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I side with Mr. Muller here. It's trivial, and I mean trivial, to make a 'new' Chess Variant. A variant can be created in 5 minutes. I can, for example, say, 'Lets replace the knights by Wazir + Alfil pieces' and boom, there's a new variant. If I allow there to be any opening setup using the otherwise FIDE pieces, I just invented 1440 new variants in 10 seconds.

The hard part is fleshing out the variant. A reasonable Zillions implementation can be done in the course of an afternoon. Once this is done, the game can be play tested. I have done this, and have concluded some ideas I had just don't make the games I like to play.

What Mr. Muller has done is far more impressive. He has written one of the strongest chess variant playing programs out there, and has done a lot of extensive research about the real value of some of the fairy pieces on various boards.

I like to see a variant fleshed out: Sample games, some basic opening theory, some mating problems, so people can get a sense of how to play the game before sitting down and playing the game. This is a lot more work than inventing a new kind of piece, which is why I think the type of real research Mr. Muller does is comparatively rare.

- Sam