Kevin Pacey wrote on Sun, Nov 25, 2018 09:16 PM UTC:
Today I was thinking about possible obstacles to more than one chess variant being played by several (or many) people face-to-face presently (or in future) at given location(s), ideally at CV clubs (but at the least at some CVs tournament held at a physical site). One matter is how to determine which variant(s) will be played (all year round or even on one given day), e.g. in a club, but what may entirely determine this at any given time is the CV equipment available at a given location, for a given time period.
We've heard of card sharks, who are good at all sorts of card games that use a standard 52 card deck, but CV sharks might be harder to ever come by in large numbers in offline play, since all CVs do not use the same equipment. Still, offline CV tournaments (or clubs) that involve a relatively small number of CVs (not always the same ones, necessarily) might become relatively common one day. Standardized, mass produced CV equipment that can be used for a large number of existing CVs would be helpful. CVs that can use the same equipment as for chess (maybe with a small number of extra pieces added, as in Seirawan Chess) would be particularly golden, for the time being at least.
There's also the problem of how to make more people interested enough in CVs locally, though a potential CV physical club (or tournament) organizer can learn from any local Bridge, Chess, Go etc. club or tournament organizer that they might know. An extra chore could be to make a pamphlet about whatever are deemed to be the most essential CV 'basics' (besides the CV club/tournament location & hours info) to distribute locally, perhaps even in schools. At the moment tournaments for bughouse just by itself (or as side events to more serious children's chess tournaments) have something of a foothold, in Canada at least, now more often with cash prizes involved. Face-to-face events have one advantage, based on the experience of chess players and organizers, in that perhaps any cheating (especially with cash prizes at stake) could be easier to detect than for online play (sticking to the latter alone has some big advantages otherwise, as we have seen with Game Courier's features, plus chess and/or CV servers that offer fast [e.g. 5-minutes per side] time controls for CV players, for the given CVs that are available to choose from).
Meanwhile, here's a link provided on this very website, which includes mention of a CV Construction Kit:
Today I was thinking about possible obstacles to more than one chess variant being played by several (or many) people face-to-face presently (or in future) at given location(s), ideally at CV clubs (but at the least at some CVs tournament held at a physical site). One matter is how to determine which variant(s) will be played (all year round or even on one given day), e.g. in a club, but what may entirely determine this at any given time is the CV equipment available at a given location, for a given time period.
We've heard of card sharks, who are good at all sorts of card games that use a standard 52 card deck, but CV sharks might be harder to ever come by in large numbers in offline play, since all CVs do not use the same equipment. Still, offline CV tournaments (or clubs) that involve a relatively small number of CVs (not always the same ones, necessarily) might become relatively common one day. Standardized, mass produced CV equipment that can be used for a large number of existing CVs would be helpful. CVs that can use the same equipment as for chess (maybe with a small number of extra pieces added, as in Seirawan Chess) would be particularly golden, for the time being at least.
There's also the problem of how to make more people interested enough in CVs locally, though a potential CV physical club (or tournament) organizer can learn from any local Bridge, Chess, Go etc. club or tournament organizer that they might know. An extra chore could be to make a pamphlet about whatever are deemed to be the most essential CV 'basics' (besides the CV club/tournament location & hours info) to distribute locally, perhaps even in schools. At the moment tournaments for bughouse just by itself (or as side events to more serious children's chess tournaments) have something of a foothold, in Canada at least, now more often with cash prizes involved. Face-to-face events have one advantage, based on the experience of chess players and organizers, in that perhaps any cheating (especially with cash prizes at stake) could be easier to detect than for online play (sticking to the latter alone has some big advantages otherwise, as we have seen with Game Courier's features, plus chess and/or CV servers that offer fast [e.g. 5-minutes per side] time controls for CV players, for the given CVs that are available to choose from).
Meanwhile, here's a link provided on this very website, which includes mention of a CV Construction Kit:
https://www.chessvariants.com/where.html