A system to classify chess variants

Hi

I start this thread because i want to collaborate with all of you to define various criterions on how to classify chess and chess variants, meaning by that, which chess variant is better than another chess variant based on different parameters we will try to define:

This is intended to give an assessment of different chess variants according to predefined criterions that will make it easier to tell, this variant is probably better than another.

Chess is a millenial game that Evolved for chaturanga till the modern chess we know nowadays. It's a game that is enjoyed by millions and millions of players. We enjoy thinking (i Don't know many other activities where we enjoy thinking and brain storming), challenging other players, winning etc.

It's a balanced game (even though white has an advantage as the side beginning the game), it's a game we enjoy playing, stimulates our brains in various ways: our creativity is emphasised.

Some variants add sometimes 20 new pieces (a huge number of pieces) which can make the Learning curve of these games difficult as we must get accustomed to many pieces with different rules. So playability seems to be an important factor. The same thing when new rules, or unorthodox rules are Added, depending on the corresponding rules. The more différences we bring to the game starting from classic chess, this makes the game more complicated to be played.

Again, these différences should be "tempered" if there are demos, games or websites showing precisely and easily the différences and explaining the choice: in fact, innovating (bringing changes) should Always be a Wise choice and not just a way of just inventing Something new for the pleasure of inventing.

Nowadays having a website where you can play variants is probably important, as people can try the game and learn how the new pieces and the new rules Apply. So internet seems important. We must find a name for this.

Commercial variants: A commercial variant should have a bonus in terms of evaluation, compared to equally good variants: Call this COMMERCIAL.

Use of special material depending on the novelties (new board, extended board, new pieces) is probably a handicap for a chess variant as this means people have to buy new material to play the game ! All dépends on the importance of this investment, the availability of such new material etc : Let's call this MATERIAL. We should probably develop this to many sub menues (Boards, Pieces, Both etc), refine them if they are available, cost ( the highest the cost the biggest the penalty a bonus/penalty system should be found ).

STILL SO MUCH TO TALK ABOUT. NOW IT's YOUR TURN.

Please, give your thoughts and also give the weight you think these various variables (and the ones you'll come with) should influence the game.

I suggest we FIRST evaluate the Following variants compared to CHESS: FISCHER RANDOM CHESS, CAPABLANCA CHESS, BEROLINA CHESS, SEIRAWAN-MUSKETEER CHESS, SHAKO, ARIIMA, OMEGA CHESS, INFINITE CHESS, 

We then can extend the choice to whatever variant.

I also suggest we share an excel sheet where we can bring changes and create a work group.

A variant has a purpose. A point in inventing it on top of what was already there. That purpose determines that some audiance will feel attracted but another audience will be repelled. I hate paco sako but many other people adore it. It  definitely brought one consistent new idea. The point in FIDE chess is to stick to tradition and opening theory. The point of Fischer Random is to stick to chess but get rid of opening theory. 

Anyways, having no purpose or point at all makes a variant less interesting.

I suggest using the BASE score (all ideas said up until now fit in one of these categories)

Basics (functional rules, equal-ish starting position, demands thought to be played)

Accessibility (a functional site or other means to play it)

Special (the game has a clear vision of how and why it's different from chess)

Entertaining (the new rules add elements of fun)

Good quality of rule description

Availability of physical equipment 

Availability of means to play online

Availability of AI

Within the rules, the players have concrete means to make process towards a goal

Adds something new on top of existing variants 

Complexity of rules is rewarded with elegance and beauty 

Some good points. Although I'm GAAAWAC is the best acronym possible.

Also is availability of an AI (well probably actually a simple program) a good thing or a bad thing? Wouldn't an easily available AI risk to ruin bulldog chess?

I am working on a Lords of the Rings variant. With my current rule set, it is impossible to bring that damn Ring any near to the enemy's camp. So I will have to fix it and not post anything until I am totally happy with my own testplaying. 

Suggestion for a system to classify classification systems

Length (too long is bad)

Outreach (if it covers all the topic at hand)

Letters (if the initials make a word or not and which on it is)

It would look at the average opinion. For instance bulldod chess would get a high score because pieces are chosen by players before the game (and so will be the ones they like to play). Fisher Random would get an average score because it deviates a lot from very little from chess so doesn't add much.   by  Capablanca chess (the initial version of the game) would get a low score because games tend to be quite a bit slower.

FRC: Awfully unimaginative. Is not really a variant, just more of the same. Offends my sense for symmetry.
Capablanca: Very exciting game. Very tactical.
Berolina: Not really an improvement. Where Pawn structure is a very subtle thing in orthodox Chess, and you have concepts like 'passers', the Berolina Pawns can advance along so many paths that they are more like blunt instruments.
Seirawan-Musketeer: Overcrowded board, and pieces are on average too strong. The way of introducing the pieces seems very contrived.
Shako: don't know that one.
Arimaa: Not a chess variant at all, but as far from Chess as you can imagine.
Omega: The design seems to be driven more by the desire that is cannot be played with equipment that is commonly around, than to make a good game. The Wizard squares in the board corners are a really silly idea.
Infinite: Haven't really studied that one, but seems very drawish to me. Board edges and corners are essential for forcing a win with a small advantage.

Note that complexity / difficulty is not as simple as the number of different pieces. Some pieces are intuitively easy to understand, others aren't. Some large Shogi variants have dozens of piece types, but almost all are just Queens (or even Kings) with the moves in some direction missing or of limited range. Handling those doesn't require anything new compared to handling Queens. Of course representation is important here. If the pieces are statues of tigers, elephants, spiders and what have you, or draughts chips with a name written on it in Japanese kanji, sure, than you have to learn a lot to associate them with a move. If their shape implies their move in an obvious way, though, there is nothing to learn, and you can start playing within minutes even with 50 new piece types. Western Chess variants tend to create piece diversity by giving the pieces unique leaps, like (1,3) or (2,3), possibly in various combinations. Unlike the handicapped Queens, such pieces are much more difficult to handle, and require a lot of experience before you understand how you can get them from A to B. Replace the Knights in Chess by Nightriders, and you will have a variant that is quite hard to master.

Do you know about https://www.chessvariants.com/ ?

Your approach has a difficulty.  You want to express all movements of larger Shogi variants in schematic piece representations and still the entire army must fit on one board or in one diagram. The difference between two slightly different almost-queens is very tiny unless you use their kanji. I couldn't play Chu with your pieces unless I go for better glasses. 

However, in 9x9 shogi, I imagine the strong side of little statues over kanji. 

That is actually not true. The shape of the Chu Shogi pieces is very distinct (as the pieces closest to queen are the dragon king and dragon horse, which already have far fewer moves, and the moves have either range 1 or infinite). The kanji require a much higher resolution. Mnemonic symbols would work on a dot matrix of 5x5. At that resolution the kanji would just all be the same black blob.

In the end both systems are recognition by shape.

I find Paco Saco a fascinating variation, but I understand well if someone hates this game. I think paco saco abandons a central principle of classical chess by not hitting chess pieces. Therefore one could ask the question whether it is still chess at all or a completely new and different game. Anyway, I find the chain reactions very exciting and the principle is very innovative.

I feel similar with the Colour Chess, which with the coloured squares leads to a “Zugzwang” and brings a very independent dynamic into the game.

For me, the closest thing to classic chess is the Capablanca Chess, which seems to me like a very natural enlargement to 10x8 and the two additional chess pieces are actually very logical, two additional "Queens", which are missing as a combination (R+N), (B+N) in classic chess.

But also Shako I like very much, we have the classic setup and around everywhere one square more, which is enriched and combined with "Chinese elements", which creates many creative possibilities, but still feels like "chess".

bboopp

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OK, Shako looks nice. What I like about it is that the unorthodox pieces are of intermediate strength, rather than all far above Rook in value. This should make for a more strategic game.

One of the reasons orthodox Chess is such a superb game is the almost perfect distribution of piece values: each next-lower value class (Queen, Rook, minor, Pawn) has approximately half the value, and twice the number of pieces. This makes many two-for-one trades approximately neutral (i.e. preferable over loss of a Pawn), and therefore common. The increasing number of lower-valued pieces ensure that enough of them remain for trading 2:1 with stronger ones after accounting for trading within the group. A consequence of this is that there will be a very large variety in the material imbalances that you will see in actual games.

Many variants lose this property by simply slamming a number of extra Queen-class pieces on the FIDE setup, thus becoming 'top-heavy', with little other to do with the super-pieces than trading them with each other.

But back to Shako: the Chinese Cannon introduces an entire range of new tactical motives, which will initially baffle a normal Chess player. So Shako might be percieved as more exotic than it seems at first glance. For me this is no problem, as I am well acquainted with Chinese Chess.

The Archbishop is indeed a very elegant piece; if I would have had to come up with a name for it, I would have called it a 'Dancer'. As lightfooted the Archbishop is, as clumsy is the Chancellor. 'Elephant', as in Seirawan Chess, is actually an appropriate name for it. (Had it not been that this name was already taken from the very inception of Chess.)

The appreciation of 'gating' mechanism in Seirawan/Musketeer is apparently largely a matter of taste. My taste is just the opposite of yours: I consider the Seirawan flavor, where you can gate any off-board piece on any back-rank square much more elegant than the Musketeer flavor, where you have to designate that in advance. The latter requires extra game state, to be determined through an additional procedure at the start of the game. And the gating choice you have in Seirawan Chess introduces interesting dilemma's between the risk of running out of gating possibilities (effectively losing remaining off-board pieces) and keeping your options open as long as possible, keeping your opponent in the dark. This aspect would be missing even more in a third way often used for introducing off-board pieces, namely dropping those on the back rank as an independent move. I consider that cleaner than gating, but you can never lose the opportunity to do it, removing an interesting aspect from the game.

Note that I am judging this exclusively by the quality of the design (elegance, playability), and that I don't care at all about whether a variant is commercial, is offered on-line, and how many players it has. I am probably non-representative in this respect, because my hobby is not really playing these variants, but writing computer programs that play them, and watch these play against themselves or each other.

I agree that Paco Shako barely qualifies as a Chess variant. It is a very intriguing game, however, and very innovative; there isn't anything remotely like it. That I discounted Aarima as not being a Chess variant should not be taken to mean I consider it a poor game; I must defer judgement on that, as I never played it even once. Paco Shako I gave a great deal of thought, though. What attracts me to it is that it is completely unclear what the intermediate strategic goals should be (and hence how to evaluate positions where checkmate is not foreseeable).

As far as availability of equipment is concerned I am probably also not representative, because I am Dutch. For me a 10x10 board is the most normal thing in the world, everyone has them. You 'always' find them on the back side of your 8x8 Chess board (although most people would probably insist that that Chess board is the back side...) International Draughts is at least as popular here as Chess. Capablanca Chess and its sub-variants (Gothic Chess etc.) can be played by covering 2 ranks of a 10x10 board with a sheet of paper. For Omega Chess you can simply start the Wizards next to the corners; after they develop you typically don't want to go to these squares anymore. Those who insist on a visual reminder can simply cut out 4 card-board squares and put those next to the corners.

A few extra Pawns also is no problem; I have more than one Chess sets. You don't have to be that creative to make a few extra piece types; the upside-down Rook is a classic, and putting Bishop or Rook on a Draughts Chip makes excellent Chancellors and Archbishops; the appearence would not conflict with the move, you just have to learn to imagine the Knight moves they have in addition in response to the Draughts chip.

It is rather hard to find universal criteria for this, because so much depends on taste. What attracts one person can easily repel another.

What I consider good traits are simplicity of rules (no rules that serve no purpose or hardly have any effect), the right amount of complexity of the game tree (about similar to Chess, neither far more complex nor far simpler), a good distribution of the value of the pieces, which encourages many different ways to trade them for each other, a good pace of the action (no long phases where virtually nothing happens), clarity (moves and their immediate consequences straightforward to see, e.g. no 'riders' that repeat a jumping move, for which it is rather hard to see whether they are blocked or not, pieces with fixed move patterns rather than moves that change per location or per turn). Even chances and a low draw probability between equally strong players. It must not take too long to finish a game, which usually means the game should not be too large. (Or the pieces must be very violent.) No 'clumsiness', in the sense that it should not be very difficult or tedious to achieve something simple, such as developing your pieces to a location that is not extremely poor for them. (in other words, it must be a battle against the opponent's wits, rather than a puzzle you are solving on your own.)