On Mar 22, 8:12 am, Nick Wedd <n...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> In message
> <5efd3a61-60a0-487b-a4ed-e6da8d6a0...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> "markste...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
" <markste...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes
>
> >It's not hard to create a version of Chess without so many draws at
> >the top level. You could use a 10x10 board for example and add a few
> >more pieces. The game tree would be much more complex, perfect play
> >would be much more difficult to approximate, and the draw rate would
> >be dramatically reduced.
>
> Would you need to go that far? Couldn't you just rule that stalemate
> was a loss for the stalemated player? That would make a lot of K+P/K
> endgames into wins for the player with the pawn.
The difficulty that the larger board solution runs into, and why the
Capablanca school runs into, is that there aren't a lot available.
When I have discussed the Seirawan version of chess, which uses gating
(some chess variants have used this) to get pieces on the board, the
complaints were the balances wasn't right, gating is new, etc... It
is a way to add new pieces, without changing the basic layout of
chess. In addition, what gating does is make a non-fixed opening,
which is much more dynamic.
What you suggest with the stalemate issue is part of the solution, but
still stalemate is more of a mess up on the part of the player with
the advantage, than something that common. A draw really needs to
score differently.
You can work scoring as in baring the king is worth one point, a
checkmate is worth 2 points, and a draw is worth 1/2 point to one
side, and not worth anything to the other.
Anyhow, even if people do all this, and introduce everything and then
decide they want to permanently codify the rules, the game will, say a
century later, still run into the same issues as it has it has now.
This is that the game is fixed, and people wear it out. A version of
chess that won't run out of steam has to keep changing itself over
time.
- Rich
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