Hi Joe

Thanks for the comments, especially as you're a CVP editor. Due to being very rusty at any sort of programming, and having the odd back & neck troubles, I'm quite reluctant to attempt writing any sort of lengthy, complex preset myself at the moment, as I think may be required, if rule enforcing, for many/all of my variants that have no presets, though my circumstances may miraculously change soon, who knows. Personally I don't quite like presets that aren't rule enforcing, unless a game seems surely interesting, or the game's rules & pieces are simple (but then, there really ought to be a rule enforcing preset in that case). There's no one in my area to playtest any number of variants with over the board, if I had an appropriate board & pieces. To my regret I gave away an old hexagonal set some years ago because no one would play against me, but nowadays I might have used it to analyze any online games, at least. In addition, I understand such equipment is hard to get hold of now.

Currently I'm checking & re-checking which variants with presets I'd like to play most often (if I resume playing soon), and settling on how many games maximum I might play at a time (until completing at least 1 of them). I'm thinking about 4 games max. at the moment, which I've estimated might take 1 & 1/2 or 3 hours a day of my time depending if I make 1 or 2 moves a day per game on average, after so many minutes of thought & computer startup & shut-down time (including both my laptop's slow-starting MS email & Firefox browser). As a (Canadian) master I don't know for sure if chess skill transfers a lot to chess variants in general, or perhaps even just to most variants. One game I lost earlier in the year on Game Courier may have been somewhat due to over-valuing certain pieces; I gather estimating piece values is a huge theme/factor for variantists (sp?). I wish I could easily look up any [inter]national ratings for chess that Game Courier players & CVP members may have, though Game Courier rating(s) is at least some (possibly strong!?) indication of relative skill (still, the highest & lowest Game Courier ratings [for all variants combined] seem rather close to each other, especially considering the total number of players in the system).

Thanks for mentioning the 2 gem variants that you did. I hadn't noticed those, but rather I've looked at Game Courier's list of games, plus the dated(?) lists on CVP, such as Recognized Variants, plus some with eye-catching descriptions in the huge CVP alphabetical list. Perhaps more such lists can be made or updated at some point when editor(s) have time. Of the dozens of variants I've looked at, however briefly, many seemed worthy of play, in that what they may lack in ways(s) compared to, say, chess, they compensate for in other way(s) IMHO. Also, fwiw I've recently reassured myself that standard chess is still well worth playing, in spite of some apparent modern problems with it (especially due to computers, which in some ways are a boon to chess, too).

P.S. One man on a Canadian chess message board has suggested that an over the board chess variants tournament would be little different than a Poker tournament, with many of its variants. I told him I thought mastering another variant of chess would be harder than mastering another variant of Poker, generally. Not sure I was right, though. Fwiw, a feeling I get is that the chess variants community could be a house both united and divided, in a way, unlike the chess community, which rallies round a single game. Again, not sure this applies to Poker & its variants. For example, bughouse and crazyhouse players are almost communities to themselves, and may one day have their own organizations, like for Shogi players, IMHO.

Take care, Kevin