If I invented a perfect drawless chess variant, how much is it worth?

Discussion of anything and everything relating to chess playing software and machines.

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jefk
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Full name: Jef Kaan

Re: If I invented a perfect drawless chess variant, how much is it worth?

Post by jefk »

yep, the kid(? (*)) didn't listen (eg to my earlier well meant advise), reminds me
a bit of of the lazysmp affiar. this is forum about computer chess, that said, i don't
know if there would be a suitable forum for chess business (ideas/proposals).
rec.games.chess.politics maybe (lol)
:?

(*) again, as i'm in principle don't want to be mean rude harsh or negative (yet
sometimes a bit rationalcritical anyway), mr chessisgreat: you may *think* yourself that
your idea (a new 'chessisgreat'chess rule ?) is awesome, but other people in the chess
world may think otherwise; and from your postings it doesn't appear you even asked
other (serious) chess players about *their* opinion (before launching you posting here).

Nb obviously Ras can't monitor all postings, so i should have reported it
(then he said he a 'little' (earnings) would be enough). ah well,
we (or those who did'nt like the thread) can report it now, cant we ?

PS i wrote
You can buy the idea (*) for only two million and then name it as you like
which is not much of course (for my awesome idea, which also is ofcourse much
better than Chess960/FRC (or even Chess324) because here also opening theory
isn't applicable anymore, but still the games resemble much more conventional
chess (compared to the wild and ugly chess960 setups/gameplay). And now
that i'm thinking of it again , i'll maybe going to rename it to 'Equal chess'
(aka Fairchess), but then i would be happy with 'only a little'... :wink:
:mrgreen:
DomL77
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Re: If I invented a perfect drawless chess variant, how much is it worth?

Post by DomL77 »

I like Larry Kaufman's idea of awarding 0.50 points for the player who forces a stalemate or 3 fold repetition.
Uri Blass
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Re: If I invented a perfect drawless chess variant, how much is it worth?

Post by Uri Blass »

chrisw wrote: Sun Jul 27, 2025 3:48 pm This thread should be deleted under the flagrant commercial exhortations rule. It’s commercial because he wants money from somebody for his unknown idea. It’s flagrant because he keeps on and on with the same commercial exhortations.
I do not consider it as commercial because I believe nobody is going to pay for his unknown idea.


I am in the opposite direction and I want to pay money for a programmer to implement some algorithm and make a chess software for chess improvement of humans that is going to do what I want it to do(the programmer does not promise that it is going to improve my chess playing strength but plan to do exactly what I asked).

Maybe the money I am ready to pay is not enough so I would like to know if more people would like to pay for the same software(possibly less than I pay and I have no problem if I pay 1500 dollars and other pay 200 dollars because the software is based on what I asked the programmer to do and not based on what other asked the programmer to do).

I wonder if the charter allow discussion about it here because you can also say that it is commercial except the fact that I do not make money from it.

I do not know the price of the software and the programmer is going to tell me the price when he finish the work based on the number of hours he is going to work but I thought to open a thread as soon as the software is ready about it.
Chessisgreat
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Re: If I invented a perfect drawless chess variant, how much is it worth?

Post by Chessisgreat »

jefk wrote: Sun Jul 27, 2025 5:05 pm yep, the kid(? (*)) didn't listen (eg to my earlier well meant advise), reminds me
a bit of of the lazysmp affiar. this is forum about computer chess, that said, i don't
know if there would be a suitable forum for chess business (ideas/proposals).
rec.games.chess.politics maybe (lol)
:?

(*) again, as i'm in principle don't want to be mean rude harsh or negative (yet
sometimes a bit rationalcritical anyway), mr chessisgreat: you may *think* yourself that
your idea (a new 'chessisgreat'chess rule ?) is awesome, but other people in the chess
world may think otherwise; and from your postings it doesn't appear you even asked
other (serious) chess players about *their* opinion (before launching you posting here).

Nb obviously Ras can't monitor all postings, so i should have reported it
(then he said he a 'little' (earnings) would be enough). ah well,
we (or those who did'nt like the thread) can report it now, cant we ?

PS i wrote
You can buy the idea (*) for only two million and then name it as you like
which is not much of course (for my awesome idea, which also is ofcourse much
better than Chess960/FRC (or even Chess324) because here also opening theory
isn't applicable anymore, but still the games resemble much more conventional
chess (compared to the wild and ugly chess960 setups/gameplay). And now
that i'm thinking of it again , i'll maybe going to rename it to 'Equal chess'
(aka Fairchess), but then i would be happy with 'only a little'... :wink:
:mrgreen:
Sorry, I will not talk about money anymore.

By the way, I checked your Fairchess, though I didn't download the software. I read the readme.txt.
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hgm
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Re: If I invented a perfect drawless chess variant, how much is it worth?

Post by hgm »

chrisw wrote: Sun Jul 27, 2025 3:48 pm This thread should be deleted under the flagrant commercial exhortations rule. It’s commercial because he wants money from somebody for his unknown idea. It’s flagrant because he keeps on and on with the same commercial exhortations.
I thought that rule only served to prevent advertizing of products for selling them to forum members. That doesn't seem the case here; it should be completely obvious that engine programmers, testers or users have no interest in commercial exploitation of a new form of chess for humans, no matter how good the idea would be, not even if they would get it for free.
jefk
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Re: If I invented a perfect drawless chess variant, how much is it worth?

Post by jefk »

no interest in commercial exploitation of a new form of chess for humans, no matter how good the idea
well imo most organizers of big chess events (like the German millionaire sponsor of the Freestyle events)
don't even care how 'good' an idea is (or could be), most important is that the even gets media attraction;
so they need Magnus C (who can be bribed for a few million), and some marketing; eg Chess960 was
invented by a certain Fischer, so that's gives some credibility (popularity?) to the idea.
Chess324 ? lol, neverheard of this; some odd computer chess idea maybe ?
New drawless chess rules ? haha, there are many, but there are not so much
draws in Freestyle events anyway; otherwise we lower the time controls.
A 'secret' (and ofcourse very awesome) * New* idea for drawless chess? brouhahaha;
keep it secret, then 'We' (Fide, Freestyle/etc) won't be bothered with this! :evil:
'Fairchess' ? Removing an f3 pawn ?? ha! Ludicrous! Never, never, not even in Zimbabwe.

As for the ICCF (correspondence chess), like i said they are conservative, i suggested (on FB)
that the thematic tournaments should become rated, because with such events the draw rate
probably is lower (similar to Tcec); no response, apparently they (organizing committee)
don't seem to care; yet it would be quite simple to add (initially separate) ratings for this
https://www.iccf.com/EventsAnnouncements.aspx
Nevertheless i predict their conventional tourn system will lose more and
more players every year, until it's completely dead. maybe they then will start thinking
about some method to reduce the draw rate. Including the (new) rating(s) for thematic
in the overall iccf correspondence chess rating would be a good (and simple) step,
(optional) rule modifications can come later, there are many ideas, most not secret btw
:mrgreen:
jefk
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Full name: Jef Kaan

Re: If I invented a perfect drawless chess variant, how much is it worth?

Post by jefk »

correction of a typo
most important is that the even gets media attraction;
should be "event' obviously.

Then in addition, maybe i was a bit too negative maybe about the organizer(s) of these
new 'Freestyle' events, this guy (Buettner) seems to have quite some entrepreneurial/
commercial talent and experience, which is good for chess, of course. And although
based on Chess960 it's named now Freestyle(*), rather than Fischer (FRC) chess or so.
https://www.freestyle-chess.com/news/we ... ew-ground/
So chess324 might maybe could have a (small) -theoretical- chance.
https://www.chessprogramming.org/Chess324
and then there's also chess744 whatever that is
https://sites.google.com/view/chess-744/todays-744-game
as discussed here
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43520005
So lots if ideas, but i'm not going to tell them myself. In my experience,
the more you push an idea, the more resistance you get (and then there's
also usually the 'not invented here syndrome' of course, regarding new (business) ideas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here
So new ideas for 'drawless chess', imo no chance, they're not a charity you know; even although
the organizer B. still seems flexible (contrary to eg Fide) if his it would improve his business

And you (eg the inventor of Chess324 or the chessisgreat nodraw rules ) can mail them here :
https://www.freestyle-chess.com/press-m ... inquiries/
(are they going to pay royalties to Larry Kaufman ? No they will -most likely- Not;
and are they going to pay royalties to mr chessisgreat ? No they will - certainly- Not :twisted:
good luck
:mrgreen:

(*) a name 'borrowed' from the Freestyle events years ago by Arno Nickel ('advance chess' at a
now defunct site infinitychess) and or the martial arts; yeah well, then A.N.should have registered
a trademark, only tenthousand bucks/yr wordwide or so, i guess :twisted:
chrisw
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Re: If I invented a perfect drawless chess variant, how much is it worth?

Post by chrisw »

hgm wrote: Sun Jul 27, 2025 11:12 pm
chrisw wrote: Sun Jul 27, 2025 3:48 pm This thread should be deleted under the flagrant commercial exhortations rule. It’s commercial because he wants money from somebody for his unknown idea. It’s flagrant because he keeps on and on with the same commercial exhortations.
I thought that rule only served to prevent advertizing of products for selling them to forum members. That doesn't seem the case here; it should be completely obvious that engine programmers, testers or users have no interest in commercial exploitation of a new form of chess for humans, no matter how good the idea would be, not even if they would get it for free.
Well, I wrote that clause back whenever. Its purpose was not to prevent announcements of commercial stuff, but to prevent continuous repeats of announcements. Whether the announcements were to sell to forum members or to entice the occasional reader (not necessarily a member) was not specified.

Flagrant = repeated or swamping or spamming
Commercial = money involved somewhere/somehow
Exhortation = strongly recommending/calling for

The product could be anything.
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towforce
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Re: If I invented a perfect drawless chess variant, how much is it worth?

Post by towforce »

A fun* event for chess clubs: quiz night!

You're given a series of chess positions, and for each one, you have to pick the valuation Stockfish gave from a choice of 4.

Tiebreaker: you have to come up the the valuation yourself (to 3 digits), be closer than your opponents, and continue until you have an outright winner. No draws at the chess quiz!


*hopefully will be fun... maybe try it at a couple of clubs before rolling it out nationwide... :)
Human chess is partly about tactics and strategy, but mostly about memory
lkaufman
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Re: If I invented a perfect drawless chess variant, how much is it worth?

Post by lkaufman »

Here is a near-perfect, simple, drawless chess variant based on the idea that the player who comes closest to capturing the opponent's king wins if no one checkmates. Here are the extra rules added to normal chess rules:
1. Stalemate loses for the player unable to move.
2. The insufficient material draw rule is replaced by this: King and bishop or knight vs king, with the superior side to move, is a win unless the knight is in the corner. Other endings continue until king vs king or another standard draw condition is reached.
3. Repetition with one player in check or about to give check to repeat is a win for the checking side.
4. If a draw is claimed under normal rules (repetition not involving check, or 50 move rule, or K vs K), the player who has given check more times during the game wins, with Black's count starting at 1/2.

This should be at least roughly fair, the 1/2 check for Black roughly compensating for White's edge. If experience shows that White still has a meaningful advantage, the 1/2 check value can be increased to whatever makes it close to fifty-fifty. This is exactly like "Komi" in the game of GO, where 6.5 points is usually added to the second player's territory count at the end.
Of course this does change the game, but any proposal to eliminate draws will also change the game. It doesn't invalidate any wins.
For over-the-board play, players could use poker chips or coins or something similar to count draws, taking one from a pile every time they gave check and putting it in front of themselves so the count is always visible to both players.
Komodo rules!