Comments/Ratings for a Single Item
George, I am sorry to see that happen with the fracturing. I will say that if there is a serious effort to help standardize chess variants, and also work towards 'The Next Chess' (in all its flavors, using mutators, and other things perhaps, like gating), IAGO should be able to get fully behind it, and help to sanction tournaments and help to get champions of variants, and 'The Next Chess', whatever it may be. To this end, I do offer up the IAGO Chess System as a framework, and would look for it to be modified and a LOT more added. I am up for mutators, formations (see Near and Near vs Normal Chess), reserves, and whatever else people want, and we go from there. On the equipment front, there is the IAGO Hall of Fame that will be looking to push getting more equipment out there. This could lead to a 10x10 board becoming available, which then will help the variant community, through the demands perhaps for International Draughts. Work in the area of producing a version of an abstract strategy game 'Decathlon' can also help. Anyhow, if yourself and others want to work on this, I am in favor of it.
By the way, Mr. Duke, if he position of commissioner to reform chess pops up, please tell the world what your platform would be to reform chess. This is The 'Next Chess for Tomorrow' project :-)
Prepared earlier over chess cafe caliente> Hutnik encourages CVs mentioned here toward IAGO announcement 21.October.2008. I stated Modern, Mastodon, and Eurasian as ''Next Chess'' status on first yearly basis. 1996 Fischer Random Chess was breakthrough because randomizing itself was in abeyance for 75 years. 1992 Falcon Chess (8x10) claims to bring the only existing complement to Rook, Knight and Bishop in recorded arrays rnbfqkfbnb, frnbqkbnrf, rfnbqkbnfr and rnfbqkbfnr with free castling two or more steps over. Centennial (10x10) had the chutzpah to proffer superior dynamics in the 1990's. Twentieth-century and beyond Track Two (mostly) CVs never in CVPage recognized nor having equivalent notice elsewhere include Rococo, Eight-Stone, Switching Chess, Sissa, Altair, Giant King, Tetrahedral, Weave & Dungeon, Jetan, Quintessential, AltOrthHex, Philosophers, and Hanga Roa by deliberative value-systems. Hierarchizing Mutators is goal for follow-up sometime later: Mutators are both easier to visualize and more difficult to sort. Please explain other candidate CVs and mutators for NextChess here or any allied threads convenient.
Regarding mutators, I think it is best to try to categorize them by what they affect in the game. If you would like to be able to have something to break down mutators, look at this abstract strategy games definitions document, which tries to atomize what goes into abstract strategy games: http://abstractgamers.org/wiki/definitions-of-abstracts
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George, that's a very interesting idea of nominating 3 designs, one each on 3 board sizes. To start, for 2009 you've nominated:''Maura's Modern Chess 9x9 (with Bishop conversion), Winther's Mastodon Chess 8x10,and Duniho's Eurasian Chess 10x10''. So let's take a look at them. Maura's Modern 9x9 I think I'd like this better as a 9x8 for 'the next chess'; the pawns don't work right with an odd number of squares between them, for orthodox chess players. I'm not panning the game at all; it looks quite interesting. I've played a few games where the pawns were an odd number of rows apart. This changes the entire feel of the opening; there is more pawn maneuver and the placement of minor pieces in the center is more awkward. It adds another bit of piece shuffling to the opening phase. This isn't bad; it forces players to think about pawn placement, and where and how to situate a knight, say. This accomplishes a real goal of trashing the opening book, something a variantist looks for, but this is not necessarily what will make the orthodox happy. This looks like a very nice game. The added piece, the BN, is less strong-feeling than either the RN or the RB, although HG Muller seems to have demonstrated the rough equivalence of the 3 pieces. The bishop adjustment rule is a nice kludge [as Fergus Duniho has defined kludges in his recently referenced paper], bringing another opening book-killing feature, a bit of non-symmetric random chess. All in all, this seems a very nice game [not having played it, I cannot comment directly; having played similar, I can comment a bit], but it feels like one that variantists would like more than the orthodox would. It's a very nice, close to chess game, but with enough significant differences, I suspect, to prevent its being adopted as ... hmm, call it a chess equal by the orthodox. The variantists should in general like this, and this sort of, game.
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The next game on the list is Mats Winther's Mastodon Chess, featuring a powerful short range leaper. The game is 8x10, so the pawns, 10 each, are 4 squares apart and our orthochess player can be comforted by standard pawn play. The piece is interesting, has been independently designed a number of times, and can be found in several games onsite. It steps 1 square or leaps 2 squares orthogonally or diagonally, attacking 6 to 16 squares unstoppably. For comparison, on an 8x10, the knight attacks 2 - 8 squares unblockably. The bishop attacks 7 - 13, the rook 16, and the queen, 23 to 29, but the bishop, rook and queen can all be blocked. This leaper is a major piece in the game. What that player may not be comforted by is the specific placement of pieces in this variant. White's back rank is RMBNQKNBMR. This is jarring to the conventional. After consideration, I'd go with RNBMQKMBNR, over the given setup. Why? It restores the RNB...BNR configuration. Comfort. The most appealing positions for a new piece inserted into FIDE as a pair are in the center or at the ends. And this is a short range piece. Sticking it in a corner may or may not be poor placement, but putting it in the middle and letting the other pieces drift over, even the knight, works for me, because the knight's first logical destination is flanked by the mastodon's [acc. to M Winther, first known name was Pasha] two logical opening destinations. [Note no B/N interference in the suggested setup.] While the knight does suffer a bit on an 8x10, there are 1.5 times as many center squares where the knight is at full power [24/16] and 1.25 times as many squares where the knight is at 3/4 power. The number of corner squares, where the N is most restricted, stays the same. So the knight does gain in absolute power on the larger board. I don't see the need to move the knight in on an 8x10, in general. It still is the same distance from the opponent's back rank, which is more important than a little extra distance side to side. On 10x10 this changes, and moving knights forward 1 square [along with the pawns] is generally a good idea, in my opinion. I've twisted Mats' game around enough for one comment. If we take the idea seriously, are there any general [design] principles coming out of all this, that are or can be generally agreed upon?
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The Mastodon is indeed a strong piece. On 8x8 I find for its end-game (i.e. only othe pieces present King and Pawn) value ~750, when R=500 and Q=975 (R and Q are the closest orthodox pieces I compare it with). In a Superchess context (with standard opening array CNBQKACeR, where Ce = Centaur = KN), as Q replacement, I find the Mastodon opening value to be only 150 below Queen, but due to the large number of superpieces on such a small board, all light pieces gain strongly in opening value: N=350, R=575 when Q=950 (and thus Mastodon = 800).
Right, I deliberately chose three different sizes, always putting rank first, but '9x8' is not confusing to mean 8x9. In fact, the majority might tend to name file first, leaving the context to clarify. No one wants 9 ranks and 8 files in NextChess, although of course some artists already made one. Leapers, not really having bewildering quantity of cases, show only five practical jumpers of note: N,Alfil,Camel, Zebra, Dab. Likewise, practical Next Chess sizes comprise about what Joyce recently listed: 8x9, 9x9, 8x10, 9x10, 10x10. Carlos Cetina's ''Bishop Conversion Rule'' from 1983, Bodlaender and Cetina in their article suggest for Modern with (BN) and 110-year-old Chancellor Chess having (RN), besides for Cetina's own game. When two Bishops are on board, a glance shows whether BCR has been used yet or not, so it is no more artificial than Castling. In another article, ''Chancellor Chess,'' Bodlaender links how Malcolm Horne varied it reasonably to 8x9 back in 1970's. Mastodon's piece is not new any more than Centaur(BN), as Winther found first use of it called Pasha in Paulovits's Game around 1890, the same decade as Foster's original Chancellor 9x9.
By the way, on this 'Next Chess' project, why not have it so that it is more 'Atomized' allowing people to customize some. Also, why not go for 12x12 and 11x11 being the base boards people work with? If you are going to jump, jump here. I do believe, if you are going to evolve off FIDE Chess, the base board you start with will be an 8x8. Then, you need to think in terms of things that allow you to work with what you have, but advance into new ways to play. I believe mutators need to be seriously looked at.
Mr. Duke, how serious are you to have 'The Next Chess' come into being? If so, please send me some email. I can be reached at: rich [@ symbol] iagoworldtour.com Please send me email. I am looking to get an IAGO Standards committee formed, and would be interested in you working on this as something for IAGO.
Why can't the 'Next Chess' be 3D? This seems to be the most logical progression of the wargame. Though codifying the optimal field will be a chore in itself. A developer might start with the simple 4x4x4 field, creating an effective game to play on this tight area will prove quite difficult. But it will provide for a simple introduction to 3D play. Another deviation is to go beyond simple linear movement with the pieces. Though creating complex movement will in itself not improve play. Introduction of powers outside the movement and interdependency of the pieces can add depth to play. Pushing beyond the current capabilities of the computer returns the game to the arena of the human mind. At least for a while. ;-) Do not expect FIDE to soon give up the Mad Queen variant.
Unless mass numbers of people get equipment to play 3D, I don't see 3D happening any time soon. Unless you want to count stacking and/or leaping as 3D movement, I don't see people handling 3D well when trying to think what to d. If you want 'The Next Chess' to encompass 3D, that is fine. I personally don't think 'The Next Chess' is going to be reached by someone saying, 'Why not have it go this way, it is only natural!' Well, only what people actually will play is natural. This is not going to be forced. As I see it now, one off games from FIDE are positioning for 'The Next Chess'. I believe, unless there is a framework to enable a wider range of variation to be expressed and tested, you will be looking at a mix of these games being collectively 'The Next Chess': 1. Chess960 2. Bughouse 3. Speed Chess 4. Some game using the Knight+Bishop/Rook. Seirawan Chess has a chance of maybe dong this. 5. Some form of Kriegspiel/Dark Chess. 6. Possibly changes made to the board and play area. The Next Chess will be one off, unless a framework is developed that is friendly to the variant community.. This framework should be able to handle (and also include): * Multiple board types and sizes * Reserves (brought in by drops and Gating) * Mutators * Multiple accepted pre-set formations (this is a preset configuration were units are dropped in a set relationship to one another before play begins). * Shuffles * A system to minimize draws, or at least one where a draw condition scores differently depending on the sides * The ability to handle a bunch of new pieces and add more as time goes on * Preferably a system for being able to evaluate the strength of new pieces being added in comparison to others. Besides this, a way to be able to have people assemble their own armies and have them fair. * A handicapping system so that newbies and experienced players can play and compete fairly. * In a perfect word, a way for different chess variant sides to play each other (different armies) and able to develop a way of assessing how well each side did. * A form of chess that is easier to learn than normal chess, but acts as a gateway into a wider range of games. * Equipment to play whatever would be played needs to be readily available to buy. I likely did miss more here, but I d believe a SYSTEM for handling all the above is going to be what is needed for the Next Chess to appear. Short of that, what people play, the bulk of which are FIDE fans looking for minor changes from their normal play, will be what will be here. And this will lock out the variant community once more. And, you will again rationalize how home made pieces are FANTASTIC and all you need. So long as people keep thinking that doing ONE thing is all that is needed, then nothing is going to change.
Simply 'tweaking' the Mad Queen variant is not the final answer. Its form of play is no longer sufficient to either challenge or evaluate the human mind. But I understand that many fear stepping too far from this game because it is familiar and comfortable. And they need not study much to appear proficient. Setting the condition of developing a game which can only utilize commercially available equipment is an interesting challenge. Is the developer restricted from making any modification to any part of such equipment(such as painting, gluing, etc.)?
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I don't think you have to worry about equipment too much. Life is going virtual, and computers will be able to provide any virtual equipment. Be it 3d stereo displays or extra Queens. What s our opinion about Superchess? (The variety as in 'Superchess and Monarch'.) It seems many of your goals are implemented there. E.g. promotion only to pieces hold in reserve (i.e. captured or replaced from the initial setup). It is friendy to introduction of exotic pieces, as the initial array has much shuffle character (brought about by players picking replacements for the pieces in the Mad Queen array and symmetrizing those), so that intrducing something new does not automatically make tons of opening knowledge go down the drain. Over 50 pieces are already defined, and people can by mutual agreement decide which of those are available as replacements and promotion pieces. All the pieces are available as hardware (high-quality wooden piece sets).
'Next Chess' as discussed here is just another spec to create another chess-like variant in the hope that std chess players will warm up to it.
Any game on these pages not too different from chess is 'next chess' in one or more opinions. At one point in time, I used to think this way too: that there must be a next chess either here or one that I create. But the reality is - the players decide (over the course of time) on 'next chess' or the next game not the designer or anyone else (esp NOT people with a dislike for orthodox chess).
I think a more useful endeavor would be categorize the existing chess variants under the parameters mentioned below. e.g. gating, dropping, shuffling, larger board, etc. and maybe promote a few of them in such a manner.10x10 boards seem better for this purpose - unless you want really minor changes like Displacement Chess - more deserving of next chess since it was already tried successfully and is not much change at all.
Adding Rook-knight / bishop knight compounds (or any other pieces actually) to 8x8 makes it too over-powered.
Note that Displacement Chess was mentioned in 'Popular Chess Variants' by David Pritchard.See Displacement Chess 2 for my minor modification of this.
Charles, I agree here that it is the players who would decide what the 'Next Chess' will be by what they play. I believe what the variant community can do, is work towards making the environment for it to appear easier, and more natural. Enable separate parts of the form to be tested and tried and lend to a common pool of experience. Also, think in terms of considering the 'Next Chess' to not be a static set of rules but a FRAMEWORK by which the rules can continue to evolve over time, while keeping the community of players intact. The game should remain fresh and enable the community to get its needs met. This means some having the needs for innovation. Others for being able to discuss and plan strategy. And also the idea that a game remains novel. As for the equipment question, what does matter is that people have ACCESS to the equipment and can try out something with as little risk on their part. If you say it will be virtual, then players must be able to easily access the equipment when they want to play. If they want to buy the equipment, then it needs to be easy for them. If you require people to have to order overseas, it isn't going to happen. So, I would say that more thought needs to be given to how the 'Next Chess' would emerge, rather than what it is. And then work to make it so. Other ways are attempts for people to want to be seen as a genius and have a name made for themselves. Plenty of commercial chess variants fall under that. The person thinks they have it, and then they decide to sink a lot of money and time and effort into it. In a large number of cases, they get drunk by early success, and then think they have it. And they think they own it then. One can see what happened with the 'name that shall not be named' and this site regarding this. I know of others also. I have seen them request IAGO have nothing to do with their game, because they wanted complete control of the game, or felt they had to have it in their name completely. This goes as far also as one person who has a cool playing area the pieces rest on, thinking the play area he pieces rest on (the board) is what the next chess holds. Ok, I will close here by saying that if you want to see what the 'Next Chess' is, lets get a bunch of monkeys a typewriters trying a lot of things and seeing what sticks and gets popular. This approach can be the game of a month as Mr. Duke has hinted at, lending to a champion, but also elements of games atomized, and remixed, to see what will mix will. Maybe we do this atomizing, MAYBE we can also figure out what the value of pieces are in relation to one another. The atomizing happens to then lead to the community collectively determining it. Well, that is my take on this. I will probably blab more here on this. I am under the impression people do have a serious interest in this happening, eventhough people may question whether or not it can come to pass. We have seen it all before. Even Super Chess gets mentioned here. By the way, I do believe the 'Next Chess' will need a migration path from FIDE chess, in order have the community migrate over. A rapid jump isn't going to do it. Of course, where the game goes after that is an entirely different animal. If anyone can show that Chess didn't develop this way, and didn't evolve from Shatranj, and was a rules modification (evolution) off that game, then I will stand corrected. However, if you can't, then I believe the 'Next Chess' will have to have a way to be similar to this AND also lead to a place where it can keep evolving, while keeping the community of players intact.
So, TCVP itself fulfills the parameters for presenting the 'Next Chess'. It only needs, some opine, an improved categorization system whereby players can find those particular games which appeal. One thing that I would suggest to any newbie who is interested in Chess variants is that they first try Shogi and XiangQi. Both have larger followings, and are also commercially available. In fact, they both have (a lot) lower draw potential than the Mad Queen game.
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Well, unless some fundamentals get implemented, I am also agnostic to whether we will see a 'Next Chess'. We will end up likely seeing the chess community fragment, rather than continue to work together on things.
TCVP means 'The Chess Variant Pages'. In other words, this site. I always look forward to new stuff posted here. And I will freely admit that I comment on those items which appeal to me personally. I do look for new and strange concepts. This does not mean that the others are any less interesting. As my grandmother always said, 'If you don't have something good to say, it's best to say nothing.'
I expect the Next Chess, if there ever is one, will be a static set of rules. As I understand it, the Next Chess would be a Chess variant that usurps the place of Chess in terms of popularity, tournament play, organizations of people dedicated to playing the game, and established book knowledge. I don't see this happening unless the game has a static set of rules. Moreover, with this kind of infrastructure in place, there would be strong forces of uniformity in play. The organizations would enforce strict tournament rules, the literature on the game would assume a fixed set of rules, and fixed rules would be required to underpin a meaningful rating system. To become as popular as Chess, most of the people the game would have to appeal to are those who are looking for a game that is simple to learn and difficult to master. A game with fixed rules is easier to learn than a game with fluid rules, and it is easier to measure mastery of a game when the rules are fixed. People who like Chess variants are the minority, and there is no need to appeal to our interest in variety and novelty to win over most of the people who might take to a Chess successor. What is needed is an organization dedicated to promoting the new game. The organizational efforts would work best if the game has fixed rules. If the organization allowed fluidity in the rules, it would likely splinter into factions that prefer different versions. A static set of rules, strictly enforced, would be what the organization needs to remain focused and unified in its strength while trying to challenge the place of Chess. With this said, I am not personally interested in trying to usurp the place of Chess. I am more interested in Chess variants, in part because they don't have the same kind of infrastructure behind them that Chess has. Expert Chess players depend a lot on book knowledge, and there is a whole lot of that to be had if you care to study it. I'm uninterested in studying book knowledge and mastering Chess. My interest is in playing games that remain games of skill, because neither player has access to any extensive book knowledge.
Greetings Fergus. I just wanted to comment on several things, based upon my reading over what has been written on here, and the history of chess variants, including abstract strategy games as a whole. 1. At any given time, I see there will be a set of rules that will represent a set way to play. There will be standardization in these rules. What I have suggested is that variants be factored in and standardized into this. Do you have objections to these being in the next chess: Reserve pieces (enter by drops and gating), variable set ups, shuffles, mutators, multiple board layouts? 2. Beyond just the current static set of rules, will be a framework for managing change, with the full expectation that the rules will adapt and change over time. Ignoring this reality ignores the reality of abstract strategy games as a whole: Any game with a static set of fixed rules, the moment the rules are written down and played, is putting an expiration date in place. The game will push to be solved, particularly when there isn't luck or hidden information that allows the game to map to the psyche of the players who play them. Any living game makes changes. If it didn't, then the world would still be playing Sharanj. 3. If you don't have crossover appeal to the FIDE chess community to offer something that would appeal to them, you aren't going to draw much of a crowd. And this will lead me up to my next point. There is NO WAY the Next Chess will even get remotely as popular as chess, without the current chess community picking it up. It just isn't going to happen. Next Chess is going to have to be able to be picked up by current chess players. I believe, in some sense, the Next Chess has to be an evolutionary next step for chess, that would be like the way FIDE chess is an extension of Shatranj. 4. If you want to create an organization with a limited shelf life, then create an organization dedicated exclusively to this new game. Look towards fighting an uphill battle to promote your game, and try to compete against commercial games out there that are funded better, and try to get the attention of the world. There are multiple examples of this happening, and the organization fading away. They had their 15 minute of fame and then they were gone, and the game become a non-played relic that now rests in here. The reason for IAGO being IAGO (and it is an extension of an idea in the 1990s to start a chess variants association) is to provide support and promotion for a WIDE RANGE of games, so they all stand a better chance of making. IAGO is about the best shot now of the Next Chess ever coming about. If the CV site, IAGO and the British Chess Variants Society get together and work on the Next Chess project, we can get something. 5. We are going to have to come up with a meaningful ratings system for people playing a range of games anyhow here. The single game approach, without cross-linking hasn't worked at all. 6. IAGO is fully dedicated to helping whatever the Next Chess is, and help it catch on. Only way we will get this is going a multigame organization, so that all the games have a shot to make it, and the best rise to the top. And only by having a large group who plays multiple games, will there be enough people to test what will work vs what won't. 7. The idea of 'multiple rules' is to have a single framework that allows for customizing of initial conditions and game conditions, as scenarios, they way they do in ASL. Unless you believe that you can somehow have a game with fixed positions, and no changes EVER in the board, and no mutators, and just some set of pieces hat never change, and no reserves, and no formations, and no shuffles, and that it would work and catch on and supplant FIDE chess some day, I believe you need to account for all this, in a standardized set of rules. I personally don't think something that is static everything isn't going to appeal to the variant community at all. It may get played sometime in a pool of games, but not be the main game people focus on. Among the FIDE folk, it would seem weird. And among people not playing chess now, it would seem odd. Of course, you can try to argue that it be easier than chess. But at what cost to depth will you do to have that happen? 8. Another reason for accounting for a range of things that modify games is to have an environment rich enough that play of a range of configurations can help the beer configurations rise to the top. Short of this by experience approach, you are looking a chess in an ivory tower with an egghead shouting out to the world how they have 'THE NEXT CHESS'. Yes, we are going to need standardization here, but this doesn't mean that one game is going to be it. In this hubris of people thinking they know best, I could argue 'Near Chess' and 'Near vs Normal' and other formations, are THE BEST thing to start with when doing The Next Chess. The opening book is more varied than FIDE, and the rules less complicated (there is a way for people chess faster by it). Besides this, you can mix formations to wreck book memorization, while having stability in line structure. And you can play it NOW without any need for special equipment. Now, you want me to stop shoveling the bull, and acknowledge other things that also lend to the experience: reserves, mutators, shuffles and different board types? I don't want to shovel bull. I will, however, say that Near Chess brings multiple formations to the mix, but it alone isn't the answer. Anyhow that is my take on this. And thanks for the feedback.
Larry, thanks for the feedback. I do believe the CV site does have the elements here needed for the Next Chess. I do think the next chess should be too weird.
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