like
that, it looks more like excuses being found to shelve the idea.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/