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2007-2008 Chess Variants Design Contest. Chess variant inventors gather round! We're doing it again! Exact nature of contest to be determined with YOUR help!![All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Sam Trenholme wrote on Fri, Aug 10, 2007 10:08 PM UTC:
OK, here is my proposed idea for a contest category:

A chess variant the can not end in a draw, and that does not give the first player (nor second player) any noticeable advantage

The idea is this: One complaint people have about FIDE Chess is that the game has too many draws. Another complaint is that white has too much of an advantage. My proposed category is to design a chess variant where draws are impossible, and where the inventor of the variant demonstrates that their variant does not seem to give either player an advantage.

This is a little tougher category to invent for than to, say, invent a 56-square variant, so more creativity is needed with the inventors.

I propose another category:

A variant that computers can not be programmed to play well

In this category, the inventor has to make a variant that they can demonstrate is difficult for computers to play. Multimove variants and other variants where there is a high branching factor are obvious candidates, as are variants where it is not easy to calculate who is ahead (Can this be done?)

What do people think of these categories?

- Sam