Single Comment

Hey, Gary. It wouldn't be right to let you go on without knowing the background here, as you've been away from the Comments for a while. George and I, coming from totally different directions, have more or less agreed to meet in the middle to get things we both want; specifically, the area of the Luotuoqi and the concept for the contest I just proposed. My 'sufficiently chesslike to become the next Fide' remark was meant strictly to rule out things like any of my variants, for example. And none of the example games I mentioned is really very far from FIDE. A chess player with no experience of variants would find them very easy to learn, understand, and play [play well is another matter]. They have basically the same depth, complexity, and mode of play as Fide. In my variants, the average chess player will often recognize only the king and pawns, and in some, not even that - no good. I have no expectation that FIDE chess will go anywhere soon. And if it did, it wouldn't be going in my directions. So as a challenge, I'm certainly willing to try to design something unlike what I've done before. And there are a large number of people who only like those kinds of variants, giving me a new audience. For me, this is a definite challenge and a new direction.