I have greatly enjoyed abstract games since my early childhood, and ever since discovering the wide variety of innovative Chess variants that exist, I've found standard Chess comparatively dull due to being too well explored.
I also enjoy many different varieties of Checkers, and find it fascinating with all the regional small variations that exist. Turkish Checkers, Dameo and Croda are my favourites.
There are also many great modern abstract games, e.g. *Star, Cannon, Havannah, Creeper, Santorini, Amazons, ConHex, Game of Y, Dvonn, Project Kell, Othello, Guard & Towers, to just mention a few. These are all worthy of playing and exploring, along with classics like XiangQi, Go, Shogi and Hnefatafl. Sadly, finding somewhere to play some of these games is rather difficult.
Preferred time control: 3 days / move. I am likely to decline invitations with longer time control. I am also likely to decline invitations with non-random choice of sides.
I have no interest in games with luck elements (though sometimes a random starting setup is acceptable), or games with hidden information.
I generally prefer playing to a set number of wins, in order to avoid drawn matches, as I find that a boring and disappointing result. Specifically, I prefer: 1-win (or more) matches, for fair games, e.g. most chess and checkers variants, including standard chess. 2-win (or more) matches, for games where one side has an (clear but overcomeable) advantage, e.g. atomic chess. 4-game (or more, but an even number) matches, for games where one side has an usually winning advantage (e.g. Alquerque, Horde Chess). While this risks the match ending in a disappointing draw result, at least it won't give the win to a player purely due to them having the luck to get the better side first.
I also play chess variants (mainly Alice Chess which sadly isn't available here) on Scheming Minds, using the same nick.