Introduce Yourself / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page Introduce Yourself.

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Grayhawke

Grayhawke 18 Apr 2007 22:32

My name is Graeme C. Neatham and I live in Fife, Scotland, with my wife and (currently) 8 dogs. I trained as an Actuary but switched to IT in the early 1990's, working on various projects in Europe, North America and the Far East. I retired in January 2007 due to poor health and now spend my time pursuing a variety of hobbies and interests.

These include, apart from Chess and CVs, Wargaming (almost exclusively Ancients), Open Source Software (PHP, Java, C, C++), Science Fiction and Fantasy (I especially admire the writing of David Gemmell and have been a Star Trek fan since my University days) and not forgetting the Dogs (Jo, Merlin, Zen, Nikki, Beagan, Mo, Kat, and Kyle).

Re: Grayhawke

Rich Hutnik 05 Apr 2008 22:14

Hello Graeme. Can you help with coming up with a good open-source licensing agreement that will bes serve the variant community on a "Linux" type framework for a version of chess the variant community can contribute to? It should allow for free distribution, but also a chance for people doing commercial variants to integrate it into their work, and be able to make a living. The idea is to make the variant community more financially viable, and also considered more legitimate. I would also then would like this to be part of IAGO/IAGO World Tour, so that variant tournaments be run, player champions be crowned and so on. My idea isn't to make this a glory thing for IAGO, and have it try to force its way on the world, but have the world give serious input into what things should be, so that the fullness of chess (variants onward) would be insured is reflected in what IAGO does.

Re: Grayhawke

Grayhawke 05 Apr 2008 23:58

Hi Rich,
I would suggest using the licence that by default covers the work on this wiki

the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 License.

Cheers
Graeme

Re: Grayhawke

Rich Hutnik 06 Apr 2008 01:28

Thanks. I will keep that in mind. What I do want people to do is to be able to sell the contents for profits if they choose to do so, redistributing them with equipment they have if they choose to do so, or putting it in a book for profit. I want them somehow to point back to the original work. If they distribute for free, that is one issue.

What I don't want to have happen is that by people being involved with IAGO Chess System, the end result was they lose the ability to make money using it. As for the Chess of the Future Project, that I will let others decide on.

Re: Grayhawke

Rich Hutnik 06 Apr 2008 01:29

I should also add, I would like to be notified (aka, IAGO) when this happens to be done, so I can be aware of where it is going. Maybe I can reframe this somehow.

Re: Grayhawke

Rich Hutnik 06 Apr 2008 03:29

Feel free to sign up on the abstractgamers.org site, and that would start. There is also the news site you can sign up on. There is a Wiki section allowing for editing. I happened to change the terms and conditions of IAGO Chess. I will need to do the same for the IAGO Framework. The object now is, the stuff is free to use and modify, provided that people point to the latest version of the document. Such can also be done for commercial purposes, if the author (myself) or IAGO World Tour Enterprises is contacted in writing. There is assumed no legal liability on the part of the author or IAGO World Tour Enterprises if through said use and distribution break any laws. That is what is being driven at now. The idea here is to facilitate its use and people adding to it. The terms may get modified as the changes are shown to make more sense.

I believe there is a news wiki that allows for the signing up for latest new blurbs. Most of these are IAGO World Tour events that get added.

Joe Joyce

Joe Joyce 19 Apr 2007 00:29

Hi. My name is Martin J. Joyce III, but Joe is easier. I live on top of the east bank of the Hudson River just north of New York City, a beautiful view on winter nights, with my wife, her collection of animals and plants, and, currently, one child (the older).

Got a degree a long time ago, but had so much fun back then I was an 8-year man. For my sins, I wound up working for the US Postal Service for a third of a century, retiring when I turned 55 in 2003. Until my knees went (an occupational hazard), I enjoyed tennis and free-climbing. Now I enjoy ping-pong and hiking, and have just started kayaking.

Learned to play chess and got addicted to science fiction at 10, got hooked on wargames at 12. By 15, I was "improving" some of the wargames. I discovered chess variants 3 years ago, in 2004. My sedentary hobbies include reading sf, fantasy, and science, and designing boardgames. I am trying to put together a small game company to sell some of the non-chess games. The ups and downs of that try (mostly downs) have been interesting and informative, but fortunately not totally discouraging. That's my avowed ambition.

My secret ambition is to become a world-famous chess variants designer (known by tens around the globe).

Gifford, Gary K

gary g 19 Apr 2007 21:31

Like other members I've read about here, in addition to games and chess variants, I too like science fiction and fantasy.

In regard to chess variants, I have created around 40 (see www.chessvariants.com) - most of them were created subconsciously, such that I woke up with them in my head, or was driving a car or riding a bike, or watching TV, when a game seemed to suddenly appear.

I am currently working on a chess book with Bill Wall (an established chess author) and Davide Rozzoni (former editor of Unorthodox Openings Newsletter (UON). UON is an electronic magazine these days about strange and wonderful chess openings which are often overlooked by the typical chess player. I am the current editor of UON. Note that we should complete our chess book by fall 2007.

I am the author and illustrator of a book, "The Bermuda Pie-Angle, Cartoons and Word Play." In staying with the subject of writing, but drifting away from chess and cartoons, I am currently involved with a project through Amazon.com. It is a science fiction project that you can read about at my web page, www.cosmicsubmarine.wetpaint.com. Also there is a page there about the Bermuda Pie-Angle. That page includes several drawings of mine.

I have a wife, 4 kids, 2 cats, an old hermit crab. We all live near Lake Erie in Ohio, USA. I am employed as a technical writer/illustrator/documentation coordinator and have been maintaining and updating databases for hardware and software data acquisition components [yawn]. Long before that, I was a submarine sailor who spent a lot of time in the Mediterranean.

These days, on the long drive to and from work, I listen to Spanish tapes in hopes of becoming fluent in Espanol.

In closing, if you have read this far and are still awake, "Hasta la vista." And in case you dozed off… "buenos nochess."

Re: Gifford, Gary K

Grendel 20 Oct 2009 00:57

Hi. My name's Wesley Parish, and like a lot of you I'm an SF addict; I'm currently doing a programming course to get up to date on one of the current popular languages, Java. I live in New Zealand.

I learnt chess at an early age, though I haven't done a lot of playing over the years; I've invented one (or perhaps more) chess variants, though on a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri that can quite safely be predicted not to have any influence from the Earth game: it's got a few twists - you have a citadel aka City, you have a Massif in the middle, and you have a set of free actors who are nominally on your side, in a "valley" running up both sides of the board: the trick is to suborn the opposition's free actors by placing one of your Lords (bishop plus Castle) within the free actors' "valley" on the opponent's side of the board, thus giving you a free pass to attack within the opponent's City and bypass the Massif, which is otherwise the key to success. I suspect I got a lot from my exposure to one of the Chinese versions of Chess, which I learnt to play in my late twenties.

Jos Jansen of Lorkeers

Jos Jansen 20 Apr 2007 09:37

Hello everybody,

I live in the Netherlands in a town called Apeldoorn: quite near Arnhem (which some people know from "A Bridge too far")

In Apeldoorn is a very lively chess-scene: from elementary-school clubs (nearly every elementary school has some sort of chessclub)
to 2 chessclubs for children and adults. One of the chess-clubs participates in the highes chess-league of the Netherlands.

I got interested in chess on my 12th year. Played a few games and then forgot about it.

After that i gor married / moved to Apeldoorn / got children. And then chess started again. A teacher on the elementary-school asked my wife if she knew somebody who could help in the chess-club of the school. My wife said í would come and help them (what she sometimes regrets now :).
I helped for a while / became responsible for the finances, after the chairman left i became chairman: have been doing that for 10 years: resigned April 2007.

I do play some chess-games on www.chessworld.net - hardly play any "real-time games behind a real chessboard".

I did some translations into Dutch for chessvariants.org: mainly because the children in our club are nearly all on elementary-school and do not know enough English to understand the English texts.

Currently i work as a system-/networkadministrator for a company that makes locks/security hardware.

Last edited on 21 Oct 2009 08:05 by Jos Jansen Show more

Dale Holmes

DaleH 20 Apr 2007 14:56

Hello, all. Not quite sure what I did to get invited to join such a distinguished company (David, was one of your mailing lists from dullards.com?), but I'll gladly listen in to the discussion now that I'm here. I freely admit that Chess is not my game (I'm more attracted to Checkers and Go, really) but I do have a lively interest in boardgames generally, and--what might be relevant here--the different finite geometries pieces might live and move around in.

I live and move around in Raleigh, North Carolina, where the moonshinin' and inbreedin' goes on; but I grew up in Michigan, where they build trucks and stockpile ammunition; and I used to work as a college professor in upstate New York, where the Jesuits of tomorrow are wearing sandals and knitting windchimes today. Not a remarkable past, to be sure, but sufficient to keep me from getting bored.

Though I admire all of the occupations mentioned by y'all (author, actuary, lockmaker--good trades, every one!) I'm putting my time & money aside like Joe these days: trying to sell various games of my own invention.

Last edited on 22 Apr 2007 09:54 by DaleH Show more

Hello

Knight-errant 20 Apr 2007 22:00

Hey, Joe, Larry, and all!

I am Gavin Smith (Gavin being a derivation of Sir Gawaine, the original knight-errant). In a flurry of activity in 2004 whose impetus was combating boredom while recovering from surgery, I invented the 3D chess variant Prince. I met Joe Joyce (above) and we even tried to play a game of it. But it's a game that's too complicated to play in one sitting. I have pretty much fallen off the face of the earth since, and am now in Washington state pursuing a masters in math. But I still lurk on the various chess variants sites and groups, and look forward to someday having the time finish playing at least one game of Prince, and trying out other variants as well.

Peace.

Re: Hello

Joe Joyce 20 Apr 2007 23:01

Hey, Gavin! Great to hear from you. Larry is probably lurking about; he surfaces but rarely. However, he's made 2 recent appearances, so I expect he'll see this - he's still interested. Things are getting interesting here; members old and new are getting involved in discussions, disagreements, and diverse designs, from too small to too big [I'm only guilty of one]. Good luck with the math masters, and hope to see you in some games in the future. Should I warn people about your playing ability? You thumped me so bad in hype I had to write it into the rules page! Hope I've gotten better since then, but I've found 2D to be easier to play. Still, I certainly haven't given up on higher dimensions, and I finally own enough chess sets and boards to be able to play Prince as a board game - after we label all the different pieces appropriately ;-)
Look forward to hearing from you again. Enjoy,
Joe

Karen Robinson

KarenSDR 23 Apr 2007 19:53

Hello, everyone. I'm Karen and I live in Colorado with my husband, to whom I've been married for 28 years. We have two grown kids, a son and a daughter. I'm a math teacher at a community college.

I'm terrible at chess but I love it anyway, probably partly because of Alice Through the Looking Glass. I have a couple of items on the ChessVariants pages: Queen's Quadrille and Chess Contradanse. The former is like a 15-puzzle, and I mostly made it up for something fun to do with chess pieces that's within my meagre capabilities. I've had mail from computer programmers who like to find optimum solutions, but that's not what I was aiming for. I was just kind of doodling.

I have a page of games I've made up at www.angelfire.com/my/zelime/games.html

I probably won't post here much, but I do enjoy lurking on the ChessVariants pages, and I'll probably lurk here too.

Karen

Crazyhorse

crazyhorse 29 Apr 2007 01:10

Aloha friends. My name is William C. Schmidt. I live on the Island of Hawaii, with the active volcano. Small engine mechanic by proffession and engine efficiency by hobbie I had never entered the web until I bought my daughter a laptop for her 13th back in Sept. of 2006.

I have played chess since age 8 but never new of variants. I was introduced to Othello some years ago and became bored with the strategy and designed a 9 x 9 game in my head but never told anyone. This led me to develope a 9 x 9 chess variant Niners, which I also kept to myself.

When my daughter recieved HER laptop, Daddy had to wait till she went to bed to try it. I didn't sleep for two weeks!

Grandious delusions of great wealth had me searching Made in China dot com to find a producer for my game to sell to Walmart. Rollout vinal chessboards led me to Chessvariants. At this time I discovered my Knighted Queen already existed and had more than one name per the Piececlyopedia. When I studied the Piececlyopedia I saw a lot of blank spaces. This led to two more weeks of no sleep while I filled in the blanks with a 13 x13 Knightmare, standard board Knightimes, & 7 x 7 Missing Link.

I am not very good with computers and have trouble accomplishing my desired tasks. Knightmare was posed for me but I haven't been successful posing the rest. I'm not sure why I was invited either but here I am when the world outside will let me be here.
Aloha.

Scharnagl

Scharnagl 30 Apr 2007 19:44

Hi to all chess variant lovers. I am Reinhard Scharnagl from Munich, Bavaria, Germany. One of my hobbies is to develop a multivariant (FullChess) chess program SMIRF and its own GUI. Now I am about to migrate with it to Mac OS X, what will need a lot of time. Its name will probably be changed then.

Sam here

samiam 29 Aug 2007 22:09

Hello, everyone, this is Sam Trenholme. I have been interested in Chess Variants since the early 1990s, and in 1994 uploaded a text file describing Chess Variants to the internet. This is, to the extent of my knowledge, the first ever internet resource for Chess Variants, and predates the original Chess Varian pages by a couple of years.

I have actually only "invented" one variant: Schoolbook Chess. However, I am working right now on adding some more theory to the short-range project.

I am busy, and have an intermittent internet connection (this is why I am unable to play in the tourneys), but will make contributions here when I have time to do so.

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