Herlock Sholmes:  Some people simply cannot conceive or speak of conventional Western chess as being a variant (admittedly, far and away the most popular chess variant).

To me, it seems similar to the way that many people adamantly refuse to categorize alcohol as drug, or to conceive of humans as primates.  The list goes on and on...

People are funny that way!

wetware: because for most of us we are proud HUMANS playing the ONLY GAME THERE IS of chess and we taste WHISKEY (do not drink) ... and poor apes play chess variants and snore cocaine ... you are right, people are funny, not only that way ...

Herlock Sholmes: Your comments and suggestions are curious. Much of this ground has been covered before (that is, attempting to lure more chess players to get interested in variants), and the results (most sadly) have been mediocre at best, dismal at worst.

Chess variants is a fascinating field. I've been delving into it for some 25 years. Still, I don't think chess is boring, but it is definitely overmechanized. One could easily spend an entire lifetime just studying to keep up with the ever-increasing volume of "opening theory". Well, that is rather mundane, and I don't know who would want to do that, except GMs and IMs. Anyhow, chess remains widely popular, but (as you hint) also has become somewhat rigid, and this very condition is what has inspired chess variants!

There are two main problems with chess variants:
1. Many are half-baked ideas that are introduced with little or no play testing, and really not worthy of much consideration, and this tends to drown out the small percentage of really good concepts;
2.Many of those who play only chess (where the potential field of new variants players would naturally derive) ignorantly dismiss the entire collection of variants as "fairy chess" or some other derogatory term. Call it "human nature" if you will, but I find this lack of open-mindedness pointedly unintelligent, which is ironic considering that most chess players think of themselves as "smart". Some have been actually known to express verbatim that just trying a variant would be "beneath their dignity"!!?

Another factor to consider is that CV is relatively young. Chess has been around for many centuries, whereas CV is but a few decades old. There are a few CV dating back farther, but I mainly refer to the explosion of new CV ideas, which is much more recent. How popular was chess after such a short time?

And, for general information, there are descriptions and details of hundreds of variants at the Chess Variant Pages: http://www.chessvariants.com/

Pioneer54: and I agree with you for the most part ... I am familiar with chess variants web site, I am registered inventor there ... it's a matter of some psychological portrait we have ... I would rather play everyday something new than dig into the same game day after day ... to the point that I would remove my own piece to make it more exiting and new. On the other hand if traditional chess would be such a perfect game, there would't be so many thousands of variants ... there would be no need for it. And because there are different kind of pieces in chess set it calls for playing variety ... there a only few versions or form of GO ... why ? Is it a perfect game or GO pieces are limited in what can be done with them ?

Herlock Sholmes: Before deciding whether or not to have a go at a particular chess variant, I think a player might ask the age old question : "What is in it for me?" In this case the answer may need to involve some personal satisfaction, stretching of the mind, the probability of being able to play some more games in order to build on lessons learnt, and eventually some practical reward such as a public rating, a medal, or even some money.
For this to happen, there have to be enough people involved, of a sufficiently high chess standard, who all think the variant is of high enough quality to make it worth playing more and more games. This has already happened to some extent on this site with some chess variants, which must be a good thing.
Would it help if some grandmasters got involved? I am not so sure it would.

Herlock Sholmes:
I wonder, do you play backgammon (I don't very often) ... but here is a game which may rival chess in its popularity and its list of variants even though I think it has far less opportunities to be morphed. But still the traditional game prevails. Go is the same.

These days I play very little traditional chess as I do not have time to read as widely as some and to play at the higher level you need to or be quite gifted (which I am also am not). I, probably like you, enjoy playing variants where there is no great history or written material on the benefits of e2-e4. I enjoy playing in an even challenge and find this is the province of variants for me.

I believe the reason why traditional chess, backgammon, go and the like survive with very few rule changes is that they have already been proofed by the test of time. I do not know of one variant that takes less away from the traditional game than it adds. Maybe you would like to analyse a few examples to try to prove me wrong.

In conclusion, I agree there is an element of truth to what you say about the "boring" nature of traditional chess and I am sure this is more prevalent at the higher levels ... championships played where the majority of games, despite the clever play, end in draws in no great inspiration ... but when you look at the subtleties they are often quite astounding and beautiful ... way beyond my capabilities.. I am not convinced that a plethora of variants would lead to such revelations.