If we try to get a list according to popularity, How are we measuring
popularity?. If it is measured by the number of people playing a game at
least eventually, some regional variants are going to appear in the list,
some of them being not well known outside the lands where it is played (by
example, Makruk or Korean Chess). If we apply the criteria of a game that
is widely played around the world, but the number of players is
relativelly small, some games may be in the list although the number of
frequent players is, perhaps, no more than one thousand (I´ll be temerary
to give one examples: Bughouse). If we mix both, Glinsky´s Hexagonal Chess
is going to appear in the list in fourth or fifth place. In every case, the
three first positions are: 1.- FIDE-Chess; 2.- Xiang Qi; and 3.- Shogi.
Other games, by the way: Grand-Chess, Ultima, Omega Chess, Fischer Random
Chess and Alice have good chances to be included. The question to stablish
positions is which is the measure to apply, and if it is coherent with our
own ideas.