CHESS REDESIGN

Mats raises issues that have concerned me for some time. I came back to
chess after a 25 year layoff. I left the game as a NM 2235 USCF. When
I came back to chess, it had radically changed. I spent about six
months exploring the new chess world in a process of deciding if chess
had anything worthwhile for me today.

As a result, I decided to formally retire from over-the-board play and
from online play. I did check out my local club scene, ICC, and
playchess.com. I also have been following the scandal ridden USCF, but
I cannot bring myself to join such an organization. I still enjoy being
an online spectator at major events and have been following the games of
players like Magnus Carlsen, Radjabov, and Anand.

I believe that Fischer, Nakamura and others were right when they stated
that "classical chess is dead." Mats explores a number of aspects of
this crisis for chess in his post. What can be done?

I originally thought that a closer marriage between computer technology
and chess might be an answer. The board, pieces, clock, game scoring
and rules could all be integrated into computerized console that both
players sat on opposite sides to play. Aside from the technological
difficulties of such a solution, it also fails to remain simple and
economically feasible for worldwide acceptance.

I looked seriously at Chess960, AKA Fischer Random chess. It does
succeed at largely removing the tremendous obstacle of opening theory
from the game -- at least temporarily. I decided not to pursue it. It
does not have the feel of a long term solution to me. Computers will
only get faster and more powerful. Opening theory may become just as
large an obstacle in Chess960 in due course.

I next looked briefly at Seirawan chess. I appreciate the spirit behind
it. Still, it strikes me as being too limited to be a lasting solution.

I remember in the old days at the Shalom games club in Seattle when
Duncan Suttles would come down from British Columbia to join with local
masters and experts in some of the wildest coffee house gaming that I
have ever known. We played chess, bridge, go, checkers, shogi, and many
types of fantasy chess. I remember Duncan introducing me to the
coordinator piece... These sessions, which could go on into the deep
wee hours, and similar ones at the old Last Exit coffee house were the
most fun I have ever had playing chess.

It strikes me that the major goal of any redesign of chess ought to be
to reinvigorate the spontaneous fun that one can have playing it. I
believe if this is achieved, it would attract and retain both young and
old players.

Now, I do not claim to be an expert at games design, or a "competent
analyst." However, I do have an idea to share, and perhaps kick around
in discussion, if it strikes anyone's fancy.

I like the idea of random starting positions from Chess960. I also like
the idea that classical chess is a subset of Chess960. I would like to
retain both of these features in a newer redesign. From Seirawan Chess,
I do like the idea of some new pieces. However I do not care for the
fact that classical chess is not a subset of this variant.

An additional consideration: most variants of solutions that I am aware
of have a static nature. Can this be avoided? Is it desirable to avoid
it? Consider the following idea.

You arrive at your favorite chess hangout and see someone new sitting in
a corner. He appears to be an out-of-towner. You go over and invite
him to play. He counters your proposal with an offer to play a new type
of chess. Somewhat puzzled, you agree. You ask him to explain what he
has in mind.

He unrolls a standard cloth chess board on the table. Nothing new
there. Next he turns to a small bag he is carrying and says the words
"pawn prototypes" with a twinkle in his eyes. "Pick one," he says. You
reach in and pull out a pawn-like object and turn it over in your hand.
"Ah, the serf! It only moves forward one square at a time and
captures sideways," he says.

Then he turns to another small bag and says "piece prototypes." You
reach in and begin choosing the types of pieces you will play with. Two
of your pieces are a familiar bishop and a knight, which come in pairs.
You pick two more exotic pieces which you have to have explained to you.

He adds a king to complete the forces that each side will use.

With the armies determined they are put into yet another bag where they
will be withdrawn one at a time to set up the start position, much like
chess960. Pawn types will still start on the second/seventh rank.

Now you begin playing an unusual game...

Out of curiosity you ask him how many types of pieces he has in the
prototype bags. He says that it depends on what prizes FIDE has awarded
for piece design that year. Some old pieces get retired, and new ones
come on board. The old classical pieces always stay as a stable subset.
{This is a way to avoid a static solution...}

.. . .

This kind of solution is economical, and could be adopted worldwide. It
avoids the glut of computer analysis and monolithic opening theory. It
even largely avoids endgame table-bases. It adds a new creative element
to chess in piece design. And, replacing huge amounts of opening theory
with exotic new types of endgame studies suits my personal preferences
fine.

One downside: the folks that designed PGN/algebraic notation would have
some serious work to do. The notation would have to capture how new
pieces move and how to name them as well.

Well, there you have it. A brief sketch of an idea. Tear it apart,
ignore it, or cheer. It is your move.
--

"Do that which is right..."

Rev. J.D. Walker


M. Winther wrote:
Fide-chess is facing a problem. Undoubtedly the game will survive, but
professional chess faces a predicament due to the theoretical
development. In the future, all the best lines for white and black
will have been outlined, and games will revolve around memory
dexterity. Already, English opening has been solved as drawn, and
there is no use in playing it among professionals. Nobody plays King's
gambit anymore, or Bc4 openings. They have been solved. Comparatively,
Anglo-Saxon checkers has been solved, too (see Scient. Amer. article:
http://tiny.cc/wWDuG ). Although checkers is a wonderful game that
will always be played among amateurs, the checkers professionals now
face a serious problem. The computers have brought us to this, but we
can handle it by slightly increasing the complexity of the game.

For amateur chess players 1.d3 is good enough, but not to the elite.
To them, also the Closed Sicilian is obsolete. It has been
strategically solved. It's no use playing it in a super grandmaster
tournament anymore.

As an example of the numerous suggestions to address the problem, I
have suggested adding an extra square to the right of each player in
Neoorthodox chess: http://hem.passagen.se/melki9/neoorthodoxchess.htm

But I don't know the opening play consequences of this, while an extra
weakness is introduced on the first rank. However, the strategical
consequences are very wholesome. Suddenly the Closed Sicilian comes to
live while it's now possible to advance more rashly with the pawns on
the king's wing.

From an historical perpective, chess during the medieval era was a
very popular parlour game, especially among the upper classes. But
by the turn of the seventeenth century it was no longer fashionable.
Marilyn Yalom says:

"...Ironically enough, it may be that the elevation of the chess queen
and the bishop to new levels of strength had something to do with the
dwindling numbers of female participants. Once those two pieces
acquired a greater range of mobility, it took fewer moves, on average,
to complete a match. New chess was no longer suited to leisurely
encounters between ladies and gentlemen that could last a day or more,
with interruptions for eating, drinking, dancing, and singing, or, in
more plebian settings, for stirring the pot and nursing the baby. New
chess was fast and fierce. A match could be over in a few hours or
even a few moves if you didn't pay strict attention. Hands had to be
ready to grasp a piece on the board, and not a knee under the table.
Chess would no longer tolerate dalliance of any sort. As chess became
less social and more competitive, the professional chess player
arrived on the scene. Forget the troubadour chess partner or the
attentive lover or even the town Wunderkind who was allowed to take
time off after the harvest to play with the local lord. Now there were
full-time champions earning their living from arranged matches in
princely settings throughout Europe...." (Yalom, Birth of the Chess Queen,
pp. 228-9).

It is against this backdrop that we must view many chess variants of
later date. For instance, certain big board variants (10x10) fulfil
the criterion of a slower game suitable for the leisurely parlour. I
mention two examples, Paulovits's variant c. 1890 :
http://hem.passagen.se/melki9/paulovitsgame.htm and my own Mastodon
Chess: http://hem.passagen.se/melki9/mastodon.htm

To the modern chess players the empty spaces at the flanks must appear
like immense deserts where pieces can squander about without seeing
much sign of enemy opposition. Such a game can never acquire the
"nerve" of standard chess. But this is a good quality because then we
are somehow back at the leisurely parlour game where the technique of
moving pieces needn't be that exacting.

I want to strike a blow for a form of chess which isn't that
competitive. The above two big board variants contain many finesses,
but if played by strong players they are likely to end in a draw, I
suppose. Outside the sporting context this is not disadvantageous. If
we want a still slower game then we can turn to 1000 year old Shatranj
Kamil, allegedly invented by Timur Lenk. There are also slow standard
board variants, like Thai Chess (Makruk).

The conclusion is that it's much up to the character of the game and
its rules if a game is to become a popular social occupation. Chess
had acquired an immense romantic status during the medieval era, but
now there is almost nothing left of this. During the 19th century,
people could still be seen playing chess in a lounge, smoking a cigar,
sipping from a glass of cognac. But today chess is merely
professional. Occasional park players also want money.

There is however another aspect to discuss. A game can also become
more leisurely and parlour if it encourages phantasy and
combinations. In such case there is no room for ruminations. This is
probably why Chinese Chess (Xiangqi) (
http://hem.passagen.se/melki9/chinesechess.htm ) is the world's most
popular game. It is superficial but very adventurous, played with very
weak pieces, considerably weaker than in medieval European chess,
even.

Another obvious advantage with chess variants is that you can partake in
an email chess tournament knowing that it's a human opponent you are
playing against, as there are no really strong programs that can play all
these thousands of chess variants. This is a huge advantage. On
MindSports (
http://www.mindsports.net/index-mindsports.html ) you can play Grand
Chess, and at play.chessvariants.com you can play, e.g. Commodore Chess
(
http://www.chessvariants.org/index/m...commodorechess )
or Gunnery Chess
( http://www.chessvariants.org/index/m...MPgunnerychess )
etc., etc.

Mats

On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:49:36 -0700, "J.D. Walker"
wrote:

Out of curiosity you ask him how many types of pieces he has in the
prototype bags. He says that it depends on what prizes FIDE has awarded
for piece design that year. Some old pieces get retired, and new ones
come on board. The old classical pieces always stay as a stable subset.
{This is a way to avoid a static solution...}

This kind of solution is economical, and could be adopted worldwide. It
avoids the glut of computer analysis and monolithic opening theory. It
even largely avoids endgame table-bases. It adds a new creative element
to chess in piece design. And, replacing huge amounts of opening theory
with exotic new types of endgame studies suits my personal preferences
fine.

This would seem to solve the problem of people taking the results of
computer analysis and using it win some games against players they
normally couldn't beat.

But how does it address the human vs computer problem? The market
would reward software designers that could more quickly adapt their
wares to the new FIDE pieces.

Opening theory? As computers get more powerful and software more
sophisticated, the value of Opening Theory diminishes in favor of ad
hoc calculation. The analysis of yesterday's technology? That's for
weakies.

Table bases? With parallel computing and other technology, would the
new rules provide more than a short time-lag before the fresh table
bases (applicable to endgames with the new pieces) could be computed
and propagated?

All this assumes a market, of course.

None of this implies your recommendations wouldn't be fun to play. But
they seem more along the lines of computing pi a few more decimal
points.

Mike Murray wrote:
On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:49:36 -0700, "J.D. Walker"
wrote:

Out of curiosity you ask him how many types of pieces he has in the
prototype bags. He says that it depends on what prizes FIDE has awarded
for piece design that year. Some old pieces get retired, and new ones
come on board. The old classical pieces always stay as a stable subset.
{This is a way to avoid a static solution...}

This kind of solution is economical, and could be adopted worldwide. It
avoids the glut of computer analysis and monolithic opening theory. It
even largely avoids endgame table-bases. It adds a new creative element
to chess in piece design. And, replacing huge amounts of opening theory
with exotic new types of endgame studies suits my personal preferences
fine.

This would seem to solve the problem of people taking the results of
computer analysis and using it win some games against players they
normally couldn't beat.

But how does it address the human vs computer problem? The market
would reward software designers that could more quickly adapt their
wares to the new FIDE pieces.

Opening theory? As computers get more powerful and software more
sophisticated, the value of Opening Theory diminishes in favor of ad
hoc calculation. The analysis of yesterday's technology? That's for
weakies.

Table bases? With parallel computing and other technology, would the
new rules provide more than a short time-lag before the fresh table
bases (applicable to endgames with the new pieces) could be computed
and propagated?

Chess960 and Seirawan Chess have much less variability for computer
software to take into account.

All this assumes a market, of course.

A good point. How would it be profitable for vendors to create and
maintain such software? For that matter, would there even be any chess
professionals? Perhaps the game could go back to being just a fun past
time. I wouldn't mind a bit.

None of this implies your recommendations wouldn't be fun to play. But
they seem more along the lines of computing pi a few more decimal
points.

Hmm, It seems that there is plenty of room in chess for new pieces that
are weaker in nature. One example is a pawn type piece named the
"lineman" that moves like a regular pawn but has the option of charging
forward one square and pushing back an enemy piece one square provided
it starts on the 2nd through 6th rank, and the target has room behind
it. Heh, imagine the fellow that gets stuck with two bad bishops of the
same color...
--

"Do that which is right..."

Rev. J.D. Walker

On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:55:58 -0700, "J.D. Walker"
wrote:


Hmm, It seems that there is plenty of room in chess for new pieces that
are weaker in nature. One example is a pawn type piece named the
"lineman" that moves like a regular pawn but has the option of charging
forward one square and pushing back an enemy piece one square provided
it starts on the 2nd through 6th rank, and the target has room behind
it. Heh, imagine the fellow that gets stuck with two bad bishops of the
same color...

As I think about it, your variants could co-exist with trad chess
quite nicely, and might serve to identify the players with more
natural ability. This is also true of 960 and Seirawan Chess, maybe
to a lesser degree.

On Aug 18, 10:49*am, "J.D. Walker" wrote:

He unrolls a standard cloth chess board on the table. *Nothing new
there. *Next he turns to a small bag he is carrying and says the words
"pawn prototypes" with a twinkle in his eyes. *"Pick one," he says. *You
reach in and pull out a pawn-like object and turn it over in your hand.
* "Ah, the serf! *It only moves forward one square at a time and
captures sideways," he says.

While this is a little bit like a complicated idea of mine, it is
simpler to explain, and boils the principle down to its essentials.
I'm not sure there are enough _reasonable_ possibilities for a
"different kind of pawn" and a "different kind of bishop" to make this
more open-ended than Chess960, though.

I've been thinking about these things too, and since so many ideas to
shatter opening theory have never gone anywhere, I've come to the
conclusion that this isn't the real problem. Nor do I think the
ability of computers to play chess is in itself a disaster - it is a
potential problem, and the phrase "computer doping" has now been
coined to name that problem, but it isn't the end of chess.

And then there's Zillions of Games. Its engine is *way* behind that of
a commercial chess program, but what happens when it is improved, and
when chips get faster?

I think the real problem - masked by Soviet support of Chess for a
while - dates away back to Steinitz. Thanks to him, *people* are
playing chess to well, leading to draws, positional play, and a loss
of the flamboyance of the fondly-remembered games with wild sacrifices
such as LaBourdonnais-MacDonnell and Anderssen-Kiezeretzky.

And nobody seems to have come up with a fix for *that*.

John Savard

Quadibloc wrote:
On Aug 18, 10:49 am, "J.D. Walker" wrote:

He unrolls a standard cloth chess board on the table. Nothing new
there. Next he turns to a small bag he is carrying and says the words
"pawn prototypes" with a twinkle in his eyes. "Pick one," he says. You
reach in and pull out a pawn-like object and turn it over in your hand.
"Ah, the serf! It only moves forward one square at a time and
captures sideways," he says.

While this is a little bit like a complicated idea of mine, it is
simpler to explain, and boils the principle down to its essentials.
I'm not sure there are enough _reasonable_ possibilities for a
"different kind of pawn" and a "different kind of bishop" to make this
more open-ended than Chess960, though.

The random starting position of Chess960 is included in this idea.
Along with the inclusion of many variant piece designs, that means that
mathematically this is far more complex than Chess960. Hmm, where is
Ken Sloan when we need him?

I've been thinking about these things too, and since so many ideas to
shatter opening theory have never gone anywhere, I've come to the
conclusion that this isn't the real problem. Nor do I think the
ability of computers to play chess is in itself a disaster - it is a
potential problem, and the phrase "computer doping" has now been
coined to name that problem, but it isn't the end of chess.

And then there's Zillions of Games. Its engine is *way* behind that of
a commercial chess program, but what happens when it is improved, and
when chips get faster?

I think the real problem - masked by Soviet support of Chess for a
while - dates away back to Steinitz. Thanks to him, *people* are
playing chess to well, leading to draws, positional play, and a loss
of the flamboyance of the fondly-remembered games with wild sacrifices
such as LaBourdonnais-MacDonnell and Anderssen-Kiezeretzky.

And nobody seems to have come up with a fix for *that*.

John Savard


--

"Do that which is right..."

Rev. J.D. Walker

"Mike Murray" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:49:36 -0700, "J.D. Walker"
wrote:

Out of curiosity you ask him how many types of pieces he has in the
prototype bags. He says that it depends on what prizes FIDE has awarded
for piece design that year. Some old pieces get retired, and new ones
come on board. The old classical pieces always stay as a stable subset.
{This is a way to avoid a static solution...}

This kind of solution is economical, and could be adopted worldwide. It
avoids the glut of computer analysis and monolithic opening theory. It
even largely avoids endgame table-bases. It adds a new creative element
to chess in piece design. And, replacing huge amounts of opening theory
with exotic new types of endgame studies suits my personal preferences
fine.

A provocative post. I don't mean sensationalised, in fact the opposite, and
likely the grounds for long conversations. Here comes Mike:

This would seem to solve the problem of people taking the results of
computer analysis and using it win some games against players they
normally couldn't beat.

So this would apply to correspondance?

But how does it address the human vs computer problem? The market
would reward software designers that could more quickly adapt their
wares to the new FIDE pieces.

But is it a problem? Who actually says so? Since I very rarely play
computers, but play lots of OTB and correspondence, its not a problem for
me.

[[At length I should like to ask Mr. Walker something about his original
post - since he seems to have been a strong player - is his inclination to
change things based on ennui, or insufficient challenge to himself. I am
maybe a bit better than he was, but approx the same bracket, and always have
to struggle to win - and I suppose that struggle is why I play chess at
all. - In other words, what personal motivation is there for wanting change
at all?]]

If indeed playing against computers is a problem then we should take the
programmers at their word, and have them play legal chess, so that neither
player is looking at an opening book. Problem over. Many programmers have
suggested that their products are very strong without the opening book - but
who [other than Rybka] has proved it by doing it?

Opening theory? As computers get more powerful and software more
sophisticated, the value of Opening Theory diminishes in favor of ad
hoc calculation. The analysis of yesterday's technology? That's for
weakies.

I don't see any attempts to enter a computer sans-book into the strong
playing arena - with the exception of Rybka. And we should be clear that the
program does not know /any/ opening theory, its just playing book moves.
Maybe at some point it overrides the book to chose its own line,
neverthless, play proceeds as if there were no computer program at all - one
is simply playing MCO, or, not theory, but pre-recorded moves, that the
computer itself could not generate.

Playing a against a computer is therefore a combination of playing MCO and
then entering middle-game calculus. And there is nothing wrong with that,
and I have no problem with it. Except since I am not using opening books,
even for cc chess, I always feel I am playing the computer at odds of the
book, just as I would against human beings.

Table bases? With parallel computing and other technology, would the
new rules provide more than a short time-lag before the fresh table
bases (applicable to endgames with the new pieces) could be computed
and propagated?

All this assumes a market, of course.

The average adult rating in the US is about 1500. The market that that
average avers is learning tactics and positional chess. The computer can
provide that as practice routine, but there is a very important
psychological difference - playing the computer is not like playing a
person. One is essentially a private activity, often with take-back moves,
and as above, with a sense of playing at odds of the book - but playing
people is public [at least 2 people there] and playing on the same basis as
the other person.

This is why speculations over computers means nothing much to people more
than competing against a Ferrari in a foot race.

None of this implies your recommendations wouldn't be fun to play. But
they seem more along the lines of computing pi a few more decimal
points.

I think the intention is to

(a) get rid of the computer book advantage. but the answer to that is
straightforward - disable it!
(b) and in playing people to delimit their own book knowledge, and the
answer to that takes work - but does require some application to remove the
game from familiar worn pathways to new ones

Phil Innes

"Mike Murray" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:55:58 -0700, "J.D. Walker"
wrote:


Hmm, It seems that there is plenty of room in chess for new pieces that
are weaker in nature. One example is a pawn type piece named the
"lineman" that moves like a regular pawn but has the option of charging
forward one square and pushing back an enemy piece one square provided
it starts on the 2nd through 6th rank, and the target has room behind
it. Heh, imagine the fellow that gets stuck with two bad bishops of the
same color...

As I think about it, your variants could co-exist with trad chess
quite nicely, and might serve to identify the players with more
natural ability. This is also true of 960 and Seirawan Chess, maybe
to a lesser degree.

The problem with far out variants is that they lose the
connection to existing chess. Are there really a bunch of
abstract, analytical games bursting on the market and
surpassing the popularity of chess? I don't see it that way.

A simpler way to address the opening theory problem
is to follow checkers' lead. Instead of starting with 960
different starting positions as in FischerRandom, why
not select 960 (or more) positions that have been reached
from chess' conventional starting position? (These could
even change with time, and we could use computer analysis
to make sure that the positions are fair.) That would make
designing an opening repertoire a far different problem
than it is today, yet lead to chess that is normal in every
other way.

And the other thing that can be done is alternate
scoring that devalues draws. That will push players
into being creative and taking risks.

The problem with trying to improve chess is that it
*isn't* in crisis. It's all too easy to take a short-sighted
"chess is just fine" approach, which squelches any
interest in experimentation.

When did it die, and what killed it?

Seems like they were talking about opening theory saturation.

So what? Computers don't bother me now. If I become a GM - still wont. If I become the world champion then it might bother me - I would like to beat everyone and everything!

But why is this a problem for a player who gets beat by other human players?

This is slightly similar to Pick The Pick Big Chess:

This is a 10x10 game with the standard pieces and two empty slots on a1, a10 and j1,j10. The players pick the pieces to fill the slots. They can also choose to play with drops, dropping up to 5 pieces.


Pick the Piece Big Chess:
http://chess.computerwebservices.net/pick.php



There seems to be no need to stick to 8x8 chessboard at this point. You are adding new pieces - changing so many parameters of original game. In pick the Piece Big Chess - it is a bit easier for the players to decide on new pieces. Also the drop option adds a new dimension to the game.


- What I would like to see is more interest in chess variants -


The thing that will really kill chess, is idiocy - the inability of people to think for long periods of time, short attention span etc. More and more people are attracted to stupidity and perhaps the future would be a world with idiots with machines running everything. - The movie Idiocy explored this possibility

__________________
-------------------------------------------------------

Some fun chess variants :

Holy Grail
http://chess.computerwebservices.net/holy.php

Stealth Ninja Chess
http://chess.computerwebservices.net/stealth.php

J.D. Walker wrote:

CHESS REDESIGN

Mats raises issues that have concerned me for some time. I came back to
chess after a 25 year layoff. I left the game as a NM 2235 USCF. When
I came back to chess, it had radically changed. I spent about six
months exploring the new chess world in a process of deciding if chess
had anything worthwhile for me today.

As a result, I decided to formally retire from over-the-board play and
from online play. I did check out my local club scene, ICC, and
playchess.com. I also have been following the scandal ridden USCF, but
I cannot bring myself to join such an organization. I still enjoy being
an online spectator at major events and have been following the games of
players like Magnus Carlsen, Radjabov, and Anand.

I believe that Fischer, Nakamura and others were right when they stated
that "classical chess is dead." Mats explores a number of aspects of
this crisis for chess in his post. What can be done?

I originally thought that a closer marriage between computer technology
and chess might be an answer. The board, pieces, clock, game scoring
and rules could all be integrated into computerized console that both
players sat on opposite sides to play. Aside from the technological
difficulties of such a solution, it also fails to remain simple and
economically feasible for worldwide acceptance.

I looked seriously at Chess960, AKA Fischer Random chess. It does
succeed at largely removing the tremendous obstacle of opening theory
from the game -- at least temporarily. I decided not to pursue it. It
does not have the feel of a long term solution to me. Computers will
only get faster and more powerful. Opening theory may become just as
large an obstacle in Chess960 in due course.

I next looked briefly at Seirawan chess. I appreciate the spirit behind
it. Still, it strikes me as being too limited to be a lasting solution.

I remember in the old days at the Shalom games club in Seattle when
Duncan Suttles would come down from British Columbia to join with local
masters and experts in some of the wildest coffee house gaming that I
have ever known. We played chess, bridge, go, checkers, shogi, and many
types of fantasy chess. I remember Duncan introducing me to the
coordinator piece... These sessions, which could go on into the deep
wee hours, and similar ones at the old Last Exit coffee house were the
most fun I have ever had playing chess.

It strikes me that the major goal of any redesign of chess ought to be
to reinvigorate the spontaneous fun that one can have playing it. I
believe if this is achieved, it would attract and retain both young and
old players.

Now, I do not claim to be an expert at games design, or a "competent
analyst." However, I do have an idea to share, and perhaps kick around
in discussion, if it strikes anyone's fancy.

I like the idea of random starting positions from Chess960. I also like
the idea that classical chess is a subset of Chess960. I would like to
retain both of these features in a newer redesign. From Seirawan Chess,
I do like the idea of some new pieces. However I do not care for the
fact that classical chess is not a subset of this variant.

An additional consideration: most variants of solutions that I am aware
of have a static nature. Can this be avoided? Is it desirable to avoid
it? Consider the following idea.

You arrive at your favorite chess hangout and see someone new sitting in
a corner. He appears to be an out-of-towner. You go over and invite
him to play. He counters your proposal with an offer to play a new type
of chess. Somewhat puzzled, you agree. You ask him to explain what he
has in mind.

He unrolls a standard cloth chess board on the table. Nothing new
there. Next he turns to a small bag he is carrying and says the words
"pawn prototypes" with a twinkle in his eyes. "Pick one," he says. You
reach in and pull out a pawn-like object and turn it over in your hand.
"Ah, the serf! It only moves forward one square at a time and
captures sideways," he says.

Then he turns to another small bag and says "piece prototypes." You
reach in and begin choosing the types of pieces you will play with. Two
of your pieces are a familiar bishop and a knight, which come in pairs.
You pick two more exotic pieces which you have to have explained to you.

He adds a king to complete the forces that each side will use.

With the armies determined they are put into yet another bag where they
will be withdrawn one at a time to set up the start position, much like
chess960. Pawn types will still start on the second/seventh rank.

Now you begin playing an unusual game...

Out of curiosity you ask him how many types of pieces he has in the
prototype bags. He says that it depends on what prizes FIDE has awarded
for piece design that year. Some old pieces get retired, and new ones
come on board. The old classical pieces always stay as a stable subset.
{This is a way to avoid a static solution...}

. . .

This kind of solution is economical, and could be adopted worldwide. It
avoids the glut of computer analysis and monolithic opening theory. It
even largely avoids endgame table-bases. It adds a new creative element
to chess in piece design. And, replacing huge amounts of opening theory
with exotic new types of endgame studies suits my personal preferences
fine.

One downside: the folks that designed PGN/algebraic notation would have
some serious work to do. The notation would have to capture how new
pieces move and how to name them as well.

Well, there you have it. A brief sketch of an idea. Tear it apart,
ignore it, or cheer. It is your move.
--

Well done! - Superlative spelling, faultless punctuation & masterful
layout. A post to be proud of! An absolute rarity in these ng's!..

Content-wise? Call me a stick-in-the-mud but for me no 'crisis' exists.
Chess, as a famous GM once remarked is something of a minor
contemplative amusement & computers hardly impact this dynamic..

Variants, for me @ least, are a bit like water-polo. Mildly curious @
first & then rapidly boring. Perhaps for most of us, chess the way it
is, is really quite enough..

t.