Comments by RichardHutnik

Chess clocks added running out of time as a new way to lose a chess game.  This format added another way to get eliminated.

I have looked at ways to make this SANE (Single Alternating Non-Elimination), and not sure how to do it.  Idea here is to try to come up with a format that can handle a prime number of players playing, or some other way where you can't divide the number of players into sections.

The DUAL RING is also meant to handle more than chess.

The 'Mad Queen' mutation of what is 'Chess' works, but ends up adding
extra complexity to the game, which makes it harder to learn, and is a
deterent to new players.  A lot of these complexities come from what was
done with the pawns.  Because of the Mad Queen, Mad Bishop and the pawns,
we now have these additional rules that were added:
* Castling
* En Passante
* Stalemate (Came in the same time) as a draw.

These rules make things more complicated for novices, and hinder the
adopting of chess.  Take the example of Near Chess (as a reference, not
made as a self-plug here) and you can keep the mad pieces, but they don't
pick up the other complicated rules.  'Mad Queen' (Modern) chess feels
like a bunch of 'kludge' fixes to a game that went how it did, and is
needlessly complicated.

I am not sure how just saying, 'Let's add one rule tweak or two that I
PERSONALLY like' is going to end up addressing this also.  By the way, reducing the time to play (Speed/Fast/Blitz) apparently is how the chess is leaning towards addressing its issues.  That and some Chess960 also.

George, I am in favor of the chess after FIDE Chess being called 'IAGO Chess' and we be done with it :-).  I don't want it to be a dead end, and I want to allow it to evolve.  I am in favor, in a BIG way, of the IAGO Chess System being revamped in 2.0, gutted, and redone, to account for the wonderful world of what we find here on this website, and be able to evolve sanely.  I want there to be a committee that I am NOT involved with to decide the ins and outs of this.

We have an issue if we just call it 'Chess' that people will think we mean the FIDE version.

'Variant' in the context I am speaking, refers to changes in how chess is played to meet the needs of the community of players, based on the 'wear' to the game of chess.   An original change that went on was the 'Mad Queen' and 'Mad Bishop'.  After that was the need for time control for tournament play, so the chess clock was introduced.  And now, it appears that the reducing of time addressed a lot of issues with chess.  

Again, the comment 'speed chess is a variant?' bears witness to actually variants of chess getting shut out for consideration (well, outside of maybe Chess960).  The Capablanca school is persona-non-gratis.

Charles, you happen to take things in directions I hadn't thought of going.

I had the idea of starting a new game.  HOWEVER, say C defeats B, who is playing A.  If there is a way for C to then play with B's army against A, then that would be another interesting spin.

With this, I am asking people to take this and run with it, and see if we can come up with a new format that would fit what we can't handle well now.  I know someone else mentioned the problem with stalling by someone who is losing.  I proposed a Bronstein clock solution for this, addition to the counting of wins also impacting this.

I was trying to view chess (and chess variants) through the eyes of
wargames, using wargame terminology, rather than create a hybrid game.

Near Chess is here:
http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSnearchess

Near vs Normal Chess is here:
http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSnearvsnormalch


John K Lewis had suggested ideas found in Near Chess, but then chopped off
the ends that were vacated, and was the first run at Simplified Chess.  The board then became 8x7 and the final version of Simplified. I believe a Simplified Chess board is a good addition to the world of Chess variants.  I did disagree with Mr. Lewis chopping off the last row in the initial Simplified Chess.

The rules for Near vs Normal Chess can be found here:
http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSnearvsnormalch

The basics of Near vs Normal is to see whether Near Chess or Normal (FIDE) Chess is superior.

Hey Joe.  I guess we could swap the positions of the Knight and Bishop (and
maybe even Rooks).  The main idea I was looking at was to keep the pieces
in their same columns, but have placement in the first three rows, with
pawns in the second or third row, and the other pieces behind them.  I
would allow for swapping of king and queen pieces.  I believe we also need
some guidelines like:
1. Castling is only permitted if the King is in the same row as a Rook at
the start of the game.  I would also look to have it so that the King would
need to have pieces between it and a Rook.
2. Rooks must be either a row behind or in the same row as the King.
3. Pawns on the second row get to move one or two spaces to start.  These
pawns that move one or two spaces are at risk of being En Passante'd. 
Pawns that start in the third row only move one space forward to start.  En
Passante is a weakness of a pawn, that another pawn can do to it.
4. Unless randomly selecting formation to start (like a shuffle), the
white player picks what formation they want to use, then the black player
selects their formation.
5. King and Queen may swap position (this changes how castling might
work).  Bishop, Knight and Rook stay in the same column they would normally
be in FIDE Chess.

My preference includes using King capture instead of checkmate, and also
promoting pawns to pieces that have been captured, but I don't want to
make this a requirement.  The focus is on formations.  Also, if people want
to have more modifications, feel free to here.  These are guidelines. 
Again, the key is adoption of the basic idea, not holding this locked down
and unchangeable.

I leave it up to others to play with more.  I have played around with
multiple formations using Fritz and ChessV and Zillions, and you get
interesting results here that look like it is playable.  Anyone want to
write this up as a legitimate chess variant?

I personally believe formations are a worthy element to be added to the
world of chess variants.  By combining it with mutators, different board,
reserve (pocket) pieces, and other things, I believe we can have a way to
have a version of chess with a LOT of different scenarios, maybe even a base version that could serve as THE main form of chess for the variant community.

Claudio.

So, you are into variants, because you want the rules to make more sense
to you?

Shuffles have been proposed as a way to mix up the opening in chess
variants.  I was curious if having a set number of formations could be
another approach.  This line of reasoning came to mind when I was fiddling
with Near Chess and came up with Near vs Normal Chess.  While the opening
lines of play isn't as varied as in shuffles, a formation (set arrangement
of pieces) does address weaknesses in the structure of how pieces are
arranged.  

Anyhow, I was curious if anyone has given thought to the use of different
piece formations (set arrangements) as a compromise between an outright
shuffle, and a set static open.

Any thoughts here?

It is possible that this was discussed before, but I wanted to get it
discussed now.  I wanted to look at why people are interested in chess
variants.  I can see some reasons, but would like more listed:
1. People feel something with FIDE Chess needs to be tweaked to improve
the game.  This could be the opening book being stale, or too many draws,
or just the play is getting over analyzed and tired.  People who think this
want to add a rules tweak to update things and hope the rules tweak gets
adopted it FIDE Chess with the rules tweak becomes the new chess everyone
plays.  The tweak could be small or large.  This is a desire for 'The Next
Chess'.
2. Something about chess bugs someone, and they feel they need to make
chess match more of the type of game they want to play.  This is similar to
the prior one, but the person's motivation is more personal, and the
interest isn't to have 'The Next Chess', but something they find more
fun on a personal level.
3. The person is a creative person who like to create new things.  They
want to experiment with chess, to come up with something interesting and
new.
4. Person is into novelty.  They want something new to play, and don't
want to face the same challenge.  They want to develop a general mastery
rather than memorize lines of play.  Variants are a way to play something
new.

Anyhow, let me know if I missed any and which of these would fit why you
are interested in chess variants.

The lack of mass could explain the apparent lack of traction of any
particular variant of FIDE chess to get positioned as 'the next chess'.

I have an interest (can put IAGO in there if you want) of seeing a functioning taxonomy developed, that would help assist in the promoting of chess variants, and setting up meaningful tournaments.  I would personally be very much in favor of a monster revamp and gutting of the internals of the 'IAGO Chess System' if it mean the variant community would get behind it.  

IAGO Chess System (aka IAGO Chess) is attempt 1.0 at this.  It does propose that what it become be done by consensus of a community, rather than some individual trying to be a genius.  To that end, I welcome a uniformed set of mutators, pieces (with standardized names and appearances), formations and whatever else people want to add, be added to the System, and the system continue to evolve.

Anyhow, just my 2 cents...

So, we are discussing gating here?  I believe gating is an important
contribution to the future of chess.  Like about all contributions, there
is a context it fits into.  Reserves are key to having handicapping also.

A good way to get something going by networking on Myspace is to start a
chess variants group on there.