Single Comment

Such noblesse oblige as ''I am well aware'' does not apply to newcomers who would like to understand reasonable guidelines for the hobby of off-Chesses. Is Smith seriously defending this bunko Mad Queen Shogi? Why not maturely thank or apologize for omitting Chessgi reference? Why not use one sentence to place rules in context drawing on 200 years of similar forms, as example for readers? Smith started ten years ago with nice analysis of historic Jetan, a rewrite of it appearing this week; and none of his own artistic rules-sets since have attained the competence of ''Jetan'' -- by Burroughs or by Smith. Forget that there are so many untried alternatives, including for example Problems after T.R. Dawson or Sam Loyd. Or fiction after Bill Wall's collection of hundreds of Chess-related poems, novels, films. Or critiques of others' contributions like Smith does with Burroughs, or done in Comments by myself, Gilman, and others. Or summaries of related historic forms like Jose Carillo does nowadays with such as 8x10 Chesses from Carrera to date. Another unoriginal Rules-set, oh great, number 3001, and by veteran Larry Smith. It just encourages mediocrity. Who waste people's time, how about or when will there be moratorium, considering that new ones differentiate less and less from prior ones, at least in instances like MQS? How many ways and times does it have to be expressed that many sincere appreciators of novel Chesses simply reject the particular prolificist ethos? It is their extremism, not ours, to diverge from 1500 years of rare and cautious development of new alternate-Chess set-ups, out of respect for past existing ones. Not alone, Mad Queen Shogi is not worth the aether it is printed on.