Are the rules of chess still evolving?

I don't think any of the rules regarding the movement of the peices will change.  They've been pretty static for a very long time and are beautifully balanced in their current form.

Discounting those rules that pertain to formal tournament play alone (i.e. time controls, when do you have to be seated etc.) the only rule I can see being a candidate for change is the 50 move rule.  Tablebases have turned up, and will likely continue to turn up, forced wins that can be prevented by claiming a draw because they exceed the 50 moves so there may be an argument in favour of increasing the number of moves.

Even then I have my doubts....

chessvariants.org

for the whole nine yards...they dont even call chess chess there !

Hmmmm this thread has my approval.

i see the draw buy not taking any units is goingto cahnge

The pawn's initial two square move and the en passant capture are related. Somewhere around the 14th century, give or take a couple hundred years, the two square move was adopted because people wanted to speed up the opening. They realized a pawn could avoid capture on its first move by moving two squares and bypassing any threatening enemy pawn. This led to the en passant capture. It keeps the pawn that's moving two squares from avoiding a capture that had always existed before. That's why the pawn capturing en passant captures as if the pawn being taken moved just one square.

Thanks. It is amusing/interesting to try to imagine how something like that came up though - a stormy night in a monastery somewhere with a couple of monks trying to get a game in before midnight mass:

Ruy: Would that we could speed up the damned opening...

Estaban: How about moving the pawns two spaces on their first move.

Ruy: Ok - let's try it.

Estaban: Damn! There's the bell...

Or maybe it was a couple of white chicks sitting around talking...

I think there is still the possibility for change. The number of high level draws is something at least some people worry about. And we are seeing efforst to affect that, such as the 3/1/0 scoring at the London Classic this year. I don't know if the anti-draw pressure will be enough to enact the rules changes suggested to handle it, such as stalemate being a loss for the stalemated player. But who knows.

I expect Fischer Random to continue to grow in popularity, but I think that will continue to exist along side Chess, not eliminate it. However, I wonder if the appeal of FRC is to the more learned players, who have come face to face with the memorization issue. I'm not sure it has the same appeal to newer players. But perhaps one of the more active variants like Crazy House or Seirawan Chess will make inroads there.

Ok, I'm gonna let you guys in on a little secret, free of charge. They're actually coming out with a new piece called the Quight. It's a mix of the queen and knight, and has movement like both of them. But kasparov told me I couldn't tell anyone, so you guys gotta keep this quiet. Here it is:

They're also comming out with a new piece called the quing. It's twice as powerful as the king, and you win by either checkmating the king once or the quing twice. ///// I forgot to mention that I don't have a picture of it, but it just looks like the king in drag.

Also Bishops didn't exist and Queens could only move one square at a time, and because prior to the queen becoming more powerufl when you attacked a rook you were obligated to say "rook check" or something to that effect.