Author: Bob Durrett
Date: 17:51:21 11/13/02
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On November 13, 2002 at 20:44:16, Russell Reagan wrote: >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 Could the swapping be done on the second move? The third? The 50th? If swaps could be done at any point in the opening phase of the game, all openings would end in equality. Otherwise, one's opponent might get the advantage by a swap. There could even be an element of deception. If a player suspected that the opponent was going to swap, a bad move might be made just to give a bad position to the other guy after the anticipated swap. Somehow, I don't think this chess variant will catch on. But you might suggest it as another type of Wild chess at ICC and see if they offer it. If so, it's popularity could be tested. I wouldn't start writing a chess engine program to do that yet, however. : ) Bob D.
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