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If I may, I'd like to explain what I see IAGO as, and as attempting to do. First and foremost, IAGO [the International Abstract Games Organization] is an organization for the promotion of abstract strategy games; it is a marketing venture in that sense. [Richard, please correct me here if I misstate your aims and goals.] Its goal is to provide encouragement to the abstract strategy board games communities and designers, to organize groups to hold tournaments and other events, to provide cross-advertising of these events and their results, and to act as a hook for people who enjoy abstract games. If I see a game in a box with an IAGO logo on it somewhere, I will be more likely to buy that game, and I will certainly look much more closely at it than another non-logoed piece of merchandise, because I know that logo means there is a game in that box that uses skill and strategy rather than luck and random chance to determine the outcome. 

Rich is trying to organize the 'indies', the smaller groups of gamers, into an umbrella group that, because it has a large size, can command more of what those indie members want from the marketplace. Sure, we all play CVs online here, but when I visit my friends or family, and want to play my latest design, I cannot play a 'hotseat' computer game for a hour or three, where the participants have to wait around, sitting down and standing up over and over again to make moves in the game - no one will put up with it, not even me. So I have computer-printed boards, several chess sets in various sizes and styles, and colored twist-ties and rubberbands to use to represent pieces. Guess what - about once every 2 or 3 years, one of my brothers will [reluctantly] play one of these games with me. I want real chessvariant pieces. If IAGO works the way it's supposed to, and is supported by enough of the CV community, we can get some decent, reasonably priced variant pieces, from major chess retailers, without having to buy entire chess sets to get a couple of pieces. 

This post is overlong already - continued if anyone wishes to discuss it further, but this is a little bit of what I see IAGO is for.