Chess 960 and Capablanca Chess

I know I was wondering that to.

I would think the chancellor is worth about a queen since it moves as a rook and knight and the queen moves as a rook and bishop.

N=3, B=3.5 or 4, R=5, A=8.75, C=9, Q=9.5

(The B=4 is for the first Bishop captured; another way of looking at this is that the Bishop is worth 3.5, and the B-pair bonus = 0.5. Giving N+P to break the B-pair is an equal trade in this variant.)

Capablanca Chess is actually part of a family of chess variants. The oldest known version is Carrera's Chess, which the set up RCNBKQBNAR. Then Bird had a version with the set up RNBCKQABNR. There are a couple modern versions with other set ups, one of which was commercially available for a while. I think the castling rules also vary from version to version.

Seirawan Chess can also be seen as a family of chess variants. You can use the same rules, but pick two other fairy chess pieces to drop in. You could even just drop in an extra knight and bishop.

Grand chess, invented by Christian Freeling, is similar to Capablanca chess, although it's played on a 10x10 board. 

http://www.chessvariants.com/large.dir/freeling.html

What I don't understand is that if the notion of "draw death" is so problematic for chess why don't more Grandmasters call for Chess960 or Capa Chess?  I follow a bit of professional chess, not too closely but I look at a few games a every week probably, and I don't ever hear any clamor for it on top level.  Has anyone hear different?  I know there is a recent interview with Kasparov who said chess will never be solved, noting that there are more possibilities on a chess board than there are atoms in the solar system.  So I don't think there is much hope for these variants catching on in a professional way.  But I still think with chess living on the internet, that there isn't widespread support for these variants.

Chess variants for a bit of fun are one thing, but they are never going to take off among the masses. I play Chess 960 here on this site, just as a diversion more than anything else, and it is fun to try something different. I wouldn't bother playing it at home on a board though. Chess variants could also be seen as a form of elitism, so people who feel that they are a cut above the rest at standard Chess might prefer to play variants of Chess like capablanca... and good luck to them if they do. However, proper Chess is never going to die, or be solved! (Whatever that means?!)

For me it is just the other way around. If someone would invite me to play an OTB game of FIDE Chess, I would decline, but for a game of bughouse I would always be interested.

I am definatley in favor of any variant that is added to live chess or CC.

I agree that it will never be "solved", but it would be so cool to have Capablanca Chess become really popular and be able to watch the progression of theory.  I also think there would be less draws.

The game is definitely less drawish. In computer self-play, only 16% of the games ends in a draw. For orthodox Chess this is something like 32%. Most likely this is because the game is so much more violently tactical, that most games are decided very much before you reach a drawish end-game. Spartan Chess has a draw rate of 20%, not because it is more tactical than orthodox Chess, but because you always have end-games with unequal material, which is seldomly a dead draw. (The ancient Chess precuror Shatranj is quite hopeless in this respect: 70% of the games end as draws. This despite the rule additions that you don't only win by checkmate, but also by stalemate, or baring the opponent King!)

Of course the least drawish of all are games like Crazyhouse and Shogi. Because captured material is recycled there, you can always go on until it gets decided. (Shogi draw rates are reported to be less than 2%!)

I like shogi. (Even better than chess)

Indeed, Shogi is a great game. Problem is that the material with which it is traditionally played is totally unacceptable to westerners. When playing on the computer you can of course choose any representation you want, not limited by the fact that captured pieces have to change color. So I use the more Chess-player-friendly representation of WinBoard. Not that I play myself; I mainly watch games between the Shogi engine I have written myself (Shokidoki) and other engines.

 I'm fine with the kanji. It just took a little getting used to.

I don't understand how you guys are playing these gametypes.  I went to the website and I saw instructions but no servers.  But it seems the only chess variant that has a future is 960.  I would love to see some GM Capablanca Chess though.  And even though I've heard from different people that Xianqi is more popular it doesn't seem to have any professional tournaments.  I did only minimal searching admittedly though.

Well, for Xiangqi you would have to google in Chinese, of course. And there most certainly is an association of professional Shogi players. (They have forbidden their members to play against computers.) In fact I met a professional Shogi player in Kanazawa, japan, who was commenting the games of the Shogi tournament of the ICGA Computer Olympiad.

Shogi is the Japanese chess variant where you capture pieces to add to your own army right?  Or is that some ancient variation I'm thinking of?

Correct, adding captured pieces to your own army is a distinctive feature of shogi. There's a modern variant inpsired by shogi called crazyhouse that uses standard chess pieces combined with the ability to reenter captured pieces as your own. 

Shogi is (in my opinion) better than chess.