Comments by panther
That's strange, Fergus. I replied to existing subject threads, which I found by clicking on "List All Subjects" on the Comments page. Fwiw, now I see there's even two "10x10 Boards" threads listed.
I wish to add to my previous post that there might be a significant market for manufacturers of assorted fairy chess pieces sold individually, and/or packed as a customized set according to a customer's order. It might be helpful in this regard, at least, to know roughly how many people play all sorts of chess variants worldwide.
There's an old thread devoted the idea of Universal Pieces (started by CVP editor Joe Joyce, circa 2007), if one clicks on "List all subjects" on the Comments page. It comes very close to the notion I was thinking of, namely assorted fairy chess pieces being manufactured & sold individually &/or in a customized set for a customer order. I might have said these could be 3D western style pieces (not really for, say, Shogi) that wouldn't clash if used with a standard chess set made of the same material. In fact such a manufacturer could stick to just plastic fairy pieces, all compatible with each other.
The hard part could be assessing which pieces (of the endless ones) would be worth producing in the greatest numbers in the shop ahead of orders coming in. Some would be easy choices, such as Archbishops (which could alternatively have a different figurines if the customer prefers to call them, say, 'Princesses'). Some could be made as unique special orders from scratch if a customer is willing to wait & perhaps pay a little more. It does seem like a very dicey proposition for anyone thinking of trying it, but it could be a safer bet if combined as a sideline with the (possibly existing) production of standard chess pieces of compatible style, for example. It's too bad there seems no way to estimate how many CV players there are worldwide (not counting Chess, Chinese Chess or Shogi, at least). That could help anyone thinking of such a venture. Perhaps a unique visitor hit counter for this website might be installed at some point, to get a crude estimate of the amount of interest in CVs out there. [edit: The total registered users of this website at present is 3401, if that's useful to anyone; the number of members of the Chess Federation of Canada presently is only about 2000. The CVP pops up early when one Googles "Chess Variants", so a unique visitor hit counter might indeed over time have a good chance of roughly indicating global interest in CVs.]
I added an edit to my last post, for anyone who missed it.
For anyone's information:
There's at least one manufacturer of any customer's design of chess pieces (or boards, probably) that I found with a Google search (albeit in China) [edit: except it appears 'customer' must be a company]:
Fwiw, here's a link to multi-player game clocks (e.g. one for 2-6 players):
https://www.amazon.com/Cube-Timer-Chess-Clock-Book/dp/B004S56RJG
For anyone's info:
Here's wikipedia's entry re: The Chess Variant Pages; I noticed that it was claimed that circa 2007 there were about 100,000 visitors to CVP per month:
Thanks for the info, Fergus. On a couple of chess message boards I visit regularly, one can view Who's Online at any moment, by clicking to it. Typically only a small fraction of those visitors online at any given moment are identified as spiders or bots (the two message boards are chesstalk, and the Chess Federation of Canada's discussion board). Thus, the number of unique visitors to CVP main site may well be a high percentage of actual people. Even if only half the unique visitors to CVP main site monthly are truly unique individuals, that's heartening as far as indicating that there may be a very substantial number of people even slightly interested in chess variants worldwide (not all being English language readers). As far as people just looking stuff up goes, I think websearches would include the name CVP in giving any search result description, which someone would see before clicking on the link, so that may count for something.
In trying to speculate about how many people worldwide might be inclined to take up almost any sort of chess variant(s) seriously, if an organization for such existed (aside from chess, shogi, Chinese chess, Thai chess or Korean chess, which have their own organizations), I came up with a way to try to estimate the total number of people (x) who may play or enjoy such variants worldwide (i.e. seriously or not so seriously, at the moment at least). The answer's probably off by a lot, but my calculation may be worth a chuckle:
There's about 605,000,000 people who play chess worldwide (seriously or otherwise) according to FIDE. Let's say that almost all people who take up chess variants first learn how to play chess. The number of serious chessplayers with FIDE ratings, alone, was about 170,000 circa 2013, I saw on the web.
Let's assume that most of the people worldwide who are serious about chess variants are members on CVP (which has pages in languages besides English), i.e. about 3,400 currently. From that I can now solve for x in an equation where
170,000/605,000,000 = 3400/x
to obtain the answer that x = 12,100,000 people worldwide who take chess variants seriously or just for fun at present. Note around 40% of the world population has an internet connection today, so perhaps my estimate may not be far off even considering that.
Hi Fergus.
A big barrier to people starting to play chess variants more often (especially novel ones) may be the low or non-existent production of fairy (non-chess) piece types, and/or boards (other than 8x8 size), since they may want to be able to play a particular variant offline, or perhaps have a [decorative] chess variant set (even if plastic) that may occasionally interest guests who notice it.
As far as CVP goes, Game Courier is good (even essential) since many variants can be tried, in case members ever tire of their favourites (do many who play regularly just stick to a small number of tried & true ones normally?). I haven't figured out yet whether, say, 5 minute live server-style variant game play is currently supported or easy to perform (if I even have the machine capability or computer savy that may be required). I'm fine with slow correspondence style play, if I return to it eventually, but I suspect many people out there on the internet prefer server-like fast same day time controls. Having many more rule-enforcing variant presets would also be cool, as might be having chess variant engine(s) available directly on CVP, but I know that's hoping for a lot. Some people might have trouble navigating their way around CVP to webpages of interest, with the current setup, but I've been able to find my way eventually to things of interest. One thing I'm not sure of is whether Diagram Designer's webpage should be mentioned somehow in the main menu, or a secondary menu page to it. A guest may not find out about it unless he decides to try out being a contributor, and Diagram Designer is a cool feature once one sees all of the fairy piece sets to choose from when diagramming.
Fwiw, the link below shows that for this year a high proportion of Chess Federation of Canada members are juniors (note the province of Quebec has its own federation, although Quebec is within FIDE's zone of Canada); also, overall membership has began to creep slightly higher again, after the CFC nearly went belly up in 2007. It's probably not unfair to say that the CFC hasn't always been a well-run organization, and has less members per capita than the USCF currently has. It's also possible that relatively high proportions of junior CFC members may come from certain demographics (e.g. chess has deep roots in Russian culture):
Perhaps along the lines Fergus suggested in his last post, re: web series about tabletop games:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TableTop_(web_series)Fwiw, here's Google answers to US chess player demographics, albeit 10 years old. I noticed one piece of info, that half of the people who played chess were children:
Here's a 2012 demographics report on FIDE's website about adult chess players, fwiw; included are details re: USA. I noticed over half of people who played chess were aged 18-34 in the US taken together with four other nations. Also, I'd note 2012 is at least after the infancy of mobile gaming (Apple app stores first opened 2008):
I think many variants that are popular use just orthodox chess' equipment, and I'd suppose from that alone lots and lots of people worldwide play or enjoy chess variants, even if just in fun. Once I became a Canadian chess tournament player as a junior in the 1970s, I was soon introduced to bughouse, and, later, to a considerable number of other probably quite popular such 8x8 board-using variants, such as progressive or dice chess (the latter's extra equipment minimal). I also encountered CV literature, perhaps inevitably. Computers, the internet, chess servers supporting chess variants, and CVP's Game Courier, make picking up playing or enjoying CVs even more likely nowadays.
I meet with a very small group of friends very occasionally (in differing places) to play a small number of board games/(chess variants), all of which we have equipment for. The only equipment we don't have are Hawks & Elephants for Seirawan Chess, and we make do with using a smaller chess set's pieces, i.e. B&N or R&N put together on a particular larger board's square; we don't know if we really like the variant yet, but if we did it's nice to know we can order the fairy piece types needed to look more respectable, say in public.
I think to play offline a lot of people who need fairy chess pieces or non-8x8 boards for given variant(s) might not like trying to craft their own equipment, if not feeling terribly able to. Such equipment would come in handy for founding clubs for 1 or more variants to be played, besides for play, study or enjoyment in the home. I still feel uninitiated in fairy chess, but it seems that, luckily, only a relatively small number of fairy piece types or non-8x8 boards are at all popular with the public, at present, not counting commercial variants (are these at all popular on the whole?). Figurines of the B&N plus R&N compound piece types (of various names), plus Unicorn figurines (e.g. for 3D Chess), alone, should cover a lot of variants that are sufficiently popular at the moment that require fairy chess pieces, and, for boards, 10x10 (Grand Chess), 10x8 (Capablanca Chess), 91-cell Hexagonal, 16x4 Circular, 5x5x5 3D, plus 3-player & 4-player chess variant boards (such as made in China, as seen in a link I gave earlier), should largely satisfy public demand for now, I'd hazard to guess, without doing a lot of research. Less popular fairy piece types or non-8x8 board sizes and/or shapes, such as found perhaps mainly online (e.g. on CVP) could begin to be mass produced proportionally to the need that arises, with possible exceptions made for, e.g., proven top-50 Game Courier variants that use such. The problem is how to start the ball rolling, by somehow encouraging manufacturers to do more.
Below's a link that may be of some interest; for 2015 about 3% of all games played on the FICS chess server were chess variants (of the limited choices available, some of which I can't tell since they're called 'wild'), which is very slightly better than I'd expect based on my estimate of chess players interested in variants worldwide (i.e. about 2%, which it pretty much is for stats for 'All Years'):
Carrousel Chess. Game with 32 pieces. (16x4, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I've noted that the piece 'Jackrabbit' in this game does have a precident, namely the fairy piece type 'Squirrel'. I've also inserted the following into this game's submission: 'An idea for a Carrousel Chess variant that at least some might prefer is to use Crooked Bishops and Crooked Queens, instead of Reflecting versions of these pieces, and I'd dub this variant "Crooked Carrousel Chess"'.
Full house hexagonal chess. Game with 50 pieces. (11x11, Cells: 91) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I've noted that the piece 'Thunderbird' in this game does have a precident, namely the fairy hexagonal board piece type 'Witch' (in Trihex), or (later) 'Warrior' (in Hexagonal Iss Jetan).
4D Quasi-Alice Chess. 8x8x2x2 four dimensional game with 32 pieces. (2x(2x(8x8)), Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I've now changed all links that I've previously given within this submission into more convenient to use hyperlinks, and I've done a similar thing for all my other submissions to date.
Full house hexagonal chess. Game with 50 pieces. (11x11, Cells: 91) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I've now added five diagrams to this submission, to finish illustrating possible legal moves on an empty board for all of the seven new piece types that I've added in this game, to the standard six of Glinski's Hexagonal Chess. The five diagrams illustrate legal moves of what I call the Sailor, Missionary, Hippo, Hydra and Unicorn. Hopefully I haven't in particular botched the illustration of legal moves of the Unicorn (a Bishop & Nightrider compound in this variant).
I've now added an explanation for how I came to choose the 7 new piece types for this game.
I've revised my estimates for the values of the Pegasus, Hydra and Unicorn in this game, besides a bit earlier explaining some basic principles that may be applicable to many forms of chess. This variant may yet prove surprisingly viable. It had a tiny part of its inspiration due to my fancy for the names or moves of certain pieces. The setup position is admittedly not highly symmetrical, but perhaps in a way that's more endearing than ugly if one gets accustomed to it. In the setup the 7 additional piece types were placed where they are for a reason, with more valuable pieces generally closer to the rear. The density of pieces to empty cells in the setup is 55%, closer to that of orthodox chess (50%) than, say, Glinski's Hexagonal Chess (40%).
Circular Chess. Chess on a round board. (16x4, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]IMO in Circular Chess a Q ought to be worth more than 8 pawns, as in chess, where a Q is often considered worth 9 pawns. I'd (tentatively) put a Q at this value in Circular Chess, too. Note Q=R+B+P in value in chess, thus here meaning R+B=8, and I'll assume that applies to Circular Chess, too (a Q is often set equal to 3 minor pieces [B or N] in chess, too, but let's ignore that for now). In Circular Chess a lone R can't normally mate a lone K (but 2 Rs, or a Q, can) IMO, nor can two minor pieces mate (though N + 2Bs can) IMO, but a R and minor piece can mate IMO, so let's say for now it takes a minimum of 8 points worth of material to mate a lone Circular Chess K (not counting pawns).
If a R were supposed worth 6 (how often is it worth six pawns in an endgame? - in chess, 4 pawns often beat a rook in such), and a B or N were thus supposed worth just 2, this does not quite compute, if it is realized 3 minor pieces perhaps ought to be worth more than a R (which can't normally mate like the 3 minors may). Plus, how often is a R worth minor piece + 4Ps? Or 2Rs worth Q + minor piece + P? If a R were supposed worth 5.5 (and a minor piece thus 2.5, or still less than 3) then it is realized that 3 minor pieces would be worth less than 8, so that doesn't compute with the end of my previous paragraph. A rook could be set to a value of up to only 5.33, as one way to avoid this problem, however (another way is to suppose that, say, 7.5 points minimum are required to mate, and I prefer that, as we'll see later). IMO, a R should be worth at least 5, since a B seems generally no stronger in Circular Chess than it is in chess. Next, note IMO a N is at least as strong as a B in Circular Chess, except note that IMO 2Ns + B may at the least have more difficulty mating a lone K than 2Bs + N, so IMO a B seems to be at least as strong as a N after taking this into consideration, thus making the pieces worth equal value.
The question I've been beating around is, is a minor piece worth less than 3 pawns in Circular Chess? Under at least some circumstances IMHO in an endgame either minor piece can deal with or at least restrain 3 enemy passed pawns, if the pawns are all going in the same direction on the round board. It's similar if 2 minor pieces faced 6 passed pawns, with exactly 3 going in either direction. This is perhaps analogous to uncommon scenarios faced in chess endgames, i.e. with passed pawns on either wing, though in all cases a lot may depend on the positions of the kings. Thus I could hazard to put a minor piece (i.e. B or N) as worth 3 pawns (it's likely more than 2, anyway), and thus a R as worth 5, in Circular Chess (I'd note one of the quirks of chess is that 3 minor pieces are often somewhat better than 2 rooks, but in Circular Chess it seems IMHO the other way around).
This matches the values many accept for chess pieces. That's in spite of being contrary to the wisdom of, say, wikipedia's entry for Circular Chess (which points out K + P vs. K is almost always a win, unlike chess, which IMHO makes up a little for other drawn basic endgames that would be basic mates in chess). For those who really dislike setting a minor piece equal to 3, I can suggest they try Q=R+B+P=9, say with R=5.5 and B(or N)=2.5, which is my favourite guess (without getting into uglier fractions) for what applies in an 'average' position, but perhaps this undervalues a Q. In any case, IMHO 2 minor pieces can be worth at least a R in an endgame, if all the R side's pawns are going just one direction, and the minors side's pawns going the opposite direction, unless either of the minors is unsafe, e.g. perhaps if they are widely seperated. Also note 2Rs vs. 3 safe minor pieces + 2 pawns going in the same direction may be hard for the Rs in an endgame. On the whole the wealth of considerations based on the terrain of Circular Chess makes it understandable that there is no consensus yet on the relative values of a R, the minor pieces or a Q, as wikipedia alludes to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_chess#Theory
As in standard chess, IMO in Circular Chess a King (K) has a fighting value of 4, even though it cannot be exchanged.
I've edited my previous post slightly, most notably adding a wikipedia link for Circular Chess that I am to some extent at odds with.
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Note to Fergus:
I've tried listing All Messages for this (10x10 Boards) subject thread on the Comments Page, but I get to see only my previous post in this subject thread. It is the same way for another subject thread when I tried to list All Messages for it, too.