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/Mats
I agree, at least in part. Removing either or both is probably necessary to prevent Scrabblization, but may not be sufficient.
I would guess, though, that their removal would prove sufficient as I suspect the causes of Scrabble's Scrabblization are not to be found in Chess.
Scrabblization is surely the fate of any game that is deterministic with the players having complete information - given that it is played and studied long enough and widely enough.
If so, and if it is a problem, the only long-term solutions are to either restrict player information or remove the determinism. But is the game we are left with still chess?
I rather doubt that we're going to address the problem of the future of chess. It will either evolve into something new and worthy without anyone's planning it, or it will go softly into the night as checkers and bridge seem to be doing. The chief problem chess faces, in my opinion, is Scrabblization. By this I mean that chess has become a game like Scrabble, in which an enormous amount of rote memorization has become almost as important, or perhaps even more important, as strategic and tactical intuition -- and this is especially so for one making the move from casual amateur to serious tournament player. Like lovers of checkers and bridge, experts who have invested that effort are emphatic that they're glad they did. But that doesn't attract others to follow after when there are plenty of other strategy games without so much 'book' where they can hope to excel just by having a knack. This is just my partly-informed opinion based on remarks I've heard from better players, so I readily admit I could be completely off-base -- I'm no expert at chess. But if I'm right, then chess has gone so far down the road toward Scrabble that, at this point, I'm suspicious that those who are experts have acquired a distorted view of the game during their years of study. Reading whole books devoted to variations on a single line of play, memorizing openings out to twenty moves, is certainly not what the inventor of Chess had in mind. This is why I think something like the random-array or (better still) the player-selected-army variants are the likeliest future for chess, if it's to have one at all.
Nevertheless, even if the problem only concerns professionals, it's necessary for us to address the problem. We can't allow the professionals to dictate the future of chess because then chess will become overly technical, like the examples of Chess960 and Seirawan Chess. This is obvious also among the grandmasters who want a shortening of the time limits, something that will also increase the technical aspect of chess.
Probably most chessplayers want a standard position to start from, and not too much anarchy. We must question whether it's possible, then, to improve Seirawan's suggestion, and introduce pieces that are less tactical than those super-knights. The Swedish Cannon is an interesting piece that introduces new tactical themes (there are, of course, many alternatives). Its value seems to correspond to a bishop. To simply introduce a single external piece by way of pawn-relocation could be a way of vitalizing chess. Between the rounds one can alternate between standard chess and the new variant: Swedish Cannon Chess
/Mats
We know that amateurs have great problems with the knights, because of their notorious capacity of making double-threats. So how will they fare with eight knights on the board, four of which are super-knights? The Elephant and Hawk are ideal for professionals because they can make use of their tactical superiority, instead of having to slowly grind down their weaker opponents in long positional games. But will such a game really be attractive to amateurs? In practical endgames, especially, these pieces are practically unforeseeable for the weak player. I'd wish they had opted for pieces with positional qualities. Although these pieces are attractive, their intricacy make them inaccessible to the amateur. For this reason I am surprised to see how many variants exist that employ these pieces.
/Mats
sculptural. They are depicted here. /Mats
The problem of patenting the unpatentable is unlikely to go away any time soon. We have the perfect example in a Carrera/Bird/Capablanca variant that has been patented in the US. To anyone who has a bit of knowledge of chess variants and history, the patentee's claims are patently false and absurd. Unfortunately, good lawyers and bad law support this ridiculous position, and you could get badly hurt and certainly seriously harrassed for having an unauthorized Zillions implementation. I feel a proper response is to utterly boycott such products and encourage others to do the same. The only other useful response would be to mount a serious legal challenge to the ability to patent games, but this is impractical and undoubtedly Quixotic. Thank you for the information. I, for one, will never play this game unless and until it becomes freely available.
Yasser let me know that the intellectual rights of Seirawan Chess are “pending” as patents and trademark issues are worked out. If the intellectual rights are approved the game will be “commercialized”, including a book and program. Right now they are getting the physical pieces produced. It wouldn't be correct of me to publish my Zillions program, then. But it is a little curious since everything about the variant is traditional. /Mats
/Mats
Excellent concept. Sounds interesting. (I wonder when where Seirawan first published this variant.)
/Mats
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