Even more variants!

I'm updating the book, even though only two months have passed since the last update, and not that much has changed since. In fact, the only real change is that I added 6 new, unbalanced randomized variants. As you might have guessed, those new variants are unbalanced because initial setup for each player is being randomized independently from each other. Also, there are no additional checks-and-balances, except a standard one for Bishops, so that half of them starts from light fields, and other half from dark ones. And all of this despite wisdom of the commons voting unfavorably against said unbalanced variants. Why did I add them, then?

Well, as I already wrote in the comment on LinkedIn, when sufficient number of elements are randomized, extremes tend to cancel each other out, so it's highly unlikely that one player will have too much advantage over the other. Second reason is because players should be able to choose which randomized variants (and flavors) they'd like to play. Additionally, players should also have an option to vote against a particularly unbalanced setup, if it's deemed unplayable; generating new setup is easy and fast. So, in the end, unbalanced variants might not be up everyone's alley, but they certainly don't hurt.

The book was compiled on February 12, 2026, version is 20260212.063826, and can be found behind that red button above, or in other usual places.