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Aberg variation of Capablanca's Chess. Different setup and castling rules. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Rich Hutnik wrote on Sat, Apr 26, 2008 02:37 AM UTC:
I have been following this discussion a bit, am pretty confused, but think I have a few things down.  I had a few questions here regarding this entire discussion:
1. I know when they try to evaluate American football for fantasy league play, and are evaluating players, they will tend to treat the defense as a single entity.  The reason for this is that it is next to impossible to be able to tell the value of a single player in defense.  Can one argue that chess is similar?  Pieces work with one another.
2. Similar to this last question, are the value of pieces in Chess960 the same as they are in FIDE Chess?  Also, if players had free set up in the back row with their pieces, would they have the same value then?  Are rooks worth more if they start out in the middle, instead of the outside?

I ask this question, because of some things I am interested in doing here.  First, I would be interested in pitting Chess against Shogi or XiangQi in some way that would have the sides roughly equal to one another, by either point handicapping or something else.  

Secondarily, if you take a look at Near Chess, I have found that the game takes on entirely different dynamics if you move the rooks back or not.  This also relates to doing Near Chess vs Normal (FIDE Chess).  Playing the Near Chess side is a different animal than Normal Chess, and I found, even without castling, Near Chess holds its own.  For FYI, Near Chess is here:
http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSnearchess

(I just bring up Near Chess now, because it fits a concern I have, and it seems like the conversation).

So, in a nutshell, would anyone want to focus on the value of a set of chess variant RULES vs another one, rather than single pieces without a context they fit into?  How about a test, for example of the value of a Queen in Chess960 depending on where it starts, and which pieces are next to it?  Maybe even work out a bidding system for configurations. 

I hold out hope that this may be a reality one day, to effectively balance a range of chess variants, so a player could play with their favorite set up, against another player's set up, and it be reasonably close.