Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

yep

Are there still being nominations taken for new Recognized Variant(s)? If so, it appears the only way to submit a (mandatory) proper review of a nominated game is to give a rating of a game (must be 'Good' or 'Excellent') via a Comment on this webpage (rather than on the game's own webpage), and to include one's reasoning why the game in question should be a Recognized one (and in which category), rather than give a more normal type of review.

It seems that the idea of having a Recognized Variant of the month is long a thing of the past, unless there is a wish to revive the idea.

Somehow Chaturanga is not given in any category on the index page for Recognized Variants, though I found it by clicking on the link to a list of all Recognized Variants.

I nominate Circular Chess to be a Recognized Variant of the Popular category.

My review begins with a quote from the CVP webpage for Circular Chess:

"In 1996, Dave Reynolds started the Circular Chess Society, and this (so far small but growing) Society had [its] first world championship in 1996."

I find this excellent game a challenge to play because one not only must consider each front of the battle, but how they might affect each other.

I nominate Janus Chess to be a Recognized Variant of the Popular category.

My review begins with a quote from the CVP webpage for this game:

"Several chess masters and grandmasters play this game, and have participated in Janus Chess tournaments, including Korchnoi."

I like that in this variant the minor pieces and Janus pieces often seem to all develop smoothly, nice for a 10x8 game.

I nominate Shatar to be a Recognized Variant of the Vintage category.

My review begins with a quote from the game's CVP webpage:

"Shatar was the variant of chess, played for many centuries in Mongolia, before it was replaced by FIDE chess by pressure of the former CCCP."

I find the restrictions on how one can perform a final series of checks in order to win, rather than merely draw, to give this variant an interesting and challenging twist.

I nominate Modern Shatranj to be a Recognized Variant of the Acclaimed category.

My review begins with a quote from the game's CVP webpage:

"[Modern Shatranj] is intermediate between Shatranj and Orthodox Chess."

With modern elephants (aka ferfils) replacing bishops, and generals (aka guards) replacing queens (plus pawns moving only always one step and promoting to general), the game otherwise plays as a kind of slower paced, but elegant, version of orthodox chess.

I nominate Eurasian Chess as a Recognized Variant of the Acclaimed category.

I begin my review with a quote from the game's CVP webpage:

"[The inventor] conceived of the game as a synthesis of European and Asian forms of Chess, predominantly FIDE Chess and Chinese Chess. But [the inventor] also incorporated elements from Grand Chess, another popular variant from Europe..."

I find this synthesis of other games and their elements to have produced a refreshing result. The cannon and vao pieces, along with the rules governing the kings and pawn promotions, can affect a game's tactics and strategy in interesting ways.

Gads! Somehow I missed the following on the index page:

"Note: This [Recognized Chess Variants] is a defunct program that has been idle since 2006. It has been replaced by the Favorites page, which ranks the favorite games of our members."

In spite of that, somehow I like the idea of having a seperate program to isolate what is considered to be the cream of chess variants, by editorial staff plus CVP members. Too bad I stayed up late last night, if there's still no thought of reviving the program by editorial staff. :(

Although the Recognized Variants list hasn't been updated in a long time, I'm not sure that it couldn't be updated.  I agree with you that there is value in both this list and in the "Favorites."   I've actually been thinking about what is the best way to update this.  There are certainly at least a few games that should be added and possibly one or two that should be removed in my opinion.

All of the games you have nominated for addition seem reasonable to me.  I would also add Chu Shogi, as it has been played for, literally, hundreds of years, and is still played today.

Hi Greg

I thought of nominating Chu Shogi, but I never finished playing the single (over-the-board) game I played against a friend once, so I felt unsure of it's merits as far as being a good game to play. I've never played a game of Shatar, but it's close enough to FIDE that I can grasp its merits. I also haven't played Makruk, but as the game's page states games are frequently drawn, I wasn't enthusiastic about rating the game even as high as "Good", though I'm sure it's a real thrill when someone does pull off a nice win. Other historic or regional games surely ought to be considered as Recognized Variant candidates, too.

@ Greg:

I can suggest a way to re-open this program, if enough editorial staff are interested in doing so:

1) At the end of each month, a panel of editorial staff (plus a single willing expert in their opinion, such as H.G., added if necessary to make the panel an odd number if desired) will review all of that month's properly submitted nominations of games to become Recognized Variants to be added to the index page (similarly, perhaps nominations to consider changing a Recognized Variant's category, such as from Vintage to Classic, might be considered). Also, there could be a review of any properly submitted nominations of games that should be removed from said index page. Note that any member of the panel will recuse himself if one of his inventions is up for consideration;

2) After review individually by each member of the panel, the panel will discuss among itself, and then vote on, whether to accept (or remove) each of nominated games on (or from) the index page. I'd recommend, so that the index page doesn't change too quickly, that a vote must be unanamous to add or remove a game from the index page. However, a 2/3+ majority or simple majority might be preferred instead (up to editorial staff). Note that if a panel of an odd number cannot be composed in time, a tied vote could be considered as a vote to keep the status quo regarding a properly nominated game's status.

Aside from the above suggestion of mine, I'm wondering if the existing rules on how to properly submit a nomination of a game to be a Recognized Variant are adequate, or whether there should be an idea offered of what a review by a nominator should look like, e.g. minimum number of words.

I think the Recognized list is about as long as it should be: I'd like it to serve as a short list of games that somebody new to variants and this site would start with.

The Classic are unlikely to be touched any time soon.  The Vintage and Famous could be updated over time, but it should be a slow process (in particular, see the criteria for Vintage).  The Popular and Acclaimed lists, to me, have been superceded by the Favorites list and Game Courier's most played list.  However, in the spirit of keeping the page up to date, I wouldn't mind (1) dropping these lists in favor of links to Favorites and GC-MostPlayed or (2) updating the list(s) with panel-chosen games; in either case, I would advocate for keeping a historical recording of what games are removed or added and when (removed games should be thought of perhaps as good games that have gone out of vogue).

If this gets updated: I don't think there needs to be any word count or similarly mechanical requirement for proposals.  The proposal just needs to convince whoever is making the decisions that a game should be added.

Hi Ben

Fwiw, I saw a comment under this subject thread, posted some years ago, to the effect that Korean Chess ought to be considered for upgrading to Classic status (one long time CVP contributer subsequently concurred).

A way to keep the number of Recognized Variants on the index page to a small number might be to set an arbitrary maximum number of them to be allowed on the index page, say 40, 50, or even as many as 100 (still a tiny fraction of the number of variants that can be found on this website), though I doubt this last figure will be reached for a long time, if ever, if future panels are as selective as may be called for.

The 'Popular Variants' category does have a series of criteria stated on the index page, which at least some future panel members could insist be satisfied as well as possible by a nominated game to the category. 'Acclaimed Variants' as a category could be more representative of the cream of them, as selected by a future panel.

To my mind, a Recognized Variants list is a suggested set of lists of categories of what are the cream of (in other words, the most distinguished) chess variants, which the GC Top 50 or Member Favourites lists don't necessarily claim to show (these other lists can be looked at by anyone looking for a second or third opinion, so to speak). 

I think it is important to have a well-maintained list of 'recognized variants'. This is not the same as a 'favorite'. Variants can be important for historic reasons, such as Shatranj, which is an awful game by today's standards, but a 'must-know' for everyone whose curiosity goes beyond orthodox Chess.

Regional variants, played today by millions of people (such as Makruk and Jiangi) definitely belog in this list. And so does Chu Shogi: it is possible to play that 'life' (i.e. in real time, with clocks, rather than correspondence) on-line on a server dedicated for it. How many other variants can claim that? In addition it has been central in the development of Japanese Chess.

I think it is important to have a well-maintained list of 'recognized variants'. This is not the same as a 'favorite'.

I completely agree.  The "favorites" is a useful feature, and a great addition, but in my mind is something rather different than an official list of Recognized Variants, curated by the editoral staff, with the advice and concent of the members.  The favorites list is more point-in-time.  The number of participants of this website actively marking things as favorites is limited; the number of people who will go back and un-mark even moreso.  The "most popular on game courier" is also a great feature, but again something different.  I'm happy with the progress we are making in giving our users various metrics to help explore the universe of chess variants and cull out the hundreds of unremarked upon variants.  I have some ideas about how we can further that process as well.  But I think, for the forseeable future, the Recognized Variants list will still fill a unique role.  Although it has not been updated for a long time, looking at it now as an editor and chess variant enthusiast, I still think it's pretty darn good, and I don't think you'll find a better short-list of variants with which to explore this space anywhere.  To me, this demonstrates its utility.

In light of recent comments, though, there are a couple of omitions.  I didn't realise that neither Circular Chess nor Byzantine Chess were listed until Kevin Pacey mentioned it.  I had recently noticed Chu Shogi because of H. G. Muller's page submission and Game Courier activity, but never noticed that oversight before.  And Kevin also mentioned Janus Chess.  That is also an oversight as well.

There are, I'm sure, other games that could be included, and maybe some that should be removed.  But I don't think we're yet in the place for a formal process on this.  So, for now, I would propose that we add the following three items: Chu Shogi, in the Vintage category, and Circular Chess and Janus Chess in the Popular category.  If any member of the community feels that one of these additions is not justified, please reply.  Otherwise, in a week and a half, if no objection is raised, I will add them.

In case it was missed, earlier I also mentioned that Chaturanga is already a Recognized Variant, but somehow it was not listed on the index page for Recognized Variants, so perhaps this might be changed too, unless somehow the omission was intentional.

That may have been intentional.  Turns out we don't actually know what the rules of Chaturanga were, and it's entirely possible that the rules were the same as Shatranj.

@ Greg:

Has there been any objection or reason(s) to delay putting Chu Shogi, Circular Chess or Janus Chess on the CVP list of Recognized Chess Variants?

Having received no objections, Chu Shogi, Circular Chess, and Janus Chess have been added as Recognized Variants.  They have been added to this page, and flagged as Recognized in the database so they will be boldface in the index.  I notice that some of the pages for Recognized variants don't have the 'Recognized' banner at the top, so I'll work on taking care of that as well.

I think Makruk also deserves to be recognized. More than a million people play it as their primry board game, and it is at least as different from orthodox Chess as Jiangi is from Xiangqi.

BTW, what about Kyoto Shogi? I don't know how popular that is (it seems an awful game to me, for humans), but I noticed that pieces for it are commercially sold in Japan. Which must seem worth something.

Thanks Greg.

Besides the two variants H.G. just suggested, I've seen a number of other variants suggested to be recognized, as I quickly went back through all the comments over the years, so far within this thread. The number is reasonably small, so perhaps they are worth recapping (Fergus may have considered many, if not all, of these already, however):

1.Seirawan Chess; 2.Alekhine Chess (I think I might well not agree); 3.The Maharajah and The Sepoys; 4. 4-way chess; 5. Atomic Chess; 6. Yonin Shogi; 7.Sittuyin (Burmese Chess); 8.Rococo; 9.Carrera's Chess; 10.Makruk and 11.Kyoto Shogi (the two H.G. mentioned last post).

I also noticed that Fergus commented that he was going to remove (2 player) Chaturanga from the Recognized Chess Variants list - somehow it's still listed as such except for on the index page for Recognized Chess Variants.