How is 100 squares too large if 64 squares is too small?
Supposedly because 80 squares is perfect.
Yet the best 80 square game - a Capablanca setup or like maybe ahem ... Gothic is much more constricted (and feels awkward) than 64 square fischer random or std chess. This is actual play experience.
Perhaps its because the pieces are too powerful -
but in all seriousness the challenge of 10x10 has already been overcome by the most successful commercial variant - Omega Chess.
And Birds and Ninjas /Stealth Ninja chess take it one step further. Ninja pawns, strengten the pawn chain and provide enough pawn play for a 10x10 which Omega might lack.
But lets not kid ourselves - there is no variant ever made that can re-create the exact parameters of standard 64 square chess.
80 squares is not the gold standard and maybe even un-acceptable - there is no long diagonal and the bishops are aimed into the opposite side - like some awkward fischer random setups.
Besides choosing certain setups of fischer random plus reverse symmetry start positions of displacement chess (and Displacement Chess 2 with flexible castling) will ensure 64 square gold standard for say 200 years.
I suspect though that current orthodox chess lasts at least 100 yrs -
Interesting quote from 'The Pan Book of Chess' by Gerald Abrahams
:
Capablanca, at the height of his powers, suggested that so much had been learned in Chess that novelty was on the wane. He suggested the addition of extra pieces on a larger board. But he lived to discover that Chess was richer than he had thought it to be.
2008, and still status quo. Give it another 100 years maybe or a technology breakthrough that facilitates Computer to actually play the openings well without opening book. Or of course to ' solve ' chess.
Then , maybe ... One can only hope that chess will live on in the form of a chess variant.
For now though, the popularity of 64 square chess helps 80 or 100 square variants and will remain gold standard.
Yet the best 80 square game - a Capablanca setup or like maybe ahem ... Gothic is much more constricted (and feels awkward) than 64 square fischer random or std chess. This is actual play experience. Perhaps its because the pieces are too powerful -
But lets not kid ourselves - there is no variant ever made that can re-create the exact parameters of standard 64 square chess. 80 squares is not the gold standard and maybe even un-acceptable - there is no long diagonal and the bishops are aimed into the opposite side - like some awkward fischer random setups.but in all seriousness the challenge of 10x10 has already been overcome by the most successful commercial variant - Omega Chess. And Birds and Ninjas /Stealth Ninja chess take it one step further. Ninja pawns, strengten the pawn chain and provide enough pawn play for a 10x10 which Omega might lack.
Besides choosing certain setups of fischer random plus reverse symmetry start positions of displacement chess (and Displacement Chess 2 with flexible castling) will ensure 64 square gold standard for say 200 years.
I suspect though that current orthodox chess lasts at least 100 yrs -Interesting quote from 'The Pan Book of Chess' by Gerald Abrahams :
2008, and still status quo. Give it another 100 years maybe or a technology breakthrough that facilitates Computer to actually play the openings well without opening book. Or of course to ' solve ' chess.Then , maybe ... One can only hope that chess will live on in the form of a chess variant.
For now though, the popularity of 64 square chess helps 80 or 100 square variants and will remain gold standard.