Author: Tord Romstad
Date: 03:03:59 07/16/05
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On July 15, 2005 at 22:32:33, Michael Henderson wrote: > >Agreed. Lately, I have examined many chess variants and they are so much more >interesting than classical chess. Currently I am trying 10x8 chess. It feels >great when you can actually beat a top computer using your deep strategy and >intuitive foresight! Yes, 10x8 chess is not a bad game. The only problem is the nasty patent issues. I think the main reason you can still beat to computers is just that the computers are not yet very strong, though. With enough effort, I think writing a GM-level program for 10x8 chess would be only slightly more difficult than writing an equally strong program for classical chess. Shogi, as Jorge points out, is another great game, but with a rather different feel compared to normal chess. It is one of my favorite games, but I can see why it would not appeal to all chess players. Hexagonal chess is one of my other favorites, and was actually a rather popular game in Britain and Eastern Europe for a few decades. Unfortunately the popularity seems to have dropped rapidly after the death of the inventor, Wladyslaw Glinski. This is a sharper and more tactical game than normal chess, and with a more complicated and interesting endgame phase. As most of you have probably noticed by now, my engine plays this game in addition to normal chess. :-) For those of you who like FRC because it contains normal chess as a subset, I would like to recommend Ralph Betza's "Chess with Different Armies" as a (IMHO, as always) much more interesting alternative. See the following link for an introduction: http://www.chessvariants.com/d.betza/chessvar/cda/index.html The article "About the Values of Chess Pieces" is highly recommended even for those who are only interested in normal chess, by the way. >FRC is a good start though. Maybe people will realize: >maybe there is an even better chess variant I could be playing! Perhaps -- That's an optimistic way of looking at it. I hope you're right. :-) Tord
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