Kevin Pacey wrote on Tue, Mar 15, 2016 04:16 AM UTC:
George wrote earlier:
"...If little Los Alamos 6x6 had been the old standard, it would be
replaced by something bigger. And the mere fact OrthoChess is on little
8x8, and the other world CV types are 9x10 and 9x9, China and Japan, should
be embarrassing to their GMs. That's why Stanley Random started 15 years
ago calling f.i.d.e. "Simpleminded Chess" and now I do..."
Historically chess variants strongly resembling today's standard version of
chess have been tried on larger boards, but there may have been legitimate
reasons why the lesser 8x8 size was settled upon for so long. Perhaps the
expected length of an average game on any bigger board size was thought
undesirable (the same could go for a smaller sized board). What chess lacks
in comparison to Shogi or Chinese Chess it may, at the least, make up for
in other ways.
The unique combination of chess' features, none of which may make it
particularly unique when taken seperately, have made chess enduringly
popular thus far, and no one knows exactly why. The game has held up well,
though nowadays extensive databases, engines, the difficulty for top
players to win with many Black openings, tablebases, and the increased
possibilities for cheating (especially on the internet) are putting chess
under pressure. The question may be whether any chess variant can hope to
replace it anytime soon, in terms of dominance, and so far I haven't
noticed any obvious candidates for such, perhaps even in terms of merit
IMHO.
[edit: For some years Arimaa seemed a golden candidate to be the Next Chess. I used to Google it and see comments like "they've fixed chess". Before a computer finally beat top players in 2015, though, one of Arimaa's supposed strengths over chess, that there was no set opening setup, had already been weakened since there were certain setups thought better than others. There is a similar problem with Fischer Random, I've heard, in that any number of starting setups are apparently not very interesting. In any case, I actually prefer a chess variant that has a fixed start position, for merchandising and study purposes, assuming the opening phase is at least as rich in possibilities as standard chess. Also, I think a variant that looks nice on someone's coffeetable could further help to popularize it, and a fixed start position assists with this. Unfortunately this doesn't bode well for variants with many more cells than a game of Scrabble (15x15), which might be otherwise desirable for possible computer-resistance. Arimaa also had a problem hurting its speed of spread, in that its inventor imposed various licensing requirements, such as on websites, clubs or literature, although many apps for the game may have been sold, at least. Meanwhile, below is a link about Arimaa, which notes the history of its man vs. machine challenges.]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arimaa
