George Duke wrote on Mon, Mar 3, 2014 05:30 PM UTC:
Among the eight CVs, ChessBase's Seirawan Chess has two new pieces, Rook-Knight and
Bishop-Knight, that were invented 400 years ago exactly by Carrera.
Option Chess and Tandem Pawn and Switch Side Chain dramatically change the Rules (see
recent list).
In operating mathematical paradigm, the three convenient parameters of variantdom would be (1) Board,
(2) Pieces, (3) Rules. ChessBase in 2014 tinkers with Pieces and
Rules, and their non-traditional Boards remain foreign Xiangqi 9x10 and
Shogi 9x9. Is the 8x8 board then sacrosanct? Of course not, and Chess Variant Page boards
range routinely from early computer Los Alamos 6x6, http://www.chessvariants.org/small.dir/losalamos.html, to 8x16 so-called double chesses,
http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/doublewide-chess.html, also seen in deeper 16x10 and 16x12 forms.
In principle, differing Boards should more readily thwart Computer sixty years on from Los Alamos.
Pre-Internet, CV pioneers Boyer, Dawson, Parton, Betza also strongly preferred staying on safer 64 squares. Professional circles just thought of other than 8x8 as offbeat and declared inelegant, whether in problem theme or full CV. (Above Betza does diverge in Doublewide.) For them to expand to larger board would chaotically play into hand of amateurs, or just open whole can of worms for everyone unnecessarily, presenting one new kettle of fish after another. Really as it is, 8x8 is infinitely variable by Rules and Pieces potentially alone to cook up to suit. That has been the tacit conventional wisdom, notwithstanding GM Capablanca's 80 and 100 squares. Even in Chess Variant Page, half the several thousand CVs retain table-top 8x8, but applications make better boards 8x10, 9x9, 10x10 easy too.
If Chess had been 7x7 for the last 1500 years, say without Bishop, which was the last addition, there would be scrambling and piling Mutator upon Mutator to try to salvage perfectly playable 49 squares in favour of biologic intelligence over relentless silicon.
[Added 4.March.14: Ist der Bauer geschuetzt?
"In two words: Im - Possible" - Samuel Goldwyn]
Today's Quote: "The first thing to realise about the aether is its absolute continuity. A deep-sea fish has probably no means of apprehending the existence of water; it is too uniformly immersed in it: and that is our condition in regard to the aether." - physicist Sir Oliver Lodge, 'Ether and Reality'(1925)