No castling for the first 10 moves was one idea Kramnik threw out in an interview at Kazan recently.  Another was to eliminate the en passant.  Why?  To make current opening theory obsolete without changing the game as drastically as Chess960 would.  With computers top level preparation is becoming longer and longer.  Does it make sense to make some rule changes? 

no the rules are in perfect harmony to me everyone is just so dog scared of chess being solved and to me I think it never will or draw for certain openings will be the key.

It won't matter for you or me or anyone not in the top 20 or so in the world.  But people already complain about all the draws and when computer lines go to move 30 in a WC match will that attract any fans?

I think it's so strange that humans are putting so much effort into solving chess and at the same time we're so scared that that will happen.

Top players memorize reams of theory they generate at home with computers so this is something for them to consider.  Along side this complaint Kramnik notes that chess is still inexhaustible... it's just at the highest level preparation is becoming enormous.

For guys like us preparation is not not in danger of hurting our chess... but I'm sure some kook related to those 960 guys will pop up and say "see, chess is stale and needs a rule change!"  This will be the same guy that wouldn't know a luncea position from the greek gift sac, and I will duly laugh in his face.

Ooo, changing the rules for friendly games once in a while sounds fun though!

Next time I get someone over to play, there's going to be one-time pit traps on d4 and d5.

Yasser Seirawan's suggestion is an interesting one...

When you've been offerered a draw you get three options:

Accept the draw

Decline the draw

Switch sides

Nice!

That would wreak havoc on pgn files

Yeah, but it sounds awesome!

This is a very interesting idea. Does it also mean reversing the clock?

Since when did en passant affect a lot of opening lines? And I think that using the soccer-style scoring system (where you get three points for a win, one for a draw, and none for a loss) more would be much better than those rule changes.

I agree, this system would work great in tournaments. However, it seems that it would not be nearly as effective in match play.

The proposed changes do not seem to achieve much, in my opinion, and they would remove some of the character of the game. Instead we should have more crazy rules like en passant! Most likely involving sharks and lasers.

I love en passant as its the only dirty french I know.  Well, OK but it sounds dirty...

Any such rule change would be a disgrace.