Rustam Kasimdzhanov proposal

[Uri Blass]

Not that if you need no draws for the game to survive then you can expect football not to survive unless we change the rules.

For some reason football seems to be the most popular sport inspite of draws and basketball when there are no draws is clearly less popular.

[Don]

Not that if you need no draws for the game to survive then you can expect football not to survive unless we change the rules.

For some reason football seems to be the most popular sport inspite of draws and basketball when there are no draws is clearly less popular.

The problem isn't the draws, it's the fact that you don't even have to fight for a draw in chess in many cases. Can you imagine what football would be like if both teams could just decide they didn't feel like playing and so they agree to take a draw? Would you defend that sort of draw?

[Albert Silver]

Not that if you need no draws for the game to survive then you can expect football not to survive unless we change the rules.

For some reason football seems to be the most popular sport inspite of draws and basketball when there are no draws is clearly less popular.

The problem isn't the draws, it's the fact that you don't even have to fight for a draw in chess in many cases. Can you imagine what football would be like if both teams could just decide they didn't feel like playing and so they agree to take a draw? Would you defend that sort of draw?

FWIW, many sports have undergone changes to make the experience more dynamic. Chess changed the rule of the bishop so it would cross the entire board, but football (soccer) changed the rules, basketball changed their rules, and most recently table tennis (size of ball and length of sets).

That said it is very complicated to change the rules of chess. If you like rapid chess, there are already tons of tournaments, and as you may know, the world rapid and blitz championship is currently underway live. The official site has fantastic video coverage with live commentary in English. As to actually following multiple games at once, the Playchess interface is best IMHO, due to its ability to tile multiple boards.

BTW, want to know my favorite form of chess outside classical chess? It is a wilder form of Chess960. At the site of owl21.com they have a variant called Random chess. The disposition of the pieces is asymmetrical, meaning the Black's queen is not necessarily in front of White's, and yes, you can get two bishops on the same square. It does mean you can be compromised from the get go, but it does create some extremely unpredictable and fun games. En passant and pawn promotion do work as usual.

[Don]

Not that if you need no draws for the game to survive then you can expect football not to survive unless we change the rules.

For some reason football seems to be the most popular sport inspite of draws and basketball when there are no draws is clearly less popular.

The problem isn't the draws, it's the fact that you don't even have to fight for a draw in chess in many cases. Can you imagine what football would be like if both teams could just decide they didn't feel like playing and so they agree to take a draw? Would you defend that sort of draw?

FWIW, many sports have undergone changes to make the experience more dynamic. Chess changed the rule of the bishop so it would cross the entire board, but football (soccer) changed the rules, basketball changed their rules, and most recently table tennis (size of ball and length of sets).

That said it is very complicated to change the rules of chess. If you like rapid chess, there are already tons of tournaments, and as you may know, the world rapid and blitz championship is currently underway live. The official site has fantastic video coverage with live commentary in English. As to actually following multiple games at once, the Playchess interface is best IMHO, due to its ability to tile multiple boards.

BTW, want to know my favorite form of chess outside classical chess? It is a wilder form of Chess960. At the site of owl21.com they have a variant called Random chess. The disposition of the pieces is asymmetrical, meaning the Black's queen is not necessarily in front of White's, and yes, you can get two bishops on the same square. It does mean you can be compromised from the get go, but it does create some extremely unpredictable and fun games. En passant and pawn promotion do work as usual.

There are a couple of possible changes one can make to games like tennis or even table tennis. For example in tennis the women often play 2 out of 3 sets while the men will play 3 out of 5. Also, we have the tie break system but at Wimbledon the 5th set does not use tie-break. I don't consider those fundamental changes. You could change the number of games in a set too but it doesn't change the game that much. I consider these format changes but not fundamental changes and usually these can enhance the game considerable in the eyes of the spectator and players too. For sports you can have equipment changes, what is allowed and what is not and as in table tennis the game was sped up with faster balls and such.

So I was just imagining changes to chess which doesn't change it fundamentally. There are an infinite number of variation of chess that could be fun, but we don't want to change the game itself fundamentally. What you might get is an interesting or even more interesting game but it's a different game.

Chess has even recently had changes in draw rules. Those might be considered fundamental changes but in practice they are not fundamental enough to matter, the top players would still be top players.

Probably the biggest problem in chess is the draw agreement and I was seeking rules which made competitions more dynamic without fundamentally changing the rules.

[Uri Blass]

I think that the top players are going to be the top players also in all the different type of chess that people suggested here including random chess.

random chess and normal chess are basically the same type of sport
if the pieces move in the same way as they move on chess and the board is 8*8 board.

Of course some people may be better in one of them but I think that
the difference is going to be similiar to the small difference that we have in tennis.

[Uri Blass]

I think that preventing short draw agreement is something that is easy to solve.

if the target is not to prevent draws after a real game then you can make the following rules:

1)White lose in case that there is a draw in less than 60 moves.

It is going to prevent people to make a short draw by repetition and is not going to change the opening theory because lines when white allow black to force repetition early are not line that chess players consider as good for white.

2)players are not allowed to offer a draw in the first 2 hours of the game(this is against players who decide to play some accepted long game fast in order to get a draw).

Of course players can also agree before the game about time that they use in the game and not only about moves but they are not going to save a significant time by it.

[Don]

I think that the top players are going to be the top players also in all the different type of chess that people suggested here including random chess.

random chess and normal chess are basically the same type of sport
if the pieces move in the same way as they move on chess and the board is 8*8 board.

Of course some people may be better in one of them but I think that
the difference is going to be similiar to the small difference that we have in tennis.

Maybe, but I think the difference is more than would be different time controls for example. Note that GM's devote most of their time studying opening systems and becoming specialists in certain ones.

[Uri Blass]

I think that the top players are going to be the top players also in all the different type of chess that people suggested here including random chess.

random chess and normal chess are basically the same type of sport
if the pieces move in the same way as they move on chess and the board is 8*8 board.

Of course some people may be better in one of them but I think that
the difference is going to be similiar to the small difference that we have in tennis.

Maybe, but I think the difference is more than would be different time controls for example. Note that GM's devote most of their time studying opening systems and becoming specialists in certain ones.

GM's devote most of their time to learn opening system
because they simply at a level when it is harder for them to improve other aspects of their game.

Their main advantage relative to weak players is not in opening.
They could probably be 50-100 elo weaker without spending much time on learning opening systems but they simply cannot improve more by trying to learn other things.

[Albert Silver]

For sports you can have equipment changes, what is allowed and what is not and as in table tennis the game was sped up with faster balls and such.

Actually, it is just the opposite: the balls are slower. The old format had sets of 21 points with each player serving five times. Now the sets are 11 points with each player serving twice. The ball is larger, creating greater drag and slowing it down. The game had few long exchanges at the highest level due to the extreme speed. Now monster rallies are not rare.

Here is a video of:

One of the greatest recorded rallies of all time.

Waldner is one the greatest players of all-time, the Capablanca of table tennis.

[Don]

For sports you can have equipment changes, what is allowed and what is not and as in table tennis the game was sped up with faster balls and such.

Actually, it is just the opposite: the balls are slower.

I don't know much about table tennis. But I was told by a local tournament player that the game had been sped up a lot in recent years and that included ball and paddle changes. But that was probably close to 30 years ago. Are the change you are talking about more recent? I confess this is not something I know much about.

I am not a big fan of speeding up games just for the sake of speeding them up. I know that tennis is much faster and more aggressive than it used to be many years ago because of faster surfaces and high technology raquets and such. In fact I MUCH prefer long rallies in tennis as opposed to 4 aces in a row, game over. When the really big servers came along with the shorter points there was talk of changing something, such as requiring servers to stand back a little more or only allowing one serve. The one serve idea seems a lot more logical to me, it seems silly to build an error like a first serve fault into the rules but I'm sure that would not be a popular proposal. How about making the first return not count if it goes out? Or how about letting the golfer have a second shot at his drive if he doesn't like the first one?

The old format had sets of 21 points with each player serving five times. Now the sets are 11 points with each player serving twice. The ball is larger, creating greater drag and slowing it down. The game had few long exchanges at the highest level due to the extreme speed. Now monster rallies are not rare.

I am used to the 5x thing. Does this work like tennis tie-breaks where the first time you only get one serve to avoid the first serve advantage? Or is it always 2 serves even the first one?

I have seen many table tennis video's, I'm surprised it's not more popular because it is more fun to watch than any other sport I know of.

Here is a video of:

One of the greatest recorded rallies of all time.

Waldner is one the greatest players of all-time, the Capablanca of table tennis.