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This popular thread from 1996 falls off in Comments during 2008. It's self-evident that the board's too small. Shogi outsizes 64 with 81, and Xiangqi dwarfs 64 with 90 spaces. Only so much can be done on 64 squares that has not been done already. Yet 64 trucks on in international competition like the archaism or the addictions it is. Sure it's neatly hexadecimal times 4 (2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2), but so what? 64 squares have simply outlived their usefulness. Its only use anymore, other than paramount historical interest really, is for early instruction to 6-, 7-, and 8-year-olds first learning the moves. The Biblical 40 days and nights, totalling 80 watches, is the optimum size and still fewer than Shogi and Xiangqi. Now 100 squares is too big because Pawns cannot be made to work right. If you get the size right first, it is possible that almost anything fits. 64 squares are too tucked in and narrow, too squat a size for Pawns most of all. No elbow room, no free rein for Knight either. Knight-a3 or -h3 is hopeless on 64-square board size, but N-j3 within the first 10 moves may make sense sometimes. 64 is practically size 8x6 for Pawns, because poor a- and h-Pawns cannot capture to their outside. All the action gets channelled up files b, c, d, e, f and g. They squeezed an extra 100 years out of 64 squares by standardizing Castling. 80 squares is the new Orthodoxy. Castling is not even necessary on 80 spaces, being the orthodox size now to the cognoscenti, but most prefer keeping castling there and even enlarging the possible squares King can move in his castle maneuvre with the Rook.