Enter Your Reply The Comment You're Replying To Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Mar 1, 2007 06:40 PM UTC:The discussion on board sizes in the Infinite Chess comments is very interesting for what it does not have, in spite of several versions of 'infinite' chess and the efforts of George Jelliss and Ralph Betza. There is nothing that approaches infinite, although Ralph Betza's 'chessboard of chessboards' [64 8x8 chessboards arranged in an 8x8 array] with its 512-square sides and over a quarter million squares does give you a little area to play in. But all the 'infinite' boards have limitations on how far away from other pieces any piece can move [making Mr. Betza's behemoth the largest actual board discussed]. They have flexible boundaries that can stretch and extend in any direction, but all the games have a finite number of pieces, so there is a maximum area the pieces can occupy if they are required to be within a specified distance of other pieces. Even if the requirement is merely being within some distance of one other friendly or enemy piece, and the pair of pieces go racing out across the 2D plain, 2 pieces don't take up a lot of room. And the rules tend to be written so that isolated pair cannot happen. The average size of these boards is probably under 20x20. Even with more pieces, the size probably wouldn't get much above 30x30, the total board area being near 1000 squares. This is wargame size. A chess board is generally about 100 squares in area (~30-300), and a wargame, about 1000 (~300-3000), very roughly. While there are some exceptions, this is accurate. Just not precise. Apparently, 'infinite' for chess variants means 'as big as a wargame.' Edit Form You may not post a new comment, because ItemID Big-board CV:s does not match any item.