I spoke with you at some length about the chess server you were modifying on FICS without having any idea how famous you were. I assumed you were just a random codemonkey in a sea of samba coders. Hehe.
Anyway, you're a good guy with people skills to match your coding skills, which is a rare thing in programmers. I'm happy to see you won this award.
There is already a sequel to Fladland called Sphereland. It was published 60 years after Flatland by a different author. Often the books are bundled together.
It is ridiculous to suggest that because something is old it is better than other things which are newer. The fact that modern chess evolved over many, many years shows that many "variants" have over time merged with normal chess. The only reason chess is evolving slower now than it did before is that the rules of chess are written down a lot of places and chess organizations have been setup, which make the rules into dogma and stagnate the evolution. Were these two things absent, chess would still be evolving as it did before. So this slow-down in evolution is not indicative of chess reaching some peak perfect state, but rather of the barriers man has constrained the idea of chess to.
Yes, variations were invented for entertainment value. So was chess! That's the point of the game: entertainment. So if variants are more entertaining than chess, what makes chess so superior to these variants that you would dismiss them without even giving them a thought? Do you think chess is somehow more advanced: a science or an art? The strategy in many variants is much more complex than chess, the moves are more beautiful and precise. Variants help your chess... most Bughouse, Crazyhouse, Suicide, and Wild 5 players I know saw their chess game improve significantly because of tactics and strategy they picked up while playing these variants... but to say that because something helps you learn it is only a teaching aid and nothing in its own right is preposterous. Bughouse, Lightning, and so forth are real games in themselves. I know many people who go to USCF tournaments only to play skittles Bughouse, Blitz, and Lightning in the back rooms... they are games in and of themselves. On the internet you see many people who have played from 30,000 to 100,000 Lightning games online... this is far more games than any person in existence ever played of Standard chess. Do you honestly think any GM has played 100,000 long games of chess in his lifetime?
The AISE and BCVS are national chess variant organizations that play rated chess variants like Progressive and Losing Chess. People take these games very seriously. Go online on chess servers like FICS and MEWIS and USCL and ICC, and look around. You will see lots of people playing variants, and you will see cultures built around these variants. There are people who base their lives around Bughouse, Suicide, Wild 5, etc., just as some people base their lives around chess.
I dare you to walk into a room full of Lightning players or Bughouse players and tell them what they are playing isn't a real game--tell them they are masturbating. You thinking chess is a real game and variants aren't is the equivalent of white people telling African Americans that they aren't real people... it is both moronic and offensive.
There have been many, many, many variations on chess created in the last century; the reason you've never heard of them is that chess players view them as a curiosity and distraction, but not as anything useful.
No, the reason you've never heard about them is you haven't been listening. First of all, chess itself is a variant. Likely the original "chess" was what we now call Chaturanga, which dates back to 7th century India. This evolved, as variants continually cropped and died out, but occasionally replaced chess itself. Soon Chaturanga became Shatranj, and so on. Rules were changed or added, one by one. Pawns became able to move two spaces instead of one on their first move. En passant was introduced. Castling began as well. The Indian pieces were replaced with European medieval figure representations. And so forth.
But it doesn't stop at historical variants... there are literally thousands of chess variants played regularly around the world. You can find many in the wonderful book The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants or on The Chess Variant Pages. Many variants can be played online at chess servers like The Free Internet Chess Server (telnet freechess.org 5000), The Middle East Wild Internet Server (telnet chess.mds.mdh.se 5555), The Internet Chess Club, etc.
Chess Variants I have played and enjoy:
Standard, Blitz, Lightning, Quantum, Hourglass, Bughouse, 3 Board Bughouse, 4 Board Bughouse, 5 Board Bughouse, Aerial Bughouse, Crazyhouse, Suicide, Atomic, Wild 5, Wild 10, Kriegspiel, Progressive, Magnetic, Fairy Tale, Alice, Fischer Random, Random, Thai, Shogi, Xiangqi, 3 Player Chess, 4 Player Chess, Cylindrical, Infinite, Capablanca's, Mutation, Absorption, Inverse Capture, Rifle, Kamikaze, Extinction, Take-All, Rotation, Marseillais, Stealth, Hostage, Insane, Ultima and Command.
Many of these variants were created by world class chess players to add another dimension to the game. For example, Fischer Random was invented by Bobby Fischer to eliminate opennings from the game. Capablanca created Capablanca's Chess. The list goes on and on.
My all time favorite chess variant is bughouse, wherein you have two boards side by side and a partner who plays the opposite color from you... you pass your partner the pieces you capture and he does likewise, then as your move you may place one of these pieces on the board instead of playing a normal move with the pieces already on the board. It is a very social game and is much more fun than chess itself.
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Congratulations, Tridge!
I spoke with you at some length about the chess server you were modifying on FICS without having any idea how famous you were. I assumed you were just a random codemonkey in a sea of samba coders. Hehe.
Anyway, you're a good guy with people skills to match your coding skills, which is a rare thing in programmers. I'm happy to see you won this award.
There is already a sequel to Fladland called Sphereland. It was published 60 years after Flatland by a different author. Often the books are bundled together.
It is ridiculous to suggest that because something is old it is better than other things which are newer. The fact that modern chess evolved over many, many years shows that many "variants" have over time merged with normal chess. The only reason chess is evolving slower now than it did before is that the rules of chess are written down a lot of places and chess organizations have been setup, which make the rules into dogma and stagnate the evolution. Were these two things absent, chess would still be evolving as it did before. So this slow-down in evolution is not indicative of chess reaching some peak perfect state, but rather of the barriers man has constrained the idea of chess to.
Yes, variations were invented for entertainment value. So was chess! That's the point of the game: entertainment. So if variants are more entertaining than chess, what makes chess so superior to these variants that you would dismiss them without even giving them a thought? Do you think chess is somehow more advanced: a science or an art? The strategy in many variants is much more complex than chess, the moves are more beautiful and precise. Variants help your chess... most Bughouse, Crazyhouse, Suicide, and Wild 5 players I know saw their chess game improve significantly because of tactics and strategy they picked up while playing these variants... but to say that because something helps you learn it is only a teaching aid and nothing in its own right is preposterous. Bughouse, Lightning, and so forth are real games in themselves. I know many people who go to USCF tournaments only to play skittles Bughouse, Blitz, and Lightning in the back rooms... they are games in and of themselves. On the internet you see many people who have played from 30,000 to 100,000 Lightning games online... this is far more games than any person in existence ever played of Standard chess. Do you honestly think any GM has played 100,000 long games of chess in his lifetime?
The AISE and BCVS are national chess variant organizations that play rated chess variants like Progressive and Losing Chess. People take these games very seriously. Go online on chess servers like FICS and MEWIS and USCL and ICC, and look around. You will see lots of people playing variants, and you will see cultures built around these variants. There are people who base their lives around Bughouse, Suicide, Wild 5, etc., just as some people base their lives around chess.
I dare you to walk into a room full of Lightning players or Bughouse players and tell them what they are playing isn't a real game--tell them they are masturbating. You thinking chess is a real game and variants aren't is the equivalent of white people telling African Americans that they aren't real people... it is both moronic and offensive.
There have been many, many, many variations on chess created in the last century; the reason you've never heard of them is that chess players view them as a curiosity and distraction, but not as anything useful.
No, the reason you've never heard about them is you haven't been listening. First of all, chess itself is a variant. Likely the original "chess" was what we now call Chaturanga, which dates back to 7th century India. This evolved, as variants continually cropped and died out, but occasionally replaced chess itself. Soon Chaturanga became Shatranj, and so on. Rules were changed or added, one by one. Pawns became able to move two spaces instead of one on their first move. En passant was introduced. Castling began as well. The Indian pieces were replaced with European medieval figure representations. And so forth.
But it doesn't stop at historical variants... there are literally thousands of chess variants played regularly around the world. You can find many in the wonderful book The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants or on The Chess Variant Pages. Many variants can be played online at chess servers like The Free Internet Chess Server (telnet freechess.org 5000), The Middle East Wild Internet Server (telnet chess.mds.mdh.se 5555), The Internet Chess Club, etc.
Chess Variants I have played and enjoy:
Standard, Blitz, Lightning, Quantum, Hourglass, Bughouse, 3 Board Bughouse, 4 Board Bughouse, 5 Board Bughouse, Aerial Bughouse, Crazyhouse, Suicide, Atomic, Wild 5, Wild 10, Kriegspiel, Progressive, Magnetic, Fairy Tale, Alice, Fischer Random, Random, Thai, Shogi, Xiangqi, 3 Player Chess, 4 Player Chess, Cylindrical, Infinite, Capablanca's, Mutation, Absorption, Inverse Capture, Rifle, Kamikaze, Extinction, Take-All, Rotation, Marseillais, Stealth, Hostage, Insane, Ultima and Command.
Many of these variants were created by world class chess players to add another dimension to the game. For example, Fischer Random was invented by Bobby Fischer to eliminate opennings from the game. Capablanca created Capablanca's Chess. The list goes on and on.
My all time favorite chess variant is bughouse, wherein you have two boards side by side and a partner who plays the opposite color from you... you pass your partner the pieces you capture and he does likewise, then as your move you may place one of these pieces on the board instead of playing a normal move with the pieces already on the board. It is a very social game and is much more fun than chess itself.
Check out my webpage for more information on variants, chess servers, and other chess stuff: http://www.cs.rit.edu/~cem9314/chess/.