FischerRandom tournaments?

Wondering if anyone else would be interested in one of these. Basically, you determine the location of the eight pieces randomly behind the pawns. Castling rules are kind of funny and I don't remember them offhand (I'd just let any unmoved king move two squares towards any unmoved rook and put the rook on the other side of it, assuming a clear line in between as normal, but I'm not sure that's right.) But anyway, FR tends to neutralize opening theory and hurts people who use engines (illegally) before the middlegame.

Originally posted by GambitAccepted
Wondering if anyone else would be interested in one of these. Basically, you determine the location of the eight pieces randomly behind the pawns. Castling rules are kind of funny and I don't remember them offhand (I'd just let any unmoved king move two squares towards any unmoved rook and put the rook on the other side of it, assuming a clear line in ...[text shortened]... eutralize opening theory and hurts people who use engines (illegally) before the middlegame.

What effect does it have upon those who legally use engines?

I think it would be cool to have a fischer randomchess tournament. I've played (and still playing) some set-piece fischer randomchess games, and they are great fun as unorthodox positions develop, and is useful for developing tactical play. The problem with the set-piece Fischer randomchess games on this site is that castling is not allowed; therefore, here, I put the King near the corner, usually not between the two rooks (as in randomchess). However, if one sets up a board symmetrically, (with both Kings in relative safety) the chances are usually about equal.

An excellent site for randomchess rules is found here:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/fischerandom

Tactis sure, but I believe that strategy s even more important. Most people avoid the need for strategizing via databases and opening books. Fischer random nullifies all that. Sign me up!

Under the RHP set piece tournament system only a single position could be used for the entire tournament. However, I am quite happy to act as an arbiter (determining which FR position to use each round) if this is going to run as an unofficial tourney. I wouldn't be able to enter if I was doing this (otherwise I could pick positions ahead of time and analyse or something).
The other problem is of course the castling rules.

Cool, glad to see some interest.

I'd get some of those funky eight-sided dice they use for D&D and roll to locate the pieces randomly, castling or no. (Or else just randomize by computer.) I think castling was a renaissance innovation to save time because people always manually castled before that, or something like that - just like the opening two-square pawn moves (the classic open game begins 1. e3 e6 2. e4 e5). Or that's what I heard anyway.

Maybe with castling the moderator could override the program and move pieces manually? That might be too hard/too much work.

I don't think that we can offer different positions for every game. A thematic tournament would work, if we forwent castling completely. If Russ was feeling generous, we may even be able to have different positions each round.

Doh: Xanthos beat me to it. If it's unoficial anyway, I personally wouldn't care if you took part Xanthos.

Let's say you did it with progressive quads or a knockout system...then each quad/pair could have the same positions with black and white...but each group would have a different position, and when you advanced a new one would be determined randomly.

That's a lot of work if anyone has to do it manually. I would volunteer but then I'd want to play too. I suspect this is probably a fairly simple applet to write for someone who knows how to do it, which I don't (I mean the one to set up random sets of eight pieces symmetrical on each side, not necessarily the one to provide an arbitrary abstract castling rule).

Originally posted by GambitAccepted
Let's say you did it with progressive quads or a knockout system...then each quad/pair could have the same positions with black and white...but each group would have a different position, and when you advanced a new one would be determined randomly.

That's a lot of work if anyone has to do it manually. I would volunteer but then I'd want to play to ...[text shortened]... rical on each side, not necessarily the one to provide an arbitrary abstract castling rule).

Providing the setups is easy enough even if it's one per group. However, each group would have to set up their own set piece games using that position. Anyone with Firefox, Greasemonkey and ouroboros's Set Piece script (available from http://members.shaw.ca/ouroboros/RHP/) can set them up very easily (I'd provide the FEN notations).

What does need to be decided is whether we wish to play FR or Shuffle Chess. FR has a smaller number of starting positions (king must be between the rooks) and odd castling rules which would be a nightmare to implement (basically you would tell your opponent you were castling and they would move a piece back and forward while you did so). Shuffle Chess does not have castling (some variants do and set the king and rooks in their standard positions to facilitate this, others have rules about bishop balancing).

Shuffle Chess (with mirrored positions and always opposite squared bishops) seems like the best bet. There are 2880 possible starting positions in this variant.
I'd suggest a dual style tournament as otherwise the number of set pieces needed to be set up may prove a hindrance.

So without further ado I'll open the tournament for entries. I'm thinking of 3/7 as a time limit but if there is a majority favouring another I'm flexible.

I'll also field questions from anyone who is unsure of something.

NOTE: I will not be entering (as there could be accusations of unfairly selecting starting positions).

Originally posted by XanthosNZ
odd castling rules which would be a nightmare to implement (basically you would tell your opponent you were castling and they would move a piece back and forward while you did so).

These will be unrated, set-piece games, correct? Couldn't you just agree to draw the game and restart another from the "post-castled" position?

Originally posted by leisurelysloth
These will be unrated, set-piece games, correct? Couldn't you just agree to draw the game and restart another from the "post-castled" position?

That is a possibility but still awkward especially for those tracking the games.

Originally posted by XanthosNZ

So without further ado I'll open the tournament for entries. I'm thinking of 3/7 as a time limit but if there is a majority favouring another I'm flexible.

Count me in.

I'm in too - I think I might have been thinking 'shuffle chess' with my OP anyway.

I do think a generic castling rule allowing you to move an unmoved king two squares in the direction of an unmoved rook, and placing the rook on the king's other side, would be fine.

King next to rook - king hops rook.

King one away from rook - kingmoves two to the left, rook stays where it is.

etc.

Originally posted by XanthosNZ
Providing the setups is easy enough even if it's one per group. However, each group would have to set up their own set piece games using that position. Anyone with Firefox, Greasemonkey and ouroboros's Set Piece script (available from http://members.shaw.ca/ouroboros/RHP/) can set them up very easily (I'd provide the FEN notations).

What's this Greasemonkey business?

Originally posted by leisurelysloth
What's this Greasemonkey business?

A firefox extension which allows you to run scripts on certain webpages (on your end) which can add things to the page. The one I'm talking about adds an option to import via FEN to the Set Piece page.