The problem with chess has always been that there's no luck element. You can't hustle a game with no luck element very effectively because the fish needs to win sometimes. You can throw a game now and then to keep the fish interested, but you're walking a fine line because if the fish finds out what you're doing they not only quit playing you but become quite upset. (I've done this playing $1 games downtown and it tilts 1700 club players to know that they're only beating me 1 game in 4 because I'm letting them.)

So how could we alter chess slightly so that it became, say, 90% skill and 10% skill? I've seen variants where cards are used and whatnot, and there's even a variant somewhat similar to poker in which your opponent can literally buy takebacks from you, and another in which you make $x for every enemy piece that you capture (called, of course, "hold em"). I can't find this variant anymore, so no link.

Just some wistful thinking on my part. If chess were altered slightly and suddenly fish were willing to play for money, I'd feel that a large chunk of my life hadn't actually been wasted.

why do you want this? then the government would just make online chess illegal.

Proofread much?

You can involve dice perhaps, and then depending on what # something happens.

I don't see any point in this. There's plenty of big money tournaments for skilled players. For small money, I never ran into anything like somebody becoming upset. I would play for $5/game at a local coffee shop and there were always a couple of people willing to play, even if they would not win - just for fun. Or make some sort of silly wager like if they win, you pay them $50. If you win, they buy you another round.

Gotta have the charisma of a toad if people were actually getting upset about losing at chess.

Or is that park in new york still about where people play for small stakes? Seems to be mentioned in every single piece of mainstream chess media.

even if you could do this it would be possible to profit from it online because the game is too easy to cheat at. Thus you could only make money live, do you really think you could take in that much hustling people in the park in a game that was created right here in 2009. I'd say face it, there is unfortunately no way. Yes it sucks being better than 99% of people at something and not being able to profit, sigh. haha.

Still going strong last August. It was fun losing a couple of games there, but the stakes are so small that it doesn't really matter.

This

you can play with dice. Probably the best version is this: you roll two dice, each number represents a piece Pawn 1, Knight 2, etc. You can move any piece indicated by either die. If you roll doubles you can move any piece. You must capture the king to win and it is legal to leave your king in check.

So this game has just enough luck to make it interesting and fast-moving (if you play a version with one die, it's too often that you roll and roll and can't get a legal move). It has enough skill for a strong player to have an edge, but it's almost impossible to have a 90% edge unless one player is a total beginner. Still it won't catch on as a serious alternative to chess. For the same reason other variants don't catch on: they just aren't chess. No one plays kriegspiel or atomic or crazyhouse or even Fischer Random. Bughouse is probably the most popular variant and even that has limited appeal.

They're all seen as a fun diversion for players who don't want to play another game of blitz. I don't think you would get a new cult following just by introducing chess players to a game with more variance.

another problem is that the luck factor is not intrinsic to the game, and most people would come in to contact with regular chess first, learn they suck at it, and so assume they suck at the luck added version too. unlike poker where luck is intrinsic, so variance convinces people they are good.

Offer a certain number of takebacks per game to lower opposition. Basically, a chance to correct an obvious mistake.

play in the dark