Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Note that when I linked to 'Featured Games' from e.g. the Eurasian Chess game page header, I got a massive list of games that apparently weren't intended to be listed:

https://www.chessvariants.com/index/mainquery.php?type=Game&orderby=LinkText&displayauthor=1&displayinventor=1

Note that when I linked to 'Featured Games' from e.g. the Eurasian Chess game page header, I got a massive list of games that apparently weren't intended to be listed:

Okay, I've modified the link.

Ok, I'll go first.  I nominate Cylindrical Chess.  It has been around for probably two hundred years, has been a problem theme for over a hundred years, was played in NOST, and has logged 30 games on Game Courier.  It has been supported by ChessV for at least 15 years.  And, perhaps most importantly, it has that ususual characteristic of making a single, easily understood change to the game of Chess that leads to something completely new.

I'll second Cylindrical Chess. I made a Game Courier preset for it, and it can be used with circular graphics. That or the photo I added to the page can be used to feature it on the home page. For now, I have featured Eurasian Chess on the home page, and we can do the same with each featured variant.

I have made a proper rules page for Seirawan Chess, and I've started working on a Game Courier preset for it.

I always thought of Cylindrical Chess as the very first concept to appear in someone's mind when it comes to the idea of inventing a CV.

I think it is a very bad thing to have yet another classification for recommending chess variants, which to an uninitiated person would mean exactly the same as the 'recognized' label that we already have. I would be very hard pressed to explain to someone what the difference between a 'recognized' variant and a 'featured variant' is. Perhaps they are elected through a different mechanism, but who cares?

If we think there is a need for drawing attention to certain chess variants, we should simply revive the 'recognized' program. Otherwise we will just be promoting chaos. From what was chosen as 'featured' so far it looks like we will just be replicating the recognized list all over again.

BTW, the list of 'recognized' variants given on this page does omit many of the recognized variants (e.g. Makruk, Chu Shogi).

The problem with Featured Variants is the fact that this page wasn't updated for more than a decade, so it may be counted that everything is started from scratch. It is actually a good idea to keep promoting playable and interesting CVs in the described format, especially the forgotten ones. The name can cause some confusion though, so I would assume that 'Variant of the Month' can be a more straightforward one.

As a compromise between European and American times, I will make Cylindrical Chess the featured game for March late tonight, which will be a bit late in Europe and a bit early in America.

what is the meaning of a featured game?

From Merriam-Webster, featured is the past tense of feature by definition 3a: "to give special prominence to". So, a featured game is one we are giving or have given special prominence to. As long as we can be bothered to keep it up, we will mention a particular featured game in the header of each page and include a picture of it on the home page. Since we prefer to feature games that are worthy of the honor, the list of featured games can provide people with a list of Chess variants worth knowing about and trying out.

We could conceivably wrap the recognized variants up into featured variants. The concept of a recognized variant is more vague. The concept of a featured variant is more concrete, because it refers to a specific, observable action we have taken.

To me, Recognized suggests games that have achieved some notable popularity at some time, while Featured would include games that are considered to be deserving of recognition.

To me, Recognized suggests games that have achieved some notable popularity at some time,

That's hard to measure, has vague boundaries, and has nothing to do with our actions. So, if we just focused on which games are recognized, we would be trying to determine what is so instead of making something so through our own actions.

while Featured would include games that are considered to be deserving of recognition.

Yes, another reason to focus on featured games rather than recognized games is that is allows us to spotlight a game for its quality and not just for its popularity or historic value.

"that is allows us to spotlight a game for its quality and not just for its popularity or historic value."

OK but who is "us", what is the process to judge the quality? I fear the boundaries are more than vague here.

It is maybe a semantic question. What do you mean by "featured" exactly? Is that "having distinctive aspects", "having something special" which is rather neutral, or is that bearing some positive appreciation, meaning that this game is better than others?

There are also 2 other lists which translate the popularity of the different CVs. One based on the number of games played on Game Courier:

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/listgames.php

One based on the numbers of "like" received by a game:

https://www.chessvariants.com/index/favorites.php

Both lists have to be taken with caution as there are by no means fully objective, anyway it gives some ideas. And maybe there are better and less arbitrary recognitions.

OK but who is "us", what is the process to judge the quality? I fear the boundaries are more than vague here.

I already covered this here.

It is maybe a semantic question. What do you mean by "featured" exactly?

I already answered this here.

Is that "having distinctive aspects", "having something special" which is rather neutral, or is that bearing some positive appreciation, meaning that this game is better than others?

None of those. See my earlier answer to your question. However, there are criteria that a game must pass before being featured. These are described on this page.

I agree with Fergus, but as a more general answer may I say that I believe this has value.  It gives us another way to highlight games that the community feels has value, in temporary way (as opposed to making something Recognized, or whatever, that declares value in a more permenant way).

We all know the issue -- there are a million chess variants (figuratively, and maybe literally) and how do we -- the CVP community who know about these things -- call out those worthy of further attention?

The procedure we are following makes sense to me.  Let us give it a try.  It seems to be working.  Eurasian Chess and Cylindrical Chess are both worthy of notice for many reasons.  If the Featured Variants offers no value, it will go away.  If it creates problems, it will be refined or it will go away.  This forum is an evolving entity.  We do not need to answer every question before anything is done.

April is almost upon us. Does anyone have a nomination for a game to feature in April?

I suggest Shako

Shako sounds well!

Okay, we'll feature Shako in April. It has been programmed for Jocly, Game Courier, ChessV, Zillions-of-Games, PyChess, and Ai Ai, and it even has an Interactive Diagram on the page. Its games on Game Courier go back to 2006, and it has been played every year on Game Courier since 2015. On a personal note, it is one of the first Chess variants I learned about after getting involved with this site, as it was in the Large Variant contest of 1999, and David and I were trying out variants in that contest together.

It's already the last day of April. Does anyone have a nomination for a game to feature in May?

Metamachy is quite popular, and looks as though it has yet to be featured (based on this and this).

Since no one has seconded Metamachy, and it doesn't seem to have a Zillions-of-Games file yet, and the currently featured game has the same inventor, I will not feature it just yet. Without any other nominations, I will pick an already recognized variant that has not been featured, and that variant is Wildebeest Chess, whose page I just updated last week.

I have ZoG for all my variants. I have to find how uploading them on this site. Many of my variants are also implemented on AI AI, thx to Eric Silverman.

It is of little use to ask such questions one day in advance, when there is only a slim chance anyone would see it in time at all, and even less to fix something on the presentation if that would be needed. Deciding it one week in advance seems more reasonable.

I can already suggest a few candidates for the coming months; in particular some variants for which there exists a community that is actually playing it, and for which equipment can be ordered. Which is such a remarkable feat in itself that I think it deserves some attention:

• Superchess: many wooden pieces in Staunton style can be ordered, and there a yearly championship for over-the-board play is organized.
• Paco Shako: a specially designed plastic set which allows pairing of pieces on a single square can be ordered; there also seems to be a site where people can play it on-line.
• Musketeer Chess: many beautiful fairy pieces are available in plastic, such as Lion, Camel, Rhino. Dragon...

As for historic games:

• Tenjiku Shogi: a large Japanese games from the Edo era, for which there is a yearly correspondence championship
• Chu Shogi: a variant that already exists since 1350 AD, for which there still exists an official association in Japan, who also have a website for on-line play (I think).

As a recent invention that became popular in a very short time on chess.com, there is

• Duck Chess

One of my personal favorites is, remarkable because of its complete asymmetry:

• Spartan Chess

Metamachy is also a good variant, but I agree that we should not have too many variants by the same inventor shortly after each other. But we should certainly keep it in mind for the future.