The Pharaoh Has Risen

"The first time they use this at the top level in classical play and someone like Moro goes -2 but finishes "ahead" of someone who scored +1 people will wake up about how silly this would be."

On glancing at this I thought it was absurd, but it is theoretically possible, although it takes a tournament of 12 rounds or more:

Morozevich: +5 -7 =0, for 15 points
Kramnik: +1 -0 =11, for 14 points

"The first time they use this at the top level in classical play and someone like Moro goes -2 but finishes "ahead" of someone who scored +1 people will wake up about how silly this would be."

This is no more silly than someone winning Wijk by scoring +6 against the tail and -2 against the other guys in top 4, not an improbable scenario at all.

I'm not advocating the soccer scoring in chess, btw, but any system except perhaps, fixed length match has it's own ridiculous scenario. IMO it's an interesting novelty, but trying it in blindfold event is a bit pointless, since there are many decisive games anyway.

In the girls section India's Harika also crashed and burned, though she was unable to stage a comeback like Adly.
Mig, did Kasparov react to Anand's statement that "there is a match waiting for him if he wants" ?

The "new" scoring strategy is kind of pointless in a blindfold match... there are enough decisive games simply due to blunders to satisfy anyone who only cares about decisive results....

Why is this scoring system silly? It is widely practiced in sports
where the draw is just as much of a logical outcome as Chess. I cannot
understand why Chess fans tend to be so extremely conservative. No
doubt that's one of the reasons why the sport has underperformed on a
marketing level.

D.

I'm not sure if you've made an enormous logic leap that I've missed, or have made a complete non sequitur, Dimi: --Chess fans don't like the 3-win scoring system or don't see a need for it, therefore this is one of the reasons why it has underperformed on a marketing level?

The reasons why chess has underperformed on a marketing level are quite obvious: look at the luminaries that have been leading FIDE and the various national federations. The problems have to do with corruption and incompetence, not conservatism.

obsender says

"This is no more silly than someone winning Wijk by scoring +6 against the tail and -2 against the other guys in top 4, not an improbable scenario at all. "

This is a common sentiment nowadays, trying to determine the "validity" of results based on "who you beat in the tournament.

I don't have any problem at all with such a situation as you describe. If somebody scored + 6 against the tail and -2 against the top players, one should ask- what happened to these other top players when they played the tail enders? They took short draws/ were held to draws/ lost? Then they don't deserve to finish ahead of the one who accumulated more points...

Thankfuly, most tournament organizers understand the basic mechanics of a round-robin and the current system is firmly kept in place.

Why do you guys think that chess has underperformed at a marketing level?

Just because we love chess doesn't mean that others will. And if others do, they might choose only to play, and not watch/buy.

I just find it odd how everybody assumes that making chess "popular" will somehow be "better". Do we want recognition, or is it something else...

The "non sequitur" part is a matter of opinion, Daniel. Apparently, some people think otherwise and that's why the 3 point system is vastly popular. I am sure that the experiments to make Chess less "peaceful" will continue with the intent to achieve a direct impact on marketability.

D.

I think you're both wrong. The reasons why chess has underperformed on a marketing level stem primarily from the nature of the game itself. But it's illogical - indeed, retarded - to go from that to the idea that the game will be made more marketable by mutilating it. The "goose that laid the golden eggs" parable may not apply, since chess is not laying golden eggs; but no person of normal intelligence assumes that eviscerating an ordinary old goose will make gold pop out either.

This actually lands me in bed, sort of, with various individuals who I habitually lambaste as "chess haters," because they seem unable to write anything about chess without loudly trumpeting their (imagined) sense of personal superiority to anyone who is serious about the game, either as a player, organizer, marketer, teacher, writer, or whatever. I remain apart from them in that I don't think the fact that chess is hard to market, makes everyone involved in chess a pathetic loser.

From a marketing angle it wouldn't hurt, of course, to dump all the corrupt and incompetent chess politicians. But I don't think that by itself would make a huge difference. The image of chess (as something brainy, difficult, strategic) would still appeal to the masses far more than the substance of the game. And as long as the game's image is attractive in the abstract but there is no commercially meaningful fan base, mainstream advertisers will have every reason to continue exploiting chess imagery in their ads (which much of Wall Street already does on a regular basis), without making any move to associate themselves with the real-life chess scene or any of its personalities.

By "the substance of the game," I mean watching and understanding actual moves in real-life competition. The ability to do that begins at say, 1200 strength; and the ability to really enjoy it begins somewhere around 1500 strength -- levels that apply to at most 5% of the overall population who nominally know how to play chess (in the US at least; in eastern Europe it may be higher, I don't know).

In view of the level of difficulty suggested in the preceding paragraph, I believe the whole marketing framework applied by most chess promoters (including Mig) rests on a faulty concept. I believe it would be more fruitful to market chess as an art, not a sport. Nearly every commercially successful sport is easy for a fan to understand; while many or most arts are difficult and require lots of preparatory eduction to understand them (even for a viewer or spectator), just as chess does.

Yes, accepting that reality means defining the potential target audience as much smaller than what the chess-as-sport promoters probably have in mind. But it's better than what we've got, which is pretty much nothing (in terms of people who aren't already involved in chess coming into it -- here again I'm referring to the United States, which is the region I'm familiar with).

To be sure, plenty of effort, and plenty of money, is being channeled toward "educating" school kids to play chess. In my view, all those school kids are a captive audience; their personal interest and involvement in chess begins and ends with its being forced on them via their school (or after-school program) curriculum.

Meanwhile, nothing whatever is being done to bring the game to the attention of adults not already involved with it. While other arts, from modern dance to jazz to sculpture, draw as many of their new adherents (and all the motivation for corporations to contribute to them) from the adult population, as from the elementary school classroom population. What is wrong with this picture?

Jon Jacobs wrote:

"Meanwhile, nothing whatever is being done to bring the game to the attention of adults not already involved with it. While other arts, from modern dance to jazz to sculpture, draw as many of their new adherents (and all the motivation for corporations to contribute to them) from the adult population, as from the elementary school classroom population. What is wrong with this picture?"

That chess is not art.

That's the very obvious answer.

Any thoughts of marketing chess to the masses (non-players) must begin by abandoning the derranged idea that chess is a "sport" or "art" ( while the rest of the world sees it for what it really is: a nice, complex GAME).

irv,

i don't think the argument is that simple. people have been trying to define "art" and "games" for seemingly forever. the late gm gufeld and emory tate have made numerous attempts to make people see what they do as an artistic expression of creativity. on the other side, i'm sure that there are film scorers that receive a movie that requires music and sees creating the perfectly fitting score as a sort of game. strictly labeling something doesn't make it just that thing, no matter how "derranged" one happens to be.

Jon Jacobs,
"Nearly every commercially successful sport is easy for a fan to understand; while many or most arts are difficult and require lots of preparatory eduction to understand them (even for a viewer or spectator), just as chess does."

Even if that is a true statement- at least in terms of "understanding"- understanding is not a prerequisite to a sucessfully marketing these other activities. One can enjoy jazz music without understanding the most fundamental principles of music; one can admire Rebrandt or Van Gogh without being able to draw stick figures acurrately, but one must understand chess at a certain level to be able to marvel at the play of an Anand or a Kramnik. The art model also "does not work"...

Stendec

We can engage in all sorts of semantic acrobatics, but the bottom line is the same: if you ask 1 million people to name 5 art disciplines, odds are everyone will go with the traditional ones: music, painting, sculpture,etc. I seriously doubt anyone is going to say "chess". In all honesty (I'm a run-of-the-mill chess master, btw, so I have nothing against the game; I love it!), I never met anyone outside chess circles who would consider chess "art".

Now, try asking people to name 5 or 10 sports. Nobody will say "backgammon" or "chess" or "poker". Those activities are not considered "sports", just like piano or math competitions are not considered "sports" either.

Run this little test: find a chessplayer (like Mig) who considers chess a "sport". Ask him to tell you honestly if he thinks dominoes or bridge or parchesi or monopoly are "sports". There you have your answer for chess.

Conversely, ask regular people in your family or friends circles what chess is. It's almost certain everyone will tell you it is a game.

I honestly don't understand why chess players are not happy with chess being just a beautiful GAME. I love basketball and boxing, but that doesn't mean I can say those sports qualify as "art"...

If bridge or mah-jongg are more popular than chess (which seems very likely) and more commercially successful (which I don't know, but shouldn't take more than 10 minutes of research to answer), then following irv's logic, perhaps we would do well to study how they are marketed, and whether similar strategies could be adapted by the chess community.

On the other hand, chess has a long-standing association with high culture, which to my knowledge no other game does (in the West at least; Asia may be different). Both the "culture" angle and the aesthetic-beauty angle point toward approaching chess marketing as akin to art marketing - that is, soliciting support from corporate patrons of the arts through appeals that make some assumption that "chess is good for you, it helps make you a more refined person." Isn't this what the chess-in-the-schools crowd is already doing, with great success, in relation to their particular constituencies?

Poker, dominoes, backgammon(?), rock-paper-scissors and a ton of other games that have no conceivable pretension to being anything but games, have been covered on ESPN. But chess, and (maybe) scrabble and bridge, are the only games I can think of that have been covered on PUBLIC (i.e., art/cultural) TV in the US.

irv,

i wasn't arguing symantics, just your definition. you might notice in my post that i wasn't defining chess as art, just pointing out that most things have elements of art and game in them. how the public view things and how they really are can be different things. that was my point. so do i think chess is ONLY a sport or ONLY art? no way. a game? of course--after all what in our utlitarian life is not a game of maximizing situations? and btw, as art is subjective, you CAN call basketball art if you want. i don't.

Ocelot wrote "I don't have any problem at all with such a situation as you describe. If somebody scored + 6 against the tail and -2 against the top players, one should ask- what happened to these other top players when they played the tail enders?"

If one takes this approach (and it's a valid approach btw), there is also no problem with the situation that Mig described. Indeed, in Mig's situation one should ask what has happened to that +1 guy in the games that -2 guy won.

As long as the rules are determined in advance, whoever prevails by these rules is the winner and that's the end of it. Still one wants rules that guarantee to a certain degree that "the best" wins and the guy who loses to his main competitors while beating up tailenders doesn't fit our perception of "best". Same as the guy who loses more than he wins.

IMO rules of chess are not more complicated than rules of american football. Therefore, I strongly disagree with Jon Jacobs's: "Nearly every commercially successful sport is easy for a fan to understand". Furthermore, try to stage New England-San Diego game in Moscow simultaneously with Kramnik-Kasparov match and see which one gets a bigger audience. My bet is on chess.

IMO current sorry state of chess is more due to inept marketing and cultural trends in modern society than to the properties of the game itself. Go is doing quite well commercially in the East, which further confirms my thesis.

I didn't mean to touch on the grandiose subject on how to market chess. Unless someone shows how it is done by demonstrating success, the rest is just an interesting thread by bunch of guys philosophizing. All I wanted to say is that we can't dismiss so lightly the idea of the 3pt/Win scoring, as in that respect Chess is not much different than other sports where it has been applied (quite successfully).

D.

Every successful sports has it's "personalities". Sometimes they are artificially hyped up, but nevertheless they are major marketing tool. More in the USA than anywhere else – notice that at Olympics you do not watch the competition anymore, but the biography of that or other player with all this dramatic music… Anyway, Chess needs that drama hyped up a bit. Every movie that has Chess scenes has the heroes as somewhat demonic characters, always striking with something in their eyes. But it's hard to do it with a draw ration of 70% -- it looks more like a bunch of autistic guys playing some mad game with no consequence whatsoever and only 3 people in the World who can huff & puff in excitement over the silent action.

D.

Well 2 things

First of sport. The problem with chess as a sport is that it requires submission to WADA rules. And that is what did for the tournamentcareer of Ian Rogers,as I understand the situation.

Second of egyptiansporting endeavours. They had a team that played in the Dunhill Cup at St Andrews back when it was a 16 team nations golftournament rather than a pro-celebrity waste of time. I never saw them play but heard a man in a pub reflecting on what he had seen.He said they were very good out of the sand.

It seem a lot of guys are not quite happy to admit their main pasttime (or actual occupation) as a game.

It is not that you believe chess need improvement, just that you would like to improve of what other people think when you start talking about chess...

If you have ever seen to people play chess, any claim to chess being a sport must feel hollow. As for chess being an art, this is just pretentious nonsence.

Sorry guys it's a game, accept it, be proud about it, because it's not ONLY a game, it is the BEST GAME THERE IS.

Egypt won the African Soccer Championship last year. Pretty big for them, I think.

There is no doubt whatsoever that chess is a sport.

From wikipedia: "Sport is an activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively. Sports commonly refer to activities where the physical capabilities of the competitor are the sole or primary determiner of the outcome (winning or losing), but the term is also used to include activities such as mind sports and motor sports where mental acuity or equipment quality are major factors."

For anyone who was around during the Shelby Lyman broadcasts of the Fischer-Spassky match (which I understand were extremely popular, at least relatively): what level were they pitched at? 1500? 1000? Could the man in the street follow along at all or did he just enjoy being swept along?

I remember Shelby Lyman! A very young Michael Rohde was a guest commentator. To be honest, I don't remember at what level it was pitched. I suspect it was the usual mix of complex analysis plus basic explanations for less-experienced players (much like Mig's ICC broadcasts when he partners with GMs).

Who remembers Sammy Reshevsky on the ten o'clock news in New York going over the Fischer-Spassky games?! Man, those were the days.

Mig, would it be possible to set up a dedicated thread for old-fogey chess ninjas whose ever-dimming memories reach back to the Golden Age of chess, when Bobby Fischer had a column in Boys Life and the Center Counter Defense was held in general disrepute?

Re Shelby Lyman's live coverage of Fischer-Spassky on US public TV back in 1972 and the chess level of its audience, it's important to remember that the "man in the street" was much more chess-literate (or at least chess-oriented) then than now.

In the lowbrow neighborhood where I grew up, during those amazing few months it wasn't uncommon to see random people in a tavern stick a chessboard on a pool table to play a few games. Now, this was Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, I'm talking about - not Greenwich Village, not Park Slope. People who'd sat on the stoop in front of their house drinking beer and bemoaning the Mets' latest disaster, during '72 would hang out on their stoops moving chess pieces.

It was truly a craze; a little like the stock market in '99, when I saw Brooklyn restaurants switch from having one wall-mounted TV (invariably tuned to a sports broadcast) to having three or even four, each tuned to a DIFFERENT business/stock-market channel!

Chess Life devoted its September (2007) issue to a retrospective of the Fischer years. One article had some extended quotes from Goichberg about how the craze affected his tournaments. There were some events where 5 times as many people showed up as the organizers anticipated; after he'd rented out all the extra meeting rooms in the hotel, he still didn't have enough playing rooms, so some players had to wait to start their game until another game finished so space would open up at a table.

"Why is this scoring system silly? It is widely practiced in sports
where the draw is just as much of a logical outcome as Chess."

I think that this is false. In chess, one can make relatively reliable calculations about the consequences of playing more agressively, in order to upset the equilibrium of a position, and so avoid a draw.

In Soccer, the results are less "logical" than in chess. It makes more sense to push **teams** (and those who coach the teams) to play more agressively. In principle, if a team emphasizes attack, and is less concerned about defense, it can be foreseen that the result will be that more goals will be scored. However, it can't be readily calculated whether one team or the other will benefit from this added dynamism.

In general, the play is overly cautious, which leads to a game where relatively few goals are scored. The scoring of a goal is, quite obviously, the major activity in soccer which has appeal to soccer fans. So, it is logical for FIFA to want to structure the poitn system so as to give inducements to take risks in matches--not that FIFA has been all that successful in the World Cup at achieving that end.

A 0-0 tie in soccer is the equivalent of the Grandmaster Draw in Chess. However, there is not much that is objectionable about a 3-3 tie in Soccer. Indeed, such a result would compare favorably to a 1-0 win, since the drawn match would feature 6 times as many goals as the decisive match. I'm sure that FIFA would be thrilled if their "problem" was that high-scoring draws were a frequent result. If goal-filled draws were prevalent, FIFA never would have tinkered with the scoring system. If teams simply could demonstrate finishing skills, FIFA probably never would have felt compelled to introduce Penalty Kick Shoot-outs as Tie-Breakers.

Similarly, Chess fans (by and large) do not resent a draw, if the result is based on a hard fought struggle. Much of the discussion on this forum has dealt with the need to provide inducements for players to engage in hard-fought games, perhaps by penalizing, or even banning, short, fightless draws.

"IMO rules of chess are not more complicated than rules of american football. Therefore, I strongly disagree with Jon Jacobs's: "Nearly every commercially successful sport is easy for a fan to understand"."

Jacobs wasn't referring to the respective rules of Chess and football. He was referring to how evident and easy it is for fans to appreciate quality examples of the play of the game. One needn't know many of the rules of football to appreciate when a receiver makes a difficult catch, or be thrilled when a team scores. A Touchdown or Field Goal is a self-evident sporting accomplishment, which makes a visual impact on the spectator.

In chess, there is only one point that is scored, and that is determined at the end of the game. Sure, captures take place, but it is impossible to determine at a glance whether such a capture is part of a prosaic trade, or a tactical coup.

As Jacobs noted, one must be a significantly skilled chessplayer to be able to meaningfully follow and appreciate high level chess.

There are many football fans who have never played the sport, and know next to nothing about the finer points of football strategy, yet their passion and enthusiasm for rooting for their team is quite clear.

I don't think draws should be banned. Draws are the very natural result of a well conducted game by players of similar strenght.

However, an interesting angle on the "draw problem" is to have players play progressively faster time controls when they draw the initial game, until a decisive result is achieved - something akin to basketball's overtime. The twist is that the decisive result would only count for the tournament, whith only the original (and drawn) game being rated.

Another possibility is for tournament organizers to eliminate all appearance fees, while increasing prizes for the first three places. Chess could benefit greatly from a wider pool of players fighting for the money. There is no reason to fear that top players will not play without an appearance fee; the market is not big enough that they can afford to skip major tournaments. Some will resist at the beginnig, but eventuallyc economic reality will prevail. I hope one day Svidler is forced to make an effort to win, instead of relying on getting invitations to tournaments based on a rating kept artificially high by only playing (and drawing!) against players over 2700.

Dan (first post), from your example: what would you rather be watching: 12 decisive games or 11 draws?

The question is: do we want to give an incentive to see more decisive games?
(This is not the same as: do we want fewer short draws?)

As to the scoring system; I don't see what the big deal is (realistically). "Most wins" is very often the tie-breaker anyway.

Egypt has been a soccer power for quite some time and have qualified for the World Cup previously. They have also produced some notable track athletes. Of course, they are the strongest chess nation in Africa, but whether that is considered "major" or not is another question. Egyptians are very passionate people and will certainly rejoice in this victory.

This thread was titled in reference to Adly's victory... it is HUGE!!! Adly, the first Egyptian GM, was gravely ill after contracting malaria at the 2003 All-Africa Games in Nigeria. While two other Egyptians died, he recovered and regained his strength. I met him in Italy for the Olympiad... really nice fellow.

Congratulations Ahmed!

Perhaps:

Award 3 points (or 1 point) for a win

Award 1 1/2 points (or 1/2 point) for draws that satisfy the following criteria:
- the draw is agreed after move 40, and neither side has any major pieces left on the board; unless the side with playing material disadvantage of at least one minor piece and one pawn (or four pawns, or equivalent combination of 4, say 2 rooks versus 2 minor pieces) forces a draw through repetition or stalemate upon the side with major pieces on the board (after move 40)

Award 1 point (or 1/3 point) for other draws

And:

Always award 1 1/2 points (or 1/2 point) for a draw if the player with material disadvantage forces stalemate or move repetition, regardless of move number if the player with material disadvantage has at least one rook (one major piece or equivalent, 5 points) playing material disadvantage.

Of course, my recommendation assumes that the chess players will try to win their contest; as in bygone days, "...that the contestants in a joust will engage rather than simply flipping their visors in acknowledgment of one another as they pass...*

There is a difference between making people understand chess, but to give them the illusion of understanding. Things like being ahead in material or the clock are really simple to observe. It's like poker, very few people who watch really know what is going on.

Maybe Kasparov should go on a huge good-will chess playing tour in which he plays very large quantities of school-kids simultaneously at say, Queen-odds. Give them all the chance to play (and perhaps beat ;-) ;-) ) the greatest player of all time! Release it through all major media and who know, maybe some 8-year old somewhere will get lucky and make the are/national news ;-). Americans love this kind of stuff.

>I don't think draws should be banned. Draws are the very natural result of a well conducted game by players of similar strenght.

Right. Draws cannot be banned. They are a natural outcome of the
game. They should only be discouraged. Or the 'take it all' chess
should be encouraged when 2 draws is less than a victory. I am not
saying that the excessive number of short draws is the only area Chess
can improve upon. But Chess cannot be so dismissive about what already
has been debated, implemented and practised for quite sometime in
other sports that faced similar problems.

D.

GM Zaven Andriasian (2546) wrote his name in the record books at Essent by managing to lose all of his games: seven - nil! (with a performance rating of 1977). Ooooooouch.

(Not for lack of trying: during one of the rounds his cell phone went off, unluckily the arbiter had already confiscated it before the round.)

Edit: make that six - nil! (I mis-counted the zero's on the cross table.)
Mamedyarov won with 4½ btw (with a performace rating of 2793).

Egypt is the strongest chess playing nation in africa. GM adly infact was not feeling well 2 weeks before the championships during the african championships. He becomes the first african to win a major world title.

GM Zaven Andriasian's performance was a debacle. He's lucky that FIDE doesn't seem to have provisions to strip players of their titles, based on lousy results. I'd be really interested in finding out why the organizers saw fit to invite Andriasian, since there was nothing about his previous accomplishments to indicate that he could stand up to this level of competition. Based on ELO, his expected score was quite low.

Sure, the Essent tournament organizers managed to save a lot of money in appearance fees, by inviting Ponomariov rather than Judit Polgar, and importing cheap "talent" from Armenia, rather than pony up the Euros to get Topalov to appear. But they really wrecked their own tournament.

Wouldn't the usual people for the Essent crown group be Judith Polgar, Zaven Andriasian, Viswanathan Anand, and whoever the Dutch champ is?

More modifications to a new scoring system proposal meant to discourage quick draws:

- Award 3 points (or 1 point) for a win

- Award 1 1/2 points (or 1/2 point) to both players only when the draw is agreed upon after move 40, and neither side has any major pieces left on the board.

- After 40 moves, if the the weaker player, playing with a material disadvantage of one minor piece and one pawn (or four pawns, or equivalent combination of 4, say 2 rooks versus 2 minor pieces) forces a draw through repetition or stalemate upon the player with superior material on the board, award ONLY the weaker player 1 1/2 points (or 1/2 point), and award the materially stronger player only 1 point (or 1/3 point).

- Award 1 1/2 points (or 1/2 point) to the player with material disadvantage of at least one major piece (rook, minor piece + 2 pawns, or 5 pawns) when this player achieves move repetition or stalemate, regardless of move number. Award the opposing player, with superior material only 1 point (or 1/3 point).

- Award 1 point (or 1/3 point) to both players for all other draws.

guppy, get a life.

do you understand how stupid your proposals are? more so since you actually seem to have spent lots of time thinking them up.

if you actually propose all this 1 1/2 versus 1 point, then you don't understand chess at all. draws with material "disadvantage" happen all the time and the position is nevertheless equal - there is no "weaker" or "stronger" side in a drawn position no matter how much material either side has.

if any organizers were dumb enough to accept your proposals at their tournament, no professional chess player respecting himself would ever accept to play there.

observer, save your personal attacks for your family,

One of the main reasons that chess does not become largely popular is because people like you raise your own opinion and importance blindly above others. Thank you for attacking me personally while suggesting that I spend my time foolishly. Some would contend that it merely proves my point: chess players' vanity is exceeded only by their nerdish dispositions. If you feel that the uneven point distribution is uncalled for, wonderful.

However, I will not attack you. Instead, I will merely shed a tear on your behalf; that someone could be so callous and uncaring toward their fellow human being...

Even though you don't know me, nor anything of the lives that I have saved while placing my own in peril as a volunteer firefighter and other roles, you blindly judge me.

Even the simplest 3-1-0 system has the one huge weakness of encouraging prearranged decisive games. In my opinion, this is enough to discard such proposals without further thought. 3-1-0 works in football because it is enormously hard (although not impossible, as history has shown) to arrange something in secret between about 30 people; in chess it would only take two or three players to arrange throwing games to each other. I'm not so much worried about such plots actually occurring, but about the paranoid atmosphere which would surround each decisive game - we would no more be praising winners for their impressive play, but digging the games in search of deliberate blunders by the loser.

Draws are definitely a part of chess and only short agreeed draws are a real problem.
That being said for those who like to speculate, a small rule change could drastically reduce the number of draws.
The side whose king can occupy the opposing kings home square wins . This is the capture the scepter rules (see link on name).
This implies that even king and knight vs king is a win.
New rule introduces an interesting strategic element to the game.

"This implies that even king and knight vs king is a win.
New rule introduces an interesting strategic element to the game."

...While simultaneously removing 37 interesting strategic elements from the game.

>>.While simultaneously removing 37 interesting strategic elements from the game.>>

What elements are this?
You do realize that stalemate still applies?

The only difference now one side cannot rush its king to the other side to aid promotion of pawn without considering what the opponent might do in the meantime.

This variants ADDS a new element without taking away any.. You cannot even name one element from original game that is gone.

Well then, chess variants, who would be declared the winner of the following game?

1.e4 c5 2. d3 d5 3.exd5 Qxd5 4.Nc3 Qd7 5.Be3 e5 6.f4 exf4 7.Bxf4 Be7 8.Nf3 Nf6 9.Qd2 0-0 10.0-0-0 Nc6 11.Ne5 Nxe5 12.Bxe5 b5 13.Qg5 Ne8 14.Qg3 f6 15.Bf4 b5 16.Ne4 Qd5 17.b3 f5 18.Ng5 Qd4 19.Re1 Bf6 20.Be5 Qd8 21.Nf3 Bb7 22.d4 cxd4 23.Bc4+ Kh8 24.Nxd4 Bh4 25.Ne6 Bxg3 26.hxg3 Qe7 27.Rxh7+ Kxh7 28.Rh1+ Kg6 29.Nf4+ Kg5 30.Rh5+ Kg4 31.Be2+ Kxg3 32.Rh3+ Kf2 33.Bd4+ Qe3+ 34.Bxe3+ Ke1 35.Rh1.

Your game does not load. move #15 b5 is illegal

Was a typo, should be 15...b4

In this game black would win since its king captured the scepter first! This would not be a problem if the players know the rule beforehand - sure you can't have this pretty mate but you can have other equally interesting scenarios..In fact it is quite a challenge to force the mate with this in mind - if possible.

In any case, I am not advocating replacing the rules with this - just to explore new possiblities.

Also, the variant Birds and Ninjas (see link on name) does not change any rules but merely adds two pairs of pieces on a bigger board.
I look at variants more as extensions of the game rather than games that must replace chess .. Anand did play in the last Chess 960 tournament - A tournament with about 5-6 variants will be quite interesting too.

Well, I don't complain when someone advocating a variant is content to label it a variant rather than an "improved" form of real chess (that was my beef with Clint Ballard of BAP fame).

And although I'm not usually inclined to give opinions on variants (by the way I view 960 not as a variant, but as real chess played from a different starting position), I will say this to justify my earlier claim that your variant removes many interesting strategic elements - probably more than it adds.

Among the interesting strategic elements effectively eliminated by a "capture the scepter" rule:

1. Most material sacrifices that don't lead to a forced mate. Since the side with less material can almost never simplify into a drawn ending as in normal chess (see point #4 below), the risk/reward ratio for sacrificing material (even a pawn!) for position would swing dramatically against. That would all but eliminate what is perhaps the single most aesthetically appealing strategy in chess as we know it.

2. Outside pawns gain in value vs. central pawns. Although an outside passed pawn is a significant endgame trump even in regular chess, your "capture the scepter" rule would magnify that difference in value (again, see #4 below), to the point where preserving wing pawns might become an important consideration even in the opening. That would totally alter the strategy of controlling the center (which in normal chess makes central pawns more valuable than wing pawns in the opening and middlegame).

3. The value of the "two bishops" would for most intents and purposes cease to exist. That's because due to the "scepter" rule, one color bishop would have greater value (to each side) than the other. The QB (i.e., the one that controls one's own king's initial or "scepter" square) would have great defensive significance in endgames, since it can protect against loss from afar, thereby letting one side's king penetrate the enemy position without fear that the opposing king would conquer the scepter square.

4. Simplifying to a drawn ending. This means not only K+minor vs K (which you mentioned), but nearly all K+P vs K endings would be wins for the superior side as well, assuming the weaker side's K wasn't on the verge of occuping its opposite number's starting square.
Specifically, a K+RP, NP or QBP would always win from any position (again, except those in which the weaker side's K already has a clear path to the winning square). K+f-pawn, e-pawn or d-pawn is a draw if the pawn is on its 6th rank and inferior side's K controls queening square and has the opposition (same as in normal chess). Without looking at a board, in my head I haven't worked out whether a pawn on those 3 middle files starting from 5th rank or less is a win or a draw.

These 4 strategic casualties are just for starters.

An interesting analysis ...
I am not sure about point #1 - esp with regards to sacrificing a pawn.

Do you mind if I post it on the website as a comment?

>>by the way I view 960 not as a variant, but as real chess played from a different starting position>>
By this logic, would you view the game Birds and Ninjas (two pairs of new pieces on a 10x10 board + 4 squares - see link) as Real Chess played with new pieces on a bigger board?

No, I don't mind your reposting my comment elsewhere. (thanks for the courtesy of asking.)

And no, I don't view variants that involve new pieces or a bigger (or smaller) board as "real chess"; they are variants, or less politely, what in politically incorrect days we used to call "fairy chess." That doesn't mean they are bad, but it means I wouldn't want to see them substantively discussed in chess forums.

Parenthetically, some recent elaboration I heard about the Japanese variant, Shogi, led me to reverse my earlier opinion. I went from viewing Shogi as a superior version of chess, to seeing it as an inferior version. That came from hearing someone knowledgeable about Shogi explain all the anti-draw rules (such as repetition is illegal), plus some statement to the effect that "every game winds up with both sides developing unstoppable mating attacks, and the result boils down to whose succeeds first."

To someone accustomed to chess's subtlety, this struck me as brutal and ultimately, boring. (If perpetual shoot-em-up is what you want, you already have video games.)

As I recall, the person who posted the Shogi comments was advocating anti-draw rules for chess, and was arguing by analogy with Shogi's alleged superiority. He made at least one convert, alright -- but not in the direction he no doubt intended.