Originally posted by !~TONY~!
I am really surprised to hear (and by hear, I mean I tried to do this in one of my games and couldn't) this isn't implemented! Castling is part of chess - it would be great to be able to castle in 960 games. Though I understand perhaps that there's some rules complexity here.
Castling as an optional feature of Fischer Random960 on RHP and then promoting its availability may increase membership as the demand is apparent in the volume of 960 Team Tournaments on another major online correspondence chess site.
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Thread 160595 "Chess960" From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "Chess960 (or Fischer Random Chess) is a variant of chess invented and advocated by former World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer, publicly announced on June 19, 1996 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It employs the same board and pieces as standard chess; however, the starting position of the pieces on the players' home ranks is randomized. The name "Chess960" is derived from the number of possible starting positions. The random setup renders the prospect of obtaining an advantage through the memorization of opening lines impracticable, compelling players to rely on their talent and creativity. Randomizing the main pieces had long been known as Shuffle Chess; however, Chess960 introduces restrictions on the randomization,
"preserving the dynamic nature of the game by retaining bishops of opposite colours for each player and the right to castle for both sides", resulting in 960 unique starting positions. In 2008 FIDE added Chess960 to an appendix of the rules of chess.
Why 960 Each bishop can take one of four positions, the queen one of six, and the two knights can assume five or four possible positions respectively. This leaves three open squares which the king and rooks must occupy according to setup stipulations, without choice. This means there are 4×4×6×5×4 = 1920 possible starting positions if the two knights were different in some way. However, the two knights are indistinguishable during play (if swapped, there would be no difference), so the number of distinguishable possible positions is half of 1920, or 1920/2 = 960..."
"History Chess960 is a variant of Shuffle Chess, which had been suggested as early as 1792 with games played as early as 1842. Fischer's modification "imposes certain restrictions, arguably an improvement on the anarchy of the fully randomized game in which one player is almost certain to start at an advantage". Fischer started work on his new version of chess after the 1992 return match with Boris Spassky. The result was the formulation of the rules of Fischerandom Chess in September 1993, introduced formally to the chess public on June 19, 1996 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Fischer's goal was to eliminate what he considered the complete dominance of openings preparation in chess today, replacing it with creativity and talent. His belief about Russians fixing all international games also provided motivation. In a situation where the starting position was random it would be impossible to fix every move of the game. Since the "opening book" for 960 possible opening systems would be too difficult to devote to memory, the players must create every move originally. From the first move, both players must devise original strategies and cannot use well-established patterns. Fischer believed that eliminating memorized book moves would level the playing field." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960
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Chess960 Quotes
"Teach people to play new chess, right away. Why do you offer them a black and white television set, when there is a set in color?" – Bobby Fischer, in the only meeting with FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, responding to the latter advocating "step by step" changes mindful of the heritage of chess
"Of course, if people do not want to do any work then it is better to start the game from a random position."
– Garry Kasparov
"Chess is already complicated enough." – Vassily Ivanchuk
"If accepted on a professional level, this innovation would mean a return to the golden age of chess: the age of innocence and creativity will return, without us losing any of the essential attractions of the game we love." –Valery Salov (italics mine)
"No more theory means more creativity." – Artur Yusupov
"[...] the play is much improved over traditional chess because you don't need to analyze or memorize any book openings. Therefore, your play becomes truly creative and real." – Svetozar Gligorić
"Finally, one is no longer obliged to spend the whole night long troubling oneself with the next opponent's opening moves. The best preparation consists just of sleeping well!" – Péter Lékó
"I tried many different starting positions and all these were somehow very unharmonious. And this is not surprising as in many of these positions there is immediate forced play: the pieces are placed so badly at the start that there is a need to improve their positions in one way only, which decreases the number of choices." – Vladimir Kramnik
"Both players have bad positions." – Helmut Pfleger, commentating on the game Lékó–Adams, Mainz 2001, game 4
"The changes in chess concern the perfection of computers and the breakthrough of high technology. Under this influence the game is losing its charm and reducing more and more the number of creative players. [...] I am a great advocate of Fischer's idea of completely changing the rules of chess, of creating a practically new game. It is the only way out, because then there would be no previous experience on which a machine could be programmed, at least until this new chess itself becomes exhausted. Fischer is a genius and I believe that his project would save the game." – Ljubomir Ljubojević
"I don't know when, but I think we are approaching that [the end of chess] very rapidly. I think we need a change in the rules of chess. For example, I think it would be a good idea to shuffle the first row of the pieces by computer ... and this way you will get rid of all the theory. One reason that computers are strong in chess is that they have access to enormous theory [...] I think if you can turn off the computer's book, which I've done when I've played the computer, they are still rather weak, at least at the opening part of the game, so I think this would be a good improvement, and also just for humans.
It is much better, I think, because chess is becoming more and more simply memorization, because the power of memorization is so tremendous in chess now. Theory is so advanced, it used to be theory to maybe 10 or 15 moves, 18 moves; now, theory is going to 30 moves, 40 moves. I think I saw one game in Informator, the Yugoslav chess publication, where they give an N [theoretical novelty] to a new move, and I recall this new move was around move 50. [...] I think it is true, we are coming to the end of the history of chess with the present rules, but I don't say we have to do away with the present rules. I mean, people can still play, but I think it's time for those who want to start playing on new rules that I think are better." – Bobby Fischer (September 1, 1992) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960
Thread 160198 (Page 2)
05 Mar '15 21:14
Castling in Fischer Random
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