Chess960 - Chess for the 21st Century

Chess writer Mig Greengard discussed Chess960 in "Mig on Chess, #177", 16/08/2002, with the caption “White to play and go insane”:

“Shuffle chess makes another appearance in Mainz, this time in a large open tournament. Call it Fischerandom, Chess960, or just call it crazy, the Mainz organizers seem determined to force this chess variant on us. In case you are unfamiliar with it, shuffle chess places the pawns as usual but piece placement is randomly determined before each game. (The king must be between the rooks in this latest definition.) Castling is simple as long as you have a PhD in astrophysics. The '960', a new name for an old game, comes from the total number of possible positions. (Although I think half of this number are just reversed with only the side to move being different.)”

In shuffle chess castling is not possible, the pieces are just randomly placed. In Chess960 there are just two additional rules that form the link to the "flavour" of chess. The first being the requirement for opposite coloured bishops, and the second being the ability to castle correctly just as in regular chess. A degree in astrophysics is nice, but not required to understand that when castling the king and rook always go to the same squares that they do in regular chess. Also, it is not the case that half the positions are mirror images of each other.

“Shuffle chess can be fun, being a purely tactical affair from move one. What drives me crazy is when its proponents tout it as some sort of improvement on chess. 'It eliminates opening preparation so it's all about talent', they claim. Each generation produces another "solution" to the increasing level of opening prep, and each generation considers the last generation's suggestion stupid. Capablanca wanted to enlarge the board and add new pieces. Then Fischer wanted to scramble the pieces before each game. (Rumors that Kasparov wanted to rename the king 'The Garry' are unconfirmed.)”

Chess is a tactical game from move one, however a great deal of the tactics and workable defences have been extensively analysed over the centuries. In Chess960 a player isn't forced to strive for tactical open positions. The direction they attempt to steer the game in is completely up to them. They may occupy the centre, control it from a distance with pieces, ignore it and play on the wings immediately, open the game, close the game, play for space, gambit material for development, try and create a solid defence, anything they like. The point is you can play without the shackles of theory. The strategical elements of chess are not removed.

Capablanca's chess variant was not popular because it veered too far from the original formula. His addition of new pieces changed the chemistry of the game entirely, gave it new openings, new endings, new tactics, new strategy. It may be interesting in its own right, but is quite a different game.

“Maybe 20 years from now someone will suggest smacking each player on the head before each game so they can't remember their preparation. I was there in Buenos Aires when Fischer presented his 'creation' in 1996 and even helped with writing press releases and translating the rules into Spanish. Along with everyone else I was surprised to find that he was deadly serious about it replacing chess. I think that caused me to doubt his mental stability as much as his assorted scurrilous and anti-Semitic comments.”

Fischer's character is not relevant to a discussion about the merits of Chess960.
 

“Openings and the huge amount of pattern recognition they reflect well into the middlegame are intrinsic to chess. Removing these things from the game and calling it an improvement is like ripping the first five chapters out of an Agatha Christie novel to make it more interesting. If 'draw-death' due to extensive preparation is a danger, and I don't think it is, it's only at the very top. The new generation led by Ponomariov, Grischuk, and Radjabov still manages to play exciting and creative chess. As for amateurs bored with openings, instead of trying to abolish them maybe they should just try a few new ones. Nothing like a complete repertoire switch to shock you into seeing how many new things chess can offer even in the first few moves.”

The opening still exists in Chess960. The part where players develop their pieces, take control of important squares and form a game plan is alive and well.
 

“Finally, saying that opening study creates an unfair advantage is saying that practicing and training is unfair. In basketball, a shorter player who constantly practices his jumpshot and dribbling is going to be more valuable than a taller player who doesn't practice. And what about endgames? If eliminating study is the point, surely endgames must go. Don't get me wrong, shuffle chess has its place alongside other variants like Bughouse and Kreigspiel and other fun things you can do with a chess set. Removing study and work from chess to create a diverting variant is fine, just don't tell me it's better than the original.”

I don't think the interest in Chess960 centres solely around fairness, but rather that it tends to regularly produce exciting games of chess. Also, there's no reason to stop studying endgames or tactics, as they are exactly the same in Chess960 as in traditional chess (and there will be new tactical ideas in Chess960).
 

“More on shuffle chess and its history can be found at author Tim Krabbé's always-fascinating site. When Leko and Adams played a shuffle chess match in Mainz last year, Krabbé suggested that it would be more interesting to put the 'pure talent' concept to a real test and have the elite stars play against a few masters. (Scroll down to item #123 here.) This year we'll see that and more as GMs mingle with the masses in the open shuffle chess ('Chess960') tournament. Speaking of computers and Tim Krabbé, don't miss this page on why computers don't really play chess.”

It certainly would be interesting to match the elite against a few masters. I think that the elite would prevail, but it would be a good test nonetheless. The use of the term "shuffle chess" is misleading. As explained previously, shuffle chess historically places no restrictions on piece placement (White having two dark squared bishops is allowed), and castling is not possible. Chess960 is new in that it does not suffer from these (serious) drawbacks. Thus we have the names Chess960 (or Fischerandom), rather than shuffle chess.
 

“A side note is the headache that shuffle chess games cause for game databases. Since castling is almost always an illegal move as defined by the rules of normal chess, the games can't be entered into PGN without breaking them into two or three pieces (depending on whether or not both sides castled). This reminds me of how the databases are erasing our memories of games, some famous, in which one side made an illegal move, usually castling after moving the king or rook. Korchnoi did this in a zonal once and the game was continued for another 20 moves and agreed drawn! When these games do make the databases they are by necessity truncated. Books are still good for something.”

To be fair, the article was written in 2002, and perhaps at the time it wasn't possible to store Chess960 games in PGN, but it is now. See the free Jose Chess Database for an example of a cross-platform program that can read and write Chess960 games as PGN. For board positions, Chess960 castling possibilities are included in the backwards compatible X-FEN standard.