in spreading through communities and the circumstances under which such ideas are best
disseminated. An understanding of these processes could increase our insight into
processes that induce or inhibit constitutive changes, or at the very least help us prepare
for the ramifications of such changes.
As for chess, its future is likely to reflect its tumultuous past. In 1965 a Puerto
Rican player, Gabriel Vicente Maura, created "Modern Chess", as a natural extension of
the modernization process that chess has undergone throughout the centuries.
has once again sped up the game and reduced the problem of stalemates by enlarging the
board to 9X9, by adding a pawn and by inventing a piece called the "Prime Minister"
(combining the characteristics of the Bishop and the Knight). This game has already
achieved such wide acclaim that in 1972 a World Federation of Modern Chess
(FEMDAM) was formed, uniting players from 16 countries. The first World
Championship and Olympiad of Modern Chess were held in 1974. Whether or not it will
supplant chess remains to be seen.
The record of radical changes in the constitutive
rules governing chess suggests that future generations may consider the game we play
today to be a strange variant of mainstream chess indeed.
80
Sunnucks, ibid., p.317.
81
This question offers an interesting test for the punctuated equilibrium model. Arguably, the
formalization of chess rules since 1929, combined with the increased cohesion of the international chess
community as result of advances in communication and transportation, should bolster the current game’s
immunity against this newest chess mutation. On the other hand, should this version catch on (perhaps
because it fulfills a need, or because it transmits easily), its diffusion across the community would be
enhanced by these technological advances. We could then expect “Modern Chess” to become formalized
much faster than did competing variants in earlier periods, when the chess community was much more
fragmented. The former argument supposes a species change through allopatric speciation, where
geographic distances contain the new species; the latter supposes change through sympatric speciation,
where advantaged mutations can spread without the need for geographic isolation.
30
Convention