Single Comment

Mir Chess and Joe Joyce's various Shatranj variants are all ranked low right now, and I think this could be mainly due to a desire among the voters to not let in too many games that are very similar to each other. I think their best chance is to throw their lots in with related games. This is not about similar games competing with each other. All the games are already competing with each other. This is about a prisoner's dilemma type of situation in which certain games may increase their prospects by throwing their lots together into a common pool. When each game is on its own, and some games are closely related, some voters will vote for one and penalize others to prevent the whole group from getting in. When only one member of the group is allowed in the tournament, then the motive for penalizing some related games is not there, and all the related games are likely to get higher rankings, increasing the chances that one will get in. Since Joe Joyce doesn't want Modern Shatranj to hurt the chances of Mir Chess getting in, what I will do is group Joe's Shatranj variants together. This will help increase the chances that both David and Joe will get one of their games into the tournament.