Re: The Future of Chess and Getting It "Unstuck"

On Apr 3, 3:02=A0pm, richardhut...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:

> Chess960 is building a following, but as far as I know, it isn't
> integrated into the chess community. =A0Why would Chess960 pick up a
> following if there wasn't something there that regular chess isn't
> providing?

Glinski's hexagonal Chess has a following. For that matter, so does
Go, and Checkers, and Monopoly, and even football!

Regular chess is not all things to all people. It doesn't provide
cheerleaders!

So there may be many things that regular chess doesn't provide. The
right question to ask, therefore, has two parts:

Is Chess today failing to provide things that people who like Chess
expect from it that it formerly provided, and

Are other factors dimini****ng the number of people who are interested
in Chess?

If people are spending more time watching TV, playing video games, or
surfing the Web, and this is the major factor, then changes to the
rules of Chess won't help enough.

Chess players will play to win, so one can't expect them to forego
safe, defensive play if that is what is advantageous. The changes from
the Romantic era to the Modern and Hypermodern eras resulted not from
rules-specific advances in opening theory, but from a more general
improvement in understanding of the game.

John Savard