Single Comment

Jeremy: Thanks for the game compliments for Joe and me.  Much appreciated. 
On your other note: I looked briefly at Gess, and noticed that those stones
move and that I will need to revisit the rules to get a better feel for
that game.

In regard to the other conversation (with Joe), Joe stated, 'I look at a
game as (almost always) having 3 components, pieces, rules and board. Go
stones, X's and O's, chessmen, they're all the same in this view, the
game pieces. The difference is in the rules: the 1st two
games' play involves placing the pieces on the board in an advantageous
way; chess already has the pieces on the board, play involves moving the
pieces advantageously.'

Response: But GO stones, X's, and O's, unlike chess pieces, lack
mobility once placed... it is the 'zero-mobility' that is of interest
here.

My point was simply that large boards are a good home for long-range
pieces and more types of pieces.  Saying that this is not the case by
using GO for comparision is where I disagree, simply because GO (as it has
existed for 4,000 years) is simply not a Chess-like game.  The fact that
pieces do not move is very important here.

So I am more inclined to look at Turkish Great Chess from the 1700's,
Freeling's Grand Chess, Trice's Gothic Chess, etc. when discussing Big
Board CVs.  And though GO uses a big board, it still is not a CV.  On a
related note, I am playing a game of Duke of Rutland.  It is a large
variant with conventional pieces and one excpetion piece (moves like a
Rook or King) ... to me that board's size is almost crying for more
mowerful pieces and a few different piece types.  To replace existing
pieces with shorter range ones, or to reduce the exisiting (limited
variety) would make that game worse.