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Kevin Pacey wrote on Tue, Aug 15, 2017 12:32 AM UTC:

For what it's worth, I've looked at the logs of finished games of this variant (just 2), as well as such logs of Alekhine Chess and my own Sac Chess, as these are two large board variants I've known that have lots in the way of powerful pieces in the setup provided by the inventor.

It may be arguable, but I consider the number of moves played in an average game of a given variant to ideally be about 40 moves (what it is for the ever-popular standard [FIDE] chess) before most players would seriously consider ending the game (i.e. not play it out to checkmate or a draw by regulation rather than agreement, in the case of chess at least).

In the case of Alekhine Chess there's 8 finished games so far, and only two have gone past move 30; I suspect that the board having only 8 ranks (in spite of 14 columns) leads to more speedy finishes as a rule, given that there are also many powerful pieces in the setup. There's about twice as many games of Sac Chess finished thus far, with most lasting 30-70 moves before resignation or checkmate. Sac Chess is 10x10, with less squares in total, but even more in the way of powerful pieces in its setup (e.g. 2 Amazons per side, rather than 1) than in Alekhine Chess. Not enough finished games of either variant to be totally convincing, but note at least some of the games had fairly evenly matched and/or relatively high rated Game Courier opponents.

It's even less convincing evidence in the case of Quinquereme Chess (12x12 variant, with plenty of room for powerful pieces in the setup, it seems, when recalling the previous paragraph), with just two finished games of it so far, but note each of these at least had a nice number of moves played, in total, compared to the average length of a game in chess. I suspect based on all the above that at least one very powerful piece could be added, rather than subtracted from, this variant and still not seriously hurt its as yet far from proven playability, or the possible nice length of an average game of it.


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