Kevin Pacey wrote on Mon, Sep 10, 2018 06:04 AM UTC:
Lately I've been thinking again about why I would continue indefinitely to play chess variants, aside from being somewhat addicted to them already. I've pretty much given up the idea of it being about a search for a 'Next Chess' that might someday take the place of chess in terms of being massively popular. To be such, as I see it an average grandpa should be able to enjoy playing a game of it against a young child every now and then, at least, so it ought to be relatively uncomplicated in terms of its rules, at least in western eyes.
It crossed my mind that aside from so many chess variants seeming to be unpromising to be a Next Chess, chess variants are considerably entertaining to me as a rule (aside from any intellectual challenge they might present - ideally if they are well designed rulewise). That led me to an old thought I had about chess resorts or theme parks, which exist even nowadays. A websearch for such showed a picture of a giant Chinese Chess set, besides giant chess sets or chess theme carrousels etc. So, resorts or theme parks might someday be in the cards for chess variants in general, if these ever become popular enough.
Getting back to the intellectual side of chess variants that I alluded to above, here's a link about mindsports that includes chess and Chinese Chess, among others; perhaps the organization for mindsports will some day admit more chess variants to its list of such intellectual sports:
Lately I've been thinking again about why I would continue indefinitely to play chess variants, aside from being somewhat addicted to them already. I've pretty much given up the idea of it being about a search for a 'Next Chess' that might someday take the place of chess in terms of being massively popular. To be such, as I see it an average grandpa should be able to enjoy playing a game of it against a young child every now and then, at least, so it ought to be relatively uncomplicated in terms of its rules, at least in western eyes.
It crossed my mind that aside from so many chess variants seeming to be unpromising to be a Next Chess, chess variants are considerably entertaining to me as a rule (aside from any intellectual challenge they might present - ideally if they are well designed rulewise). That led me to an old thought I had about chess resorts or theme parks, which exist even nowadays. A websearch for such showed a picture of a giant Chinese Chess set, besides giant chess sets or chess theme carrousels etc. So, resorts or theme parks might someday be in the cards for chess variants in general, if these ever become popular enough.
Getting back to the intellectual side of chess variants that I alluded to above, here's a link about mindsports that includes chess and Chinese Chess, among others; perhaps the organization for mindsports will some day admit more chess variants to its list of such intellectual sports:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_sport