Author: Russell Reagan
Date: 17:44:16 11/13/02
I was reading my Chess Life magazine today, and in it, GM Larry Evans was answering a question about whether or not chess has become "stagnant". He talked about Capablanca warning about this long ago, when he (Capablanca) suggested that they increase the board size and add an extra piece. He also mentioned Fischer Random chess, which allows 960 different opening positions. He said that chess masters are now going into each game now with essentially the same information, and that what sets players above other players is usually opening lines that are prepared for a specific oponent, and if that subtle trick doesn't work out, bring on the draw. I was thinking about this, and I wondered what an idea borrowed from the game of Hex might do to chess. In Hex (http://home.earthlink.net/~vanshel/) there is a "swap rule". You can click on "What is Hex" on the aforementioned website to read about the swap rule in Hex. Basically it is an attempt to remove white's first move advantage. How it would work in chess is that (for example) white plays 1. e4, and then black may either play a move as normal, or black may choose to switch sides and play as white from the position after 1. e4. I think this poses some potentially very interesting situations and could prolong the life of chess in the future. For example, if 100 years from now chess is solved and there is found a forced win for white from (say) 1. d4, then everyone will play 1. d4 as white, and attempt to force the win. Eventually the technique would be worked out and a strong master would always be able to win as white, and chess would cease to be enjoyable. If a swap rule were implemented, a player may still play 1. d4 and go for the forced win, but it would be a gamble because his opponent could take over as white. It would also encourage the study of more suspect openings, since finding a good line in an opening with a poor reputation would be very powerful in such a system. Any thoughts? Russell
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