Games, analysis and discussion

Here's a 4D game Super4*Chess - can be played as if on a 2D plane. A 16x16 board with appropriate spacing could be used even on a coffee table; it'd be about size of Scrabble board (15x15 for that). The following is start position for the 16 4x4 mini-boards game is played on:

Code:

Col =a= and file Col =b= and file Col =c= and file Col =d= and file Row and rank
 aa  ab  ac  ad   ba  bb  bc  bd   ca  cb  cc  cd   da  db  dc  dd  Rr

[X] [B] [B] [R]  [T]

...

I've made a model for chess styles inspired by parts of Secrets of Endgame Strategy by Lars Bo Hansen (Gambit, 2006), Winning with Chess Psychology by Benko & Hochberg (McKay, 1991) & Secrets of Practical Chess by Nunn (Gambit, 1998). It's like Hansen's model in his books, expanded.

Style is a set of tendencies (tastes/fortes) that can show in cases of near equivalent available choices; any may affect a game's character a long time. The avg. # of cases per game is uncertain, ...

Here are 12 possible reasons I chose (from the many) that people may like to play chess because of, without much taking skill level or ambition into account (for me, what first grabbed my attention as a child was the magnificent & regal beauty of a typical chess set). Particular emphasis is given to factors that are unique to chess. There are 5 general themes: Excitement, Entertainment, Artistry, Satisfaction & Personal Expression:

On the lighter side:

1. Cheapos ...

Based on old chesstalk message board posts of mine:

First, I'll summarize my personal disappointments with competitive offline chess:

As a Canadian teenager back in the 1970's I made some [optimistic] guesses about what chess might have in store for me, Canada, or even for the grand old game itself, if I decided to pursue it at least half seriously for a lifetime, and these guesses all proved to be entirely ... wrong.

Guess #1: I could become at least ...

The perception of chess as a game for geeks seems to be fairly common, which may hurt the popularity of the game, at least when played competitively. For instance, the full title of a book about a successful NYC high school chess team includes the word 'geeks':

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kings_of_New_York

Just after brainstorming today, two approaches to tackling the commonly perceived geek factor of chess occured to me. The first was to hope for the increased ...