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Experiments in Symmetry. Several experimental games to test whether perfect symmetry makes a game better.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Derek Nalls wrote on Wed, Jun 27, 2007 05:17 AM UTC:

In my opinion, both of your game proposals look like recipes for better games than standard Chess that are symmetrical.  However, I think opening setups that are 2 ranks deep with power pieces deviate too greatly from that of standard Chess to be directly comparable in accordance with the intent of Fergus Duniho's 'experiments in symmetry'.

His idea was to minimize the differences, to the greatest extent possible, between 2 games otherwise identical except for their respective symmetry and asymmetry.  In this manner, the tested variable could be isolated in theory.  In practice, this has been difficult.  To my present thinking, the only somewhat-satisfactory symmetrical game in existence to test against (asymmetrical) standard Chess is Mirror West Chess.  Unfortunately, this game has no single royal king per player.  Instead, it has 2 royal pieces (royal wazirs OR royal ferzes in different variants) per player.  So, its value for comparison is dubious.