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One GM Vuckevich solution of longer-term is to change the rules as you go:

http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=18909. 

http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=18727.

Vhttp://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=18729.

I think Garry Kasparov renounced nonsensical New Chronology, or dismissed it.  The chapter "How Rome Fell" earlier this thread from 'How the Irish Saved Civilization' is one source to fill in everyday things that were happening say from year 200 to (illiterate) Charlemagne, no longer Dark Age.

Hehe, in defense of my muddled arithmetic: Why, thank you, George. ;-)

There is discussion of assigning a different value to draws with Black than draws with White based on the overall statistical likelihood of drawing with one versus the other and the perceived (and likely objective) greater difficulty of drawing with Black than with White.

I would say this: One day soon, computers will be so advanced, especially quantum computers, that they will produce a definitive solution of FIDE Chess. At the exact same time, or shortly thereafter, almost every chess variant ever invented will be solved too, I believe, including variants with "bug-eyed monsters" (cf. wikipedia's fairy chess page). The "more chess moves than atoms in the universe" doesn't really apply because there aren't so many moves which are at all sound.

Does that mean professional chess play will be obsolete?

No, no more than extreme fighting is made obsolete by gorillas or kangaroos who can surely outperform in the ring.

As sport, some of these chess variants can still be played by chess athletes even after computers have "solved" them. And the solutions should come with greater clarity too, just as Fermat's problem is currently solved but there may be a more elegant solution still out there.

If my thinking may seem muddled, it's because it is muddled. We may even see the specter of computers and humans working together (appropriate for a likely cyborgian future) to solve chess variants on the spot, in the course of competitive professional play. I don't know.

But possibly "Next Chess" (if there is a "Next Chess") will be too complicated even for forthcoming quantum computers to solve.

If Anand is still performing at a very high level and if Emanuel Lasker and Steinitz could perform highly into their fifties, perhaps Kasparov should come out of retirement and test his mettle. I was one of those, perhaps misguidedly, urging him to retire and pursue politics full time. I do appreciate that he has been an outspoken and courageous voice of dissent against kleptocrat Putin. I've been told that Russian prejudice against Judaism and Armenia has made it impossible for charismatic Garry to gain leverage and perhaps kooky theories of history haven't helped? (Though I haven't kept up on Garry's idea that most historians are off on their recent chronology). Now I'd like to see Garry return to the realm professional sports.

Also, as David Paulowich has pointed out, the basic maxims (heuristics) guiding fine FIDE play are much the same in most chess variants. There is little doubt in my mind that were professional FIDE players to be given financial incentive to go into variants, they would also easily dominate our own realm and easily become the best chess variant players. Or at least highly successful, just as many great professional chess players have done well on the poker circuit.

Primitive Chess at Sochi 2014.  With primitive scoring.  Wrapped up of
course two weeks ago, post-mortems ensue.  In defense of Jeremy Good and
the result Carlsen 6.5 Anand 4.5, it doesn't matter in a match whether
each Draw counts 1/2 does it? They could point a Draw 2000 and announce
instead of Draws 7 Carlsen 3 Anand 1, a final tally count of Carlsen 14003
to Anand 14001.  Hey still the two-point margin presciently said exactly by
Kasparov beforehand, http://en.chessbase.com/post/kasparov-the-quality-of-the-games-was-not-so-high, in so many words. [Though retired
Kasparov, unlike one-trick-pony Carlsen, plays Shogi,
http://www.chessdom.com/kasparov-tokyo-promoting-chess-shogi-and-artificial-intelligence/
http://www.chessdom.com/kasparov-tokyo-promoting-chess-shogi-and-artificial-intelligence/,
too.]

Actually the above could be a solution for the fundamentalists.  Recent certain Stalemates as a win, http://en.chessbase.com/post/stalemate-the-long-and-the-short-of-it-2, is a phony new topic because Lasker advocated that 100 years ago.  Rather, enforce so-called "odds" against each defending Champion the way informal 18-C. champion Philidor gave Knight-odds, one vacated to opponent's full initial array.  

Thus differently for advanced/retarded 21st C., not a Philidor missing piece, but basically scoring for each according to his ability,  That is, each defending Champion would get just 0.4 per Draw to opposite number 0.6.  F.i.d.e. could have this purposed rigging the scoring in favor of the Challenger, not the other way around.  So then Sochi Nov.14 has as of now regardless the tally 5.8C-5.2A, and the twelfth and final game must be still played out for determinative outcome.

In Nov.2013 it was f.i.d.e. regular-pointage Draws 7, Carlsen 3, Anand 0.  Embarrassingly Anand has won only one game in two back-to-back world titles.  Yet V. Anand has to be regarded the presumptive frontrunner for November 2015 if he runs, so this discussion thread as "Chennai 2013," where it all started Chess itself included, keeps accuracy.  

If Anand doesn't compete again, as next topic which too green other candidates stand out to take on one-trick pony M. Carlsen next year?

Six million games are available from 1560 on,  
http://en.chessbase.com/post/simply-the-best-mega-database-2015, including and up to just "the middle of November 2014." 

Since the Carlsen-Anand Sochi finale was 23 November, the idea is they waited exactly to put out the updated database for overplayed OrthoChess on "small" 64 squares. (From CV perspective, oompare 6th-century 64 to Shogi 81 and Xiangqi "large" 90 board spaces -- or middle ages Gala on 100 http://www.chessvariants.org/historic.dir/gala.html and Courier on 96 squares http://www.chessvariants.org/historic.dir/courier.html, to show two arbitrarily from Germany having large-size more enabling board.)

Stretching to include the 23rd as "middle of November," without saying so because of the low quality of games,* yes, they're all in there for posterity total of 11, the last game 12 unplayed as unnecessary Carlsen-Anand 2014:   Draws 7, Carlsen 3, Anand 1. 

*http://en.chessbase.com/post/kasparov-the-quality-of-the-games-was-not-so-high.

Finis.  Simpleminded Draws 7, Carlsen 3, Anand 1.  Unresolved is how many
Computer programs easily beat Carlsen.  20?  100?  

Away from calcified Orthodoxy, in the ancient Nineties Fischer  (1943-2008)
proferred Fischer Random Chess.  Then in the Aughts, "grand-master"
Seirawan had Seirawan Chess with 400-year-old RN and BN tweaked awkwardly
to squeeze into little 64 squares.  At least he tried.  In 2014 Chessbase
has Switch-Side,
http://en.chessbase.com/post/a-new-challenging-chess-variant, and more
seriously Option Chess, http://en.chessbase.com/post/option-chess-by-paul-bonham, copying Duniho's Extra Move Chess.

What does Carlsen propose?  To Computer and Draw dominance?  For Carlsen's
modelling and acting career, he may be able to sustain a mediocre
personality cult, like chess-region Niyazov's, http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2014/02/06/saparmurat_niyazov_former_president_of_turkmenistan_has_left_quite_the_legacy.html.

So just ignore average-intelligence specialized-skill Carlsen -- as well as
f.i.d.e. if necessary.  Moving on, consider that Chinese Xiangqi has 90
squares(points) and Japanese Shogi 81.  Western fundamentalists will
eventually have to junk 64 squares.  Making 64 squares computer-resistant
takes just too convoluted Rules.  100 as 10x10 is a possibility.  But a
steady 50% of CVers probably agree that optimal minimax/maximin solution is
80 squares, nicely just under Shogi.  

Get the Chess-board right first, abandoning narrow and narrow-minded 8x8
custom, then put in the proper challenging pieces: Rook-Knight,
Bishop-Knight, Mastodon(Pasha), Lion, Falcon.  Mired in dogmatism, silenced
by propaganda, OrthoChessists are not allowed even to know the present
Bishop's and Queen's powers came about just in the 1490s, not out of
6th-century India.  

Face it, hidebound 64 has a colourful -- heh checkered -- history.  You
know the sacred parable: first put a bean on Square One....and by Square 64
you have the whole blinking/blooming/bloody/bleeping/blistering Universe.

So ends steadfast Sochi, Russia, 64 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_and_chessboard_problem).

Magnus Carlsen has it about wrapped up,  http://en.chessbase.com/post/sochi-g10-unrealized-opportunities, so here are some wit and wisdom:

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/magnus_carlsen.html.

While in Sochi, a short 1000 miles away outside Russia, across Caspian Sea,  
http://www.turkmenistan.ru/en/articles/17204.html, highly creditably the 2013 junior champion.  Yet the wit of Niyazov of that same Turkmenistan, http://southcarolina1670.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/the-wit-and-wisdom-of-saparmurat-niyazov/, matches Carlsen's,  Niyazov having closed the libraries and Carlsen having not need of books.



[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saparmurat_Niyazov ;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhnama. ]

After eight games, the score is Simpleminded Draws 5, Magnus Carlsen 2, Vishy
Anand 1.  

http://en.chessbase.com/post/sochi-g8-an-easy-draw-for-carlsen.

[Added 20.Nov: http://en.chessbase.com/post/sochi-g9-a-quick-draw-tightens-the-noose,  Simpleminded Draws 6, C 2, A 1.

Pathetically they, the mountebanks selling us a bill of goods, think this is satisfactory, ostensibly grown men, the world champion playing before the world for Draw after Draw.  Creepy.]

Carlsen is one point ahead but with five games to go, Anand has White
pieces three more times.

http://en.chessbase.com/post/chess-blindness-of-the-champions.

Euphemism blindness means blunder, blunders at issue in the Sixth Game,
played Saturday.  It was also the Sixth Game in 1972 we maintain Spassky can
win with corrected '15 ...Rxc5':

http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=29329. Two earlier comments in the linked thread provide detail. 

That sixth game the Mail and many others call one of the several best games
of all time, or even single best.  But Spassky should win by above new move;
 it may have been pointed out somewhere before (or deliberately
overlooked), and was rediscovered when reviewing here in CVPage forty-year
anniversary of 1972 Fischer-Spassky spectacular.  

We certainly don't want to put the current late-term crop of babbitts in the same league as
Fischer and Spassky for over-all intellectual/cultural importance, yet it is a coincidental
"sixth game"  again.

[ http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044366 ]

After half the match of 12 games, the score is Simpleminded Draws 3,
Carlsen 2, Anand 1. 

http://en.chessbase.com/post/chess-blindness-of-the-champions.

No, hehe, I can't add. 2 points each.

> Carlsen - Anand WCC II, tied at 1 1/2 points each.

1.5 points each after four games? A draw is only worth a quarter point,
these days?

So I didn't pay attention for a couple days...

First game: Carlsen draws with Black.

Second game: Carlsen wins with White.

Third game: Anand wins with White.

Fourth game: Anand draws with Black.

Rest Day.

Anand will have the White pieces coming back.

Carlsen - Anand WCC II, tied at 1 1/2 points each.

Every day a holiday like ancient Rome.  Yesterday 25 years since Berlin Wall fall,
http://en.chessbase.com/post/world-championship-02-carlsen-strikes-first,
tomorrow 96 years since Eleven.Eleven.1918 Armistice of World War I.  And
11 games to go in central Eurasia, the 1500-yr. cutting edge mind-sport
where it starts off 1.5-0.5 for Champion Magnus Carlsen.

http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Rome-FellMar95.htm, "The thicker the grass, the more easily scythed."    Roman-ruination 5th century also is enlightened for two geographic-endpoints inaugurations: Ireland saving and copying all classical books and Indian civilization inventing Chess away from Eurasian barbarians. In the above linked chapter's ninth from last full paragraph, it says "If anyone skipped a grade, he was -- like a piece on a board game -- to be returned to his starting point."

Our trick, as chess variant enthusiasts, is to show that chess variant traditions and innovations are what will revitalize the international chess scene of professional chess athleticism...

e.g., Look at the way (scroll to bottom of article) Carlsen and Anand talk, exactly like any sportsmen, football players or basketball players, golfers, etc...focus on the present, don't place too much importance on any past moment or future prospect, a bland way of speaking esp. downplaying any past accomplishment (there are exceptions of course, trash-talking and amusing conceit of Cassius Clay, e.g.) but a lingo deeply familiar to any and all sports fanatics (there is a scene in the film Bull Durham where a promising athlete is coached to speak blandly in interviews, underselling - something legendary Patriots coach Bill Belichick advises his players as a media strategy "don't believe or fuel the hype" - "manage expectations" - "ignore the noise")...

When asked if the last match had any bearings on this one Anand said, “I don’t see the point of keeping that in the background. There will enough problems in this match to deal with without adding that, so at least that’s not something I am trying to reflect on.”

Carlsen agreed with his senior on the matter.

“What happened in the last match is in the past, I agree with Vishy that are going to be plenty of difficult and critical moments in the match, no point in dwelling in the past,” he said.

Even if Carlsen loses, he is thought by many as possibly the greatest
player of all time reflected in his highest rating of all time. People
thought he was far the best before he gained the title. Anand is a
tremendous underdog and if he wins, one imagines Carlsen will one day
regain the throne.

This thread is still named after last year's 3-win match -- three wins for Carlsen and the title to Anand's zero wins.  There's
another one starting tomorrow in Russia this time to last year's India. 
There are 12 rounds or games before any tie-break. 

http://en.chessbase.com/post/sometimes-sweet-revenge-matches.  See how many
games are played historically, as many as 32 isn't it?  Everyone knows Draws will win out over
player One and player Two something like Draws-9 #1-2 #2-1, or maybe Draw
10, Players 2, or at best Draws 8 combined Players 4 Wins. That's because in this day and age the openings are so well-rehearsed, not any skill of the players, in fact if anything their inferiority to the "great predecessors," a Kasparov coinage.  Rest assured for each and every 
Draw some pundit or other will call it a Fighting Draw.

 Such prosaic, lackluster banality would not happen with Chess variants, many of which would have far superior challenging rules-sets let alone computer-resistance.

Before Chennai November 2013, Carlsen was just a prodigy not a Champion.  Will Carlsen's reign turn out to be only the one year?  That would be like short-reigned Euwe and Smyslov of great intellectual/artistic credentials.

http://en.chessbase.com/post/ilyumzhinov-putin-meet-discuss-sochi-match.

Carlsen mis-handles the exchanges just before Move 26 leaving R-N to B-N-N.


http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1479611.

  Yet even accepting things that far, the error as such is not doing
'32 R-c8+...', check right away.  Checking would gain one Pawn soon and
another Pawn eventually without letting Black start advancing.

Queens are gone by Move 17 when already there are only 5 Pawns left a side:
 

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1479611.   There are forty
more moves after Move 17 Queen exchange.  Where does White go wrong?

http://en.chessbase.com/post/world-championship-sochi-official-web-site.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1499643, '27 Qa3...' and
White should pick off the stray Pawn first. 

Carlsen and Donald Duck: http://en.chessbase.com/post/friendly-relations-magnus-carlsen-and-donald-duck#discuss.

Three weeks to Simpleminded Chess rematch in Sochi:
http://en.chessbase.com/post/world-championship-guide-to-sochi.
Three past games to clear out, here's one:

  http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1340320       Where does Black go
wrong?  One Kibitz asks, what about '18 ...bxc4'?  Let's go with that as at least a Draw for Carlsen  (http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2012/07/magnus-carlsen-am-i-tired-what-stupid.html ).

Next, http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1499643 -- Where does White go wrong?

I think it's wonderful that they're playing again and I can't count
Anand-the-underdog out. I'm rooting for him because he's a peer age-wise.
He might very well come back and win. He earned the rematch by beating very
fine players. He has experience, nerve and pluck. Carlsen and Anand both
have remarkably fine personalities, similar ones even, winsome and
charismatic and a pinch self-deprecatory. Great chess athletes and fine,
beloved people. I won't be surprised if this isn't their last world
championship match. 

Caruana vs. Carlsen seems like a good possibility too though. Edit: This is a fun site to monitor: http://www.2700chess.com/

New Chess star age 22,
http://en.chessbase.com/post/grandmaster-clash-in-slate-magazine, US-born
now Italian is quickly #3.  Carlsen-Anand II will probably be the last of
two between them, with couple candidates to replace Anand in 2015.

http://en.chessbase.com/post/huffington-caruana-s-spectacular-chess-leap.