Talk:List of chess variants

Revision Proposals

Feel free to discuss. No hurry.

Dotyoyo (talk) 20:49, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Some generally good proposals. I've added some comments but feel free to be BOLD and make edits - you don't need permission!

If we're talking overhauling the list, I think another aspect to consider is what is the inclusion criteria? IMO there are too many articles on chess variants, and too many entries in the list. Some of these variants are really quite trivial with little to no evidence of any substantial play. It's frankly easier to invent a chess variant than it is to convince other people to play it. The existance of The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants means that there is at least one decent source confirming rules for around two thousand variants, but this is too many for either list entries or article presence (although this and the user-contributed The Chess Variant Pages have been used to prop-up a lot of pages). There are WP:INDISCRIMINATE arguments here. LukeSurl ^t c 10:49, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback.

I'd say I'm being somewhat bold in the scope of my proposed structural changes, but I wanted to provide an opportunity for feedback.

I don't have a good sense of how much the different variants are actually played, but there are certainly some in this article that seem far less notable than others. You could add your own proposal here for what categories of variants should be included---based on the likely goals of several categories of users---and set out to either remove those that that don't conform. As an off-the-cuff first draft, I'd say those categories of valued variants could be something like:

• Educational (e.g., small, simplified variants)
• Historical (e.g., ancient, Kriegspiel, or proposed by a GM)
• Popular (how to gauge this?)
• Novel contributions (e.g., 5D, AI-related, Infinite Chess, Quantum Chess)

Although I'm currently focused more on the structure of the page, I've just added the Citation Needed tag to these variants:

• Poisoned Pawn Chess (Personal self-published idea?)
• Schrödinger's Chess (Personal self-published idea?)
• Stalemate-win chess (Doesn't seem to be notable as a chess variant)
• Thrones chess (Current citation is a dead link)
• WeGo Chess (Trivial modification of Synchronous Chess)

Dotyoyo (talk) 07:24, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

• Issue: Synonymous adjectives.
  • The article mentions "standard", "traditional", and "(un)orthodox" pieces. Different synonyms are used, without any explanation of a difference between them.
  • Same for "standard" and "(un)orthodox" board.
  • Tradition gave rise to the standard, but since there is now a (FIDE) standard, the term "standard" seems like the best choice.
• Proposal:
  • Replace "traditional" and "orthodox" throughout the article with "standard".
  • Replace "nontraditional" and "unorthodox" with "non-standard".
  • Leave "Variant" in the TOC headings, and in the body of the text where appropriate.

Dotyoyo (talk) 20:49, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

• Agree, standardisation is good. "Standard" is probably the best word, but I could be persuaded otherwise. --LukeSurl ^t c 10:25, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and made these changes.

Dotyoyo (talk) 07:37, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

• Issue: Closed variant groups. Some items on the list represent groups of specific variants, rather than individual variants.
  • Decimal Chess ("usually add extra pieces", "Some decimal chesses")
  • Polgar reform chess ("László Polgár proposed several variants")
  • Displacement chess ("Some examples of this")
  • Portal Chess ("Any number of games")
  • Poisoned Pawn Chess ("An optional rule exists")
  • Grasshopper chess ("[...] or [...]")
  • Business chess ("but allowing up to five variations of the game")
• Proposal: Add an asterisk after the name of each of these polymorphic variants, with an introductory comment explaining that the asterisks below signify that each item represents multiple specific variants.

Dotyoyo (talk) 20:54, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Tags added.

Dotyoyo (talk) 05:57, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

• Issue: Open variant groups. The following represent non-specific families of variants, rather than specific variants.
  • Hexagonal chess ("A family of variants")
  • Minichess ("A family of variants")
  • Three-player chess ("A family of variants")
• Proposal: Delete these. The fact that there are hexagonal forms of chess, boards with few spaces, and 3-player versions of chess doesn't seem to be worth calling out here, unless: (a) a lists of variants is added under the heading, (b) a link to a main article covering the category is added under the heading.

Dotyoyo (talk) 21:01, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

These families should be linked to from the list, as they represent singificant amounts of the world of variants that exist (and the writing about these on this encylopedia), but could perhaps be listed in a way that is clearly distinct from individual variants. LukeSurl ^t c 10:52, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

• Issue: Misclassification of certain variants in the current TOC.
  • Grid chess, which requires that pieces cross grid lines whenever they move, is listed under "Standard rules".
  • Proposal: Move variant to the heading "Variant rules and standard piece types".

• • Endgame chess, which has the same setup for each side, is listed under "Different number of pieces".
  • Proposal: Move variant to the heading "Different starting position".

• • Really Bad Chess, in which each player has the same number of pieces, is listed under "Different number of pieces".
  • Proposal: Change the name of the heading to "Different distributions of pieces".

Dotyoyo (talk) 21:12, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

These seem like good edits. Wikipedia:Be bold. LukeSurl ^t c 10:36, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Just made these changes.

Dotyoyo (talk) 06:17, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

• Issue: Games that stretch the notion of chess variant.
  • The variant "Play It By Trust", by Yoko Ono, in which the pieces of both players share the same colour.
  • The variant "Penultima" is a game of inductive logic, to determine the rules of the game.
• Proposal: Move both of these to under the heading "Games inspired by chess". Or delete one or both if they're not considered notable under WP:N.

Dotyoyo (talk) 21:16, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

"Play it by Trust" is clearly an artwork rather than an actual variant, delete it. I do think Penultima "counts" as a variant, though it is difficult to classify. LukeSurl ^t c 10:28, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

• I've moved Penultima from the section on variants with "Chance and incomplete information" to the section on "Games inspired by chess".
• I was mistaken about the variant "Play It By Trust": it was removed years ago. I was looking at an old revision of the page.

Dotyoyo (talk) 07:45, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

• Issue: The TOC has convoluted headings.
  • Some example of convoluted headings:
    • (a) "Standard rules, standard piece types, variant board". This hides what is varying---the board---and highlights what is not varying.
    • (b) "Variant rules, variant set of standard piece types, variant board". The progression Variant -> variant -> standard -> variant seems like an application of camoflauge!
  • Also, heading 1.3 ("Variant (fairy) pieces") has no variants or even text before its only sub-heading, so it can be merged with that sub-heading, 1.3.1 ("Variant rules, pieces and board").
• Proposal: Since this is a list of variants, make what is varying stand out. Put what is not varying in parentheses.

        1       Contemporary chess variants
        1.1       Variant starting position or board
        1.1.1       Variant board (standard rules and piece types)
        1.1.2       Variant starting position (standard rules and piece types)
        1.1.2.1       Variant piece distributions  (standard rules and piece types)
        1.2       Variant rules and piece types
        1.2.1       Variant rules, armies, and board (standard piece types)
        1.2.2       Variant rules (standard piece types, armies, board)
        1.2.2.1       Variant move counts
        1.2.2.2       Variants with incomplete information or use of chance
        1.3       Variant piece types (i.e., fairy pieces), rules, pieces, and board
        1.4       Variant movement in higher dimensions
        1.4.1       Variant piece types (standard board)
        1.4.1.1       Variant piece types (Empress, Amazon, Princess)
        1.4.1.2       Variant piece types (other)
        1.5       Variant player count (single-player)
        1.6       Variant player count (3+ players)
        2       Games inspired by chess

Dotyoyo (talk) 21:22, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

I went ahead and made these changes, correcting 1.2 to read "Variant rules (standard piece types)", and correcting 1.3 to read "Variant piece types (i.e., fairy pieces), rules, and board".

I also changed 1.2.2.2 to use the phrase "hidden information" (following Pritchard) instead of "incomplete information".

Dotyoyo (talk) 06:49, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

• Issue: Poor discoverability of chess variants. The current classification has limited helpfulness for someone browsing variants with specific interests. For example, someone looking for games played on a hexagonal grid, or games with rules that affect how pieces moved, would need to search through all headings mentioning variant boards or variant rules.
• Proposal A: Add a table---perhaps on a different page or on a new page---to help readers find variants with collections of attributes they might search for. The rows could be specific variants, and the columns could list specific chess variant attributes. Here is a preliminary version, to convey the idea.

Chess variant attributes

Variant	Board is ...						Layout			Fairy	Variant	Variant	Player	Imperfect	Random-
Name	8x8	Non-8x8 Rect	Hex	Tri	3D+	Other	Fixed	Chosen	Random	pieces	movement	ending	count	information	ness
Standard (FIDE) chess	Y	N	N	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	N	N	2	N	N
Chess960	Y	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	2	N	Y
Gliński's hexagonal chess	N	N	Y	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	Y	N	2	N	N
...

• Proposal B. Make the TOC more granular in order to improve discoverability of interesting variants, relative to general interests.
  • Note: Variants here are roughly ordered from those that have modified casually changed attributes (e.g., initial layouts, fairy pieces) to those that are less casually changed (e.g., end-game rules, board geometries). If a variant modifies multiple attributes, it is grouped together with the least-casually-modified category. For example, if a variant called Chevabor is played on 5 boards and uses fairy pieces, it would go into a variant-board-category, rather than a fairy-pieces-category. If appropriate, a "forward-reference" could be added to a fairy-pieces-category saying "For the Chevabor variant, see ...".
  • Note: This will cause the headings to stray from the taxonomy reflected in the Wikipedia categories in the chess variants template near the bottom of the page. That's OK. If it is later decided that a future categorization in this page is better suited to conveying the landscape of variants, then the template could be edited to match.

        1       Contemporary variants
        1.1       Variant initial piece layouts (standard piece types)
        1.1.1       Fixed layout (8x8 board)
        1.1.2       Fixed layout (non-standard rectangular board)
        1.1.3       Player-selected layout (8x8 board)
        1.1.4       Player-selected layout (non-standard rectangular board)
        1.1.5       Randomly-placed layout (8x8 board)
        1.1.6       Randomly-placed layout (non-standard rectangular board)
        1.2       Variant piece types (i.e., fairy pieces) (rectangular boards)
        1.3       Variants with unequal armies (rectangular boards)
        1.4       Variant rules (rectangular boards)
        1.4.1       Variant movement rules
        1.4.2       Variant game end conditions
        1.5       Variant boards (non-rectangular) and player counts
        1.5.1       Hexagonal cell boards (2 players)
        1.5.2       Hexagonal cell boards (3+ players)
        1.5.3       Triangular cell boards (2 players)
        1.5.4       Triangular cell boards (3+ players)
        1.5.5       Other 2D boards (2 players)
        1.5.6       Other 2D boards (3+ players)
        1.5.7       Higher-dimensional boards (any number of players)
        1.5.8       Multiple boards (any number of players)
        1.5.9       Other board types (any number of players)
        1.6       Variants with incomplete information and/or use of chance
        2       Games inspired by chess

Dotyoyo (talk) 22:08, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Chess variants won't all fit neatly into any classification system, there will be so many edge-cases, games fitting multiple categories, bizarre sui generis aspects and uncertainties that I think a table would get unweildy very quickly. A highly-granular TOC would be a bit more plausible, but even then I think the task is too complicated. Discoverability as described would be nice, but it is not the only concern with this list. LukeSurl ^t c 10:35, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

FWIW, The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants (2nd ed, 2007) has an appendix on Taxonomy on p. 360. I like the opening disclaimer: "A number of attempts going back to at least 1908 (Maack), none wholly successful, have been made to classify chess variants.".

Also, following greenchess.net, but with slightly different terminology, the set of rectangular boards can be subdivided into:

• 8x8 (files = 8, ranks = 8)
• Small (files < 8, ranks < 8)
• Large (files > 8, ranks > 8)
• Narrow (files < 8, ranks = 8)
• Wide (files > 8, ranks = 8)
• Short (files = 8, ranks < 8)
• Long (files = 8, ranks > 8)

It would be nice to have single-word terms for (a) narrow & long (files < 8, ranks > 8) and (b) wide & short (files > 8, ranks < 8), assuming there are variant boards that fit into these categories. Or these two could be grouped into "Other".

Dotyoyo (talk) 08:40, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

I've modified the categorization of variants. Here is the current outline under section 1.

   1    Contemporary chess variants
     1.1    Variant starting position (rectangular board, standard piece types and rules)
       1.1.1    Fixed positions
       1.1.2    Player-chosen positions
       1.1.3    Random positions
     1.2    Different armies (standard piece types and rules)
     1.3    Variants with fairy chess pieces
       1.3.1    Variants with fairy piece on a standard board
       1.3.2    Variants with with popular fairy pieces: Empress, Amazon, Princess
       1.3.3    Other variants with fairy pieces
     1.4    Variant rules
       1.4.1    Variant move counts
       1.4.2    Other variant midgame rules
       1.4.3    Variant end-of-game rules
     1.5    Variant boards (2-player, non-rectangular)
       1.5.1    Hexagonal spaces
       1.5.2    Triangular spaces
       1.5.3    Other 2D layouts
       1.5.4    Higher dimensional boards  
       1.5.5    Multiple boards
     1.6    Variant player count
       1.6.1    Single-player
       1.6.2    Three or more players
     1.7    Variants with hidden information or use of chance

EDIT: Edited a few minutes later to reflect section name changes.

Dotyoyo (talk) 02:38, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Entry Suggestion

King of the Bridge is a “bizarre” chess variant with “cursed” rules, available on the Steam store here.

Should it be added? OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 19:20, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

“[citation needed]” is written where a proper citation is already provided

Several times in this article, “[citation needed]” is written where a citation is provided. For example, in the Hippodrome section, there is a citation, but “[citation needed]” is still written. The “[citation needed]” states, “‘The Chess Variant Pages’ is a user-contributed source, thus not demonstrating notability”; however, the website linked, chessvariants.com/solitare.dir/hippodrome.html, is an article on The Chess Variant Pages written by Andy Lewicki (the creator of Hippodrome). The site even states, “This page is written by the game’s inventor, Andy Lewicki.” Bobbingbob (talk) 20:06, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Notability is a foundational principle of Wikipedia, and a minimal standard for what gets included. Self-promotional material is not considered notable. Without a notable source, it's likely that the entry will eventually be deleted. Dotyoyo (talk) 02:30, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

FYI - I've just removed a few variants that were tagged with citation needed over a year ago. Dotyoyo (talk) 01:49, 14 July 2024 (UTC)