Sam Trenholme wrote on Thu, Jun 12, 2008 05:21 PM UTC:
You know, George, you mention 10x10 as being a good board size. I would like to see a 10x10 variant of chess thrive. I think the most successful 10x10 variants are Grand Chess and Omega Chess. The nice thing about Omega Chess is that you can, right now, buy a professional tournament board and pieces for only $40 with shipping (at least in the US).
Maybe one way of handling the pawns on a 10x10 board is to make the pawns a little stronger. One idea that comes to mind is using Winther's scorpion pawn to make the lowly pawn more powerful. Another piece that is weaker on the 10x10 board is the knight; Strong, in Opulent Chess handled this problem by having the knight also being able to move like a rook, but only square (knight + wazir). I myself would make it so the knights could also jump exactly three squares diagonally (over other pieces, if needed), or have it so one knight can also jump three squares diagonally, and the other knight can jump three squares like a rook.
A lot of 10x10 variants were proposed in the 10 contest.
Maybe one way of handling the pawns on a 10x10 board is to make the pawns a little stronger. One idea that comes to mind is using Winther's scorpion pawn to make the lowly pawn more powerful. Another piece that is weaker on the 10x10 board is the knight; Strong, in Opulent Chess handled this problem by having the knight also being able to move like a rook, but only square (knight + wazir). I myself would make it so the knights could also jump exactly three squares diagonally (over other pieces, if needed), or have it so one knight can also jump three squares diagonally, and the other knight can jump three squares like a rook.
A lot of 10x10 variants were proposed in the 10 contest.