Single Comment

I would put forth this board as the best flat decimal solution so far, having recently looked at the three NextChess threads, where 100 appears as plurality. Since so many others were rejected, I am indicating 1st out of 250-300 decimal 100-square chesses, ahead of Centennial; and that is how far out of line poor superficial judgments of other talkers lie. The insuperable advantage of course is that FC100 begins with the correct complementary pieces, and they are not allowed to. It just needs 5-6 more pieces per side to get normal 50-52% piece density here. Nonsensical fringe elements, including one cvp editor, disapproved the patenting (before Internet existed) without critiqueing the simplicity of two promotion zones here. The havoc of Pawns spaced more than 5 steps apart is eliminated, that dead-space. Centennial Chess deals with it positioning standard Pawns in ranks 3 and 8 to get the regular proximity. Disastrous Grand Chess tries the same spacing up front with a blank wall behind, and finally no one mentions the Grand fiasco anymore. Yet as Track I, who even needs 100 squares anyway, increasing spaces more than 50% over 64 squares? Ninety is enough for Xiangqi and 100 is being just grotesque to conservatives. If 100 were necessary, as a fallback, the extra squares of FC100 are battleground for promotion and King escape. The starting line-up just needs 5 more pieces per side back-ranked. I lean towards players' choosing and playing some variable 5 by prior agreement from over a dozen hallmark CV piece-types along with the already-positioned superior, fundamental RNBFKQP. They would include Cannon and Vao; Grasshopper, Gryphon, or bifurcator; Immobilizer. The exact extended mix from 12-25 types to choose depends whether you want them, by and large, to be as radical as the radical-already 100-square board itself. Really I don't think anything but Track II material can come out of large 100 squares respecting the tolerance of mainliners. And under Track II, the bizarre and the idiosyncratic championed by cvpage proliferation, I would entirely withdraw FC100 as far too conventional, having then no difficulty finding 10-20 good CV artworks to look at humorously. Another way of looking at it is as 100 squares being the very upper limit of respectability for *potential* Track 1, appealing to FIDE-types (our common ancestor). In fairness, most designers coming up with things on 100 squares are not wanting them to be for Track I consideration, including several broached at NextChess threads. There are many, many more likely 8x8 saving graces still to be bandied, more likely than any top-heavy ''decimal'' for strict Track I. It could be that just the right castling tweaks around Winther's current comment, or small-scale FRC tweak, are all needed, to save face within so many worldwide appearing to be abandoning Chess and rational thinking. Devolution, in contradistinction to Evolution.