Comments by GaryK.Gifford

In looking at is from a theoretical aspect it reminds me a bit of Time Travel Chess, however, with no King revisiting its past self. With the revisiting King aspect removed, and indeed pieces moving into the future (beyond 1 move on a given turn) removed, then I see the theory as simply being little more than the chess tree concept with 'bad' and 'good' branches identified. But I can see no actual theory in this... at least not how it is currently presented.

If we take a pure mate-in-three chess position, which has only 1 correct [pure] solution, then any moves that deviate from that line are bad (or less good)... but not necessarily catastrophic for the initiator. However, the person on the receiving end of the mate obviously experienced a catastrophe in his or her game at an earlier point. With the mate-in-3 scenario, the solver may obtain a mate-in-4 or a mate-in-5, for example [thus, having made inferior moves still avoids catastrophe for him or herself].

The idea of chess as a fabric consisting of a material/time continuum in a constant state of flux which in most cases deviates from an initial state near of equilibrium to a state that can be viewed as catastrophic for the dark or light element is an interesting concept.

The game known to many as 'Take Back Chess' in which players get to take back their last move in hopes of avoiding catastrophe is related to this topic. Though that version often allows one to avoid certain immediate disasters (a knight fork, an overlooked checkmate, for example) ... it does not enable one to avoid disasters that occur due to the gradual culmination of small subtle errors.

1. It would be great to be able to buy them

2. The CV market appears to be too small to justify a large production run

3. A production run would undoubtedly exclude many players' desired pieces and desired boards

Rich, you ask, 'But if you happen to play someone a game, and they like it, how will they be able to get the equipment to play it by themselves?'

That is a fair question. And it would be great if they could buy the pieces, board, or even the actual entire game. The first variant set I made was for my Pillars of Medusa. A few guys played it at work. It drew a crowd. However, even if they could buy it, would they? And if they could buy pieces, they'd likely get the rook/knight bishop/knight, queen/knight combo pieces... but they'd still have trouble because they'd need an 11 x 11 board a Medusa piece and a Morph piece. So even if they could buy variant pieces, I think they could always end up with a variant that they like that they simply wouldn't be able to buy all the pieces for.

I played Maxima using pieces made of bottle tops with the CV graphics glued inside... it matched the CV pre-set and was thus great visually.

I played Shogi with probably 8 different people face to face over the years. All liked it, but we always used one of my 2 sets. Only one of the 8 players bought Shogi. It was the same with Xianqi. I played against a man from Viet Nam on his set. I liked the game a lot and made 2 sets of my own (one traditional Chinese style and one 3D Staunton style for teaching Fide players the game). Later I ended up buying a large wooden Xianqi set, an imitation jade set, and a magnetic one that resides on the refrigerator. One of the people I played, a former member of Mensa, bought a set.

There is, however, a very small market for Shogi and Xianqi in the U.S. If it were not for their popularity in Asia I doubt that companies would be keen on producing those sets. As a sad note... I believe the market for other CVs is even smaller.

Doug - Thanks for the comment and link - that 3D printing method would
indeed be great.  I suppose if I live long enough I'll actually be able
to print (or have someone else print) interesting game pieces.  The dragon
on the video link was impressive.

But perhaps you could offer both options, with the graphic pieces higher priced?

Larry is right, of course. My first Xianqi set was made using the method he describes. Making one set for myself wasn't bad... but making a lot of sets, or a set with a lot of pieces by that method would be tough.

An alternative would be to have a printer print adhesive sheets with circular pull outs. Send the ordered sheets and 'blank' disks to the people who order them. This reduces the in-house labor to shipping sheets and disks. No printing (it is at the print shop), no gluing, no cutting... etc.

These days there are many games that use the adhesive sticker method in which the customer adds the sticker.

In regard to the 'intellectual games' aspect, our local mall had a GameKeeper store. Fantastic! I loved it. Strategy games upon strategy games... Donald asked me to see if I could get his Conquest in there... I tried but to no avail. Why? Possibly because the manager knew what I didn't, that GameKeeper was going to be short lived. It is no longer there. The near by Build-a-Bear store continues to thrive... it appears that there is a much bigger market for stuffed animals than there is for games that stimulate our minds.

Our group of CV players is a small group. A group with keen minds. It would be nice if we were larger in number... oh, I still think draws have virtually nothing to do with the relatively low level of interest. After all, Chess was very big in Russia and neighboring countries at a time when it had very little interest over in the U.S. So I think it is a cultural thing. I think the introduction of video games, for example, has robbed us of many potential chess and CV players.

For us players below GM level, chances are that many subtle errors were made throughout the game. Your opponent is not playing perfect chess, so if you want to avoid draws just play better chess.

Instead of re-inventing rules that have worked for hundreds of years, simply become stronger at the game. That is my opinion.

As a side note, in my novel, Cosmic Submarine, there is the equivalent of the Desert Pub Chess (here at CV) played. There is always a winner. Reason: When there is a draw one player must concede, or both must eat a bowl of desert sand. The one who finishes first wins the game and the loser is sent off into the desert to die. Most players will concede, rather than face the life-threatening bowl of sand. Regardless, the score is always 1-0 or 0-1.

So now I looked at this site:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draw_(chess)

which addresses the draw issue. I don't mind #6 under the section entitled: 'Grandmaster draw problem.' Basically, it has been used for soccer (by FIFA) and is this:

'3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, and 0 points for a loss. This system discourages draws since they would only be worth 2/3 of their current value.' Unlike BAP (mentioned below) there is no color bias.

The BAP system is a bit comical to me as some players have very keen Black Defensive Systems and would rather play Black anyway. That is how I was when I went to the World Open in 1980. I had a keen French Defense and therefore loved playing from the Black side of the board. I had no losses with the French, and just 1 draw with it. In my opinion, the BAP system is biased. Also, such a system would be bad in final rounds of a tournament.

At my level of play draws have yet to be an issue, even in correspondence games where players have several days to think.

If I needed to pick a anti-draw system, FIFA's 3-1-0 seems best to me.

Regarding the 3-1-0 flaw see:

http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4209

I am again thinking that since we are below the GM level, it might be best to keep the 1-0-1/2 system.

There is a Bruce Harper proposal that I like a lot. If there is a draw, a new game is played using the remaining clock times. If that game is drawn, a new game is played using remaining clock times, etc. Finally someone will win, even if by time default. That is great for over-the-board... but many who like to get the most out of their clock time would likely not like this. It would likely tend to speed chess up so that, in the event of a draw, a player would have some descent time for the next possible game. Harper's system doesn't seem meaningful to correspondence games.

Both players would certainly want to avoid a draw. Of course, if one player had 40 minutes left and another had 5 minutes left, then the one with 40 could certainly play for a draw as he'd have a nice time advantage in the tie-break game. A flat time might be acceptable for correspondence games. For on-line real-time games however, there is often server lag and 6 minutes seems too quick.

For example, assume the following situation:

(1) players have 60 minutes each / that is a 2 hour game.

(2) at move 40 the game ends in a draw by stalemate

(3) player A used 35 minutes; player B used 40 minutes

(4) The tie-break game is set up and starts with 25 minutes for A and with 20 minutes for B.

(5) That game ends in a draw after 50 moves by perpetual check

(6) player A has 8 minutes left. Player B has 5 minutes left

(7) The crowd gathers around for the fast tie-break game.

(8) Player B gets in trouble and loses on time.

The 1-0 result is obtained within the 2 hours alloted for the round. While other players played 1 game in their 2 hours, some played 2 and some played 3. But 2 hour rounds remained 2 hours and there were no 1/2 - 1/2 results posted.

http://www.chess.bc.ca/team.html

A quote from that site:' ... tested an anti-draw rule, in which each player had two hours at the start of the first game. If the first game was drawn, each player received 1/3 of a point, then a second game was played with colours reversed, using the remaining time. This continued until one player won, with the winner getting the other 1/3 of a point. '

So, I guess the way I recalled it deviated from reality. I gave someone a full-point, but the method was awarding 1/3 points? I think I prefer my all or nothing way as an anti-draw system.

If I am playing in this system and I see we are heading for a draw, then I better a) offer the draw to start the new game or b) move fast to have enough time for the tie-breaker.

A possible solution keeping the way I propose is to use a 3 or 5 second time delay in the tie-breaker should either player have less than 5 minutes on their clock.... something like that. Some experimenting can be done. There can even be a few different options.

As far as a last round thing, most players I know like to know where they stand throughout an event. So settling the score during each round is far more desirable than wrapping up the mystery after all rounds are done.

Given a choice between the 2 types of events... draw or drawless, I still might be inclined to choose the draw one. I think below GM level draws are typically not an issue and players do not seem to mind hard fought out draws. But I certainly would not object to the other (drawless) system.