I think we should strive to enhance Chess rather to make it more dull. A
huge branching factor is desirable, but not at any price. And the game
could welcome a few extra pieces of secondary interest (that is, secondary
only to the Orthochess pieces), such as the Chancellor and the Cardinal,
the Champion and the (Omega) Wizard, the Falcon, pieces of the
Cannon/Grasshopper family or pieces of the Ultima/Rococo family including
the Reducer and Halfling variants. But shifting to Optima would destroy
the feel of Chess when simply exchanging the Knights and the Bishops
already hurts the game as we know it. It is true that someone decided to
introduce the Bishop and the Queen, but the game wasn't as good in 1475
as it is now. The six current pieces should retain a special status.
The huge branching factor exists in Shogi and Go, but Chessgi has three
flaws in my view.
1)A Knight in hand is stronger than a Bishop in hand, and doubled Pawns
are also very bad, so the players, and particularly Black, might simply
become unable to trot out their Knights.
2)Chessgi may be a theoretical win for White, much more than Chess.
3)There is too much material on the Board. And although the possibility of
a problemist's mate is a distinctive plus, the impossibility of an endgame
as in Chess is a distinctive minus.
On the other hand, Mortal Chessgi gives a Knight for the capture of a
Bishop, and a Pawn for the capture of a Knight (a Firz for the Bishop and
a Wazir for the Knight, with a Pawn for either a Firz or a Wazir and a
Bishop or a Knight for a Rook would make more sense). It keeps the high
branching factor, and it provides different type of endgames. King +
Rook + Pawn vs. King + Rook once in a while is fine, King + Rook +
Pawn vs. King + Rook at every other game becomes painful.
Another interesting idea is that of Stratomic, which features pieces which
can explode everywhere on the Board on a 3x3 square. I borrowed that idea
for Chess on a Larger Board with a few pieces dropped. (I added a
'Chinese' condition that the Kings can strike when they see each other,
provided both have moved and neither has hit the eighth row.) Zillions
also had a lot of difficulties with it.
(On an unrelated matter, it seems that Anti-King Chess is very unfriendly
to Zillions. The reason here is not an important branching factor, but a
difficulty to grasp the exact value of a piece.)
Rules are desirable as long as they correct flaws or enhance interest.
Castling brings out the Rook faster, en passant strenghtens a Pawn on the
fifth row, the Palace and the rule forbidding Generals to see each other
are necessary to XiangQi.
Allowing an unmoved Knight to swap with an adjacent unmoved Bishop and/or
two enemy adjacent Bishops to swap with each other (with a ko addendum) as
a move would introduce same-color Bishops (a nice possibility also offered
by Chessgi and Mortal Chessgi).
If you shift to 10x10, you have problems with the Knights and the Pawns,
and you must introduce something as weird as castling to enhance them.
(Well, you can turn the Knights into (Knight+Wazir)s and allow the Pawns
to become Firzes on the eighth and ninth rows. Still, I don't like
10x10.)
There is the idea that Fischer Random Chess should replace Chess because
it allows the suppression of opening theory. I have nothing against FRC as
a variant among other variants (I voted for it in the poll), but I view the
lack of an opening theory as an impoverishment rather as an enhancement.
Mind you, the current opening theory offers some interest. If you part
with it, nearly all players with an ELO above 1800 won't accept the loss
of their favourite opening, which may be theoretically wrong, but
intellectually rewarding and practically fruitful. Indeed, there are a lot
of books devoted to unsound openings which have a core of enthusiasts and a
mass of disbelievers. I suspect the Grandmasters to be somewhat too open to
the idea of doing away with the favorite openings of weaker players which
would be even weaker without these openings.
I think the future of Chess rather lies in introducing a whole batch of
arbitrary, though finely and relentlessly tuned, rules. These rules should
allow the casual introduction of a few no-nonsense fairy pieces, the
infrequent modification of the Board, or some other remote change. It
would be Knightmare Chess without cards and sometimes without any change
at all. (It is advisable to relate these rules to the positions of the
Kings, because the Kings stay on throughout the game.)
Cylindrical Chess is poorer than Chess for want of a center, but Chess
with the possibility of branching into Cylindrical Chess is richer than
Chess without that possibility, not unlike Chess with stalemate is richer
than Chess without stalemate, and we should devise a rule which would
provide for that possibility (for instance, moving one's King between two
enemy Pawns), so that it doesn't happen neither soon nor often, but that
there *are* games which become cylindrical, an outcome which the weaker
(or richer in Bishops, since a cylindrical Bishop commands as many squares
as a cylindrical Rook) side may be willing to invest material for. Chess on
10x10 (12x12, 14x14...) is also poorer (esthetically, not mathematically)
than Chess on 8x8, but allowing the Board to become 10x10 (12x12,
14x14...) with two brand new Pawns for each side when a King moves at a
(4,4) (then (5,5), then (6,6)...) distance on an 8x8 (10x10, 12x12...)
Board of its opposite number and the other King doesn't flee might also
enhance Chess.
Of course, we need also a situation which would branch into Mortal
Chessgi, (or perhaps Chessgi if there are fairy pieces), and another one
which would branch into Marseillais. Another relative position would give
both players two or three Terrain squares to drop on the Board or to
create outside the Board...
Now the poor computer has to take into account these infrequent
possibilities which only human minds could come up with.
Introducing fairy pieces isn't easy. You cannot start with them, as I did
in Chess on a Larger Board, without spoiling the whole opening theory, so
you must allow their introduction only after some delayed and uncertain
event. Here's an idea. When both Kings have moved, a player who hasn't
lost his Queen, or his two Rooks..., that is, who hasn't lost by
Extinction Chess rules yet, can decide to bring in fairy pieces of his
choice (among a predetermined no-nonsense lot) for *both* players at the
cost of his move. They are worth that price only when the game cools down
and becomes more positional. The player usually introduces one or two
pairs of pieces on the imaginary y1, z1, i1, j1 for White and y8, z8, i8,
j8 for Black, and the pieces will have to move from these imaginary
positions to real empty squares on the 8x8 Board with their actual moves.
(There should be variations according to strength: only one Chancellor and
one Cardinal would appear for each side, without any other fairy piece, the
Grasshoppers would also enter the fray alone, but by packs of six.) The
other player may then (and only then) choose to forfeit himself a move if
he wishes to replace all the existing Pawns with Berolinas. More often
than not, he won't. But if it is clear than he would (because he has
tripled Pawns, because all the Pawns of his opponent are on same-color
squares, or because he has Rook and Pawn(s) for Bishop and Knight), then
neither player will be willing to do anything, which also keeps more of
the flavour of Chess.
Fairy pieces should appear only at roughly every other game.
Such an extension would keep the opening theory as we (don't) know it for
at least ten or fifteen moves, save the endings as we (don't) know them
more often than not, yet branch at times into a more exciting and
prolonged middle game. And although the knowledge of the opening theory
(and particularly the knowledge of gambits, except against the computer)
would still give the book player some advantage, his opponent would have
only to concede a tempo to transpose into a more uncertain game. Or the
book player might avoid the fairy test by capturing a species quickly, but
for that too there would usually be a price to pay.
Lots of uncertainty, for masters, patzers and computers alike.
