Category talk:Chess variants

Change structure of categories?

Although "Chess variants" is a subcategory of Chess, the term in English is equated with the Chaturanga game family, essentially making it a subset of itself. It makes more sense to restrict this category to "heterodox chess", as variants derived from Western chess, rather than allow any chess-like game. Davilla

Chess variants traditionally include also oriental and historic chess-like games, see e.g. [1]. Pritchard's "Encyclopedia of Chess Variants" includes them as well. Actually, I don't like category Chaturanga game family. It makes not much sense. Also some chess historians believe that chess originated from proto-Xiangqi and Chaturanga didn't exist at all! May be this category should be simply removed. Andreas Kaufmann 15:42, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm less certain of the names than I am of the structure. It doesn't make any sense for a category to be a subcategory of itself. Since you find "Chaturanga game family" awkward, let me propose the following structure:

• Chess variants

Chess-like games, as described in the literature

Subcategories:

• Chess
• Shogi

Articles:

• Chaturanga
• Xiangqi

and other national games

• Chess

Western chess

Subcategories:

• Heterodox chess
• Chess pieces
• Chess competitions

etc.

Articles:

• Chessboard
• Chess symbols in Unicode

and other topics on standard Western chess

• Heterodox chess

Games derived from Western chess

Subcategory:

• Arimaa

Articles:

• Fairy chess piece
• Knightmare chess

and other variations for Western chess

This could be accomplished by either:

1. Deleting Chaturanga game family and pushing most articles currently in Chess variants down into a new Heterodox chess subcategory
2. Renaming Chess variants as the category Heterodox chess while removing national games, and renaming Chaturanga game family as Chess variants

In either case Chess variants would mention something about possible origin from Charuanga as Chaturanga game family now does. I'm not sure if the name reflects my desire to keep historical chess variants at that level and group other variants as variants of Western chess. The Wikipedia article on Chess variants is more appropriate for Heterodox chess as it only makes apologetic reference to national games. As to naming again, I'm not certain that all derivatives of Western chess could be considered heterodox. For instance, Arimaa seems to be a completely new creation. Davilla 19:15, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I still not completely understand where is the problem with the current categorization. "Chess varaints" category doesn't include chess itself. So, it is not a subset of itself. Since chess is much better known then other chess variants in english-speaking countries, I think this justifies such categorization. I can imagine that Chinese wikipedia will have category "Xiangqi" with subcategory "Xiangqi variants", which will include also our chess (I think they call it "international xiangqi"). Andreas Kaufmann 12:06, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

"Chess variants", the collection of all games similar to chess, is a subcategory of "Chess", and "Chess" is a subcategory of "Chaturanga game family", the collection of all games similar to chaturanga. Of course chess and chaturanga are similar, so the collections are the same. Chess variants, meaning the collection of all such games, is therefore a subcategory of itself by transitivity. Davilla 10:48, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

"Chess variants" doesn't include "Chess" itself, but "Chaturanga game family" does. Hence these two categories are disjoint. Andreas Kaufmann 13:26, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Okay you're right, but it's still not pretty. "Chess" = chess + "Chess variants" is at least as big as the Chaturanga game family, although it is a subcategory of it. Maybe I could relate the current situation using a different approach:

• Apple I personal computer family

Personal computer offshoots from the controversial legendary first

Subcategories:

• Wintel
• Macintosh

Articles:

• IBM OS/2
• Next

and other historic platforms

• Wintel

Windows operating system running on standard IBM boxes

Subcategories:

• Wintel variants
• Windows interface
• Windows operating systems

etc.

Articles:

• System32
• Windows logo

etc.

• Wintel variants

Running on different hardware and/or software

Subcategoris:

• Windows NT
• Macintosh

Articles:

• Compaq
• Dell
• AMD
• Next

etc.

Any analogy is flawed, of course. I don't think anyone would divide it up this way for the personal computer market. The point is that some of the entries should stand out as being in the wrong place. When I look at the chess categories this is the sort of contrast I see. Davilla 19:12, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

An alternate proposal: Move "Chaturanga game family" to "National chess variants", replacing the "Chess" subcategory with a passing mention of Chess, and make it a subcategory of "Chess variants". This hierarchy doesn't reflect the chronology or proper scope, but it does satisfy strict inclusion and conform to the definition of chess variants. Davilla 19:24, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Second-level categories

Without directly getting involved in the above debate, I would like to add a secondary listing of chess variants, listed by the primary way(s) the game differs from standard Western chess -- not because that's the "right" way to categorize, but simply to assist in searching for particular games.

For instance, I want to find out more about a particular chess variant which has only one rule different: "Only 'empowered' pieces can be moved or captured. Definition of 'empowered': the king is empowered, and recursively, any piece in range of an empowered piece of the same color is empowered." I don't know what this variant is called. To see if there is a wikipedia article about it would require reading a bit of every single chess-variant article in the alphabetic listing.

Thus a secondary listing is in order, quite aside from the above debate. -- DougMerritt 71.131.101.244 16:48, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Oops, what I was suggesting is more or less already done over on chess variant page (I still don't see anything about the variant I'm looking for, but I guess it would be some form of relay/anti-relay chess variant). 71.131.101.244 21:19, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

As far as I know such variant wasn't yet suggested by anybody else. The best place to publish new orignal variants and get feedback from others is here.Andreas Kaufmann 19:11, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Variants vs. relatives

As the guy who created the Chaturanga Game Family cat, I suppose this mess is partly my fault. The intent was to remove some unconscious Western bias from the categorization: Shogi, for example, is not a "variant of" Chess any more than German is a variant of English; they are related via a common ancestor. The problem of course is that there is no common term for this grouping, nor consensus on the identity of the ancestor. It turns out that naming it based on the traditional claim that Chaturanga was the common ancestor was a poor choice because that theory was more controversial than I thought.

As a possible compromise, how about simply renaming "Chaturanga game family" to "Chess game family" and keeping it as the highest grouping in the hierarchy, putting Chess, Shogi, Xiangqi, etc under it, and keeping "Chess variants" as a subcategory of "Chess" for heterodox varieties derived from FIDE chess. It's not ideal, but probably less controversial and more intuitive. — Gwalla | Talk 23:00, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

How about renaming "Chaturanga game family" to "Chess-like games"? Andreas Kaufmann 21:19, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

That may be the most neutral we can be while still being useful. — Gwalla | Talk 06:56, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I renamed "Chaturanga game family" category to "Chess-like games" category. Andreas Kaufmann 22:00, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

And that just got deleted for being redundant with Category:Abstract strategy games. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. — Gwalla | Talk 05:02, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

May be should just put all these national variants back into "Chess variants" category, as it was the case sometimes in the past. Andreas Kaufmann 11:55, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Add Laser Chess?

Perhaps the Wikipedia article on Laser Chess should be attached to this listing? SpellSword (talk) 16:09, 23 December 2007 (UTC)