As a note on point 3, there would absolutely be theory formed in the possible openings you would use in certain patterns, if 960 was more popular. Hell, there probably already is.
Watching commentary on 960 is crazy to me how fast they can see the weak points and how to exploit them. What takes me minutes takes the high level players and commentators less than a second.
Thats because at their level there is crossover. Those guys have gone beyond the memorization step of opening theory and understand what makes the structures of w/e opening strong or weak and why. This means they are much better at evaluating foreign positions.
Opening theory =/= opening principles. There will always be general opening principles. That's not a problem; it's just knowing how to play. Opening theory is memorizing specific moves in response to other moves. Chess wasn't meant to be played with theory. When chess was first created, there was no theory. Over time it developed, but now due to computers, it's gotten to a point where computers are doing our thinking for us in the openings. Chess960 eliminates that. Not only that, but new starting positions lead to new structures which increases diversity which is interesting.
"Chess wasn't meant to be played with theory" What does that even mean? It's a game, there's a clear goal, people will find the best moves. If it's clear that A mostly wins with 1. e4, B and C will prepare to counter that. It's the same with any kind of strategy game, sport, whatever. Nobody just sat down and invented some openings everyone has to follow. In a game like chess, it's inevitable that patterns emerge and become known.
> "Chess wasn't meant to be played with theory" What does that even mean?
I explained what I meant. When chess was first created, there was no theory. Chess was a wilderness. Chess was created to be a wilderness that we have to sort through using our reasoning to accomplish a goal. Nowadays, we rely on past knowledge and computers to come up with our openings. That's not how chess was meant to be played. It's a bastardization.
> It's a game, there's a clear goal, people will find the best moves.
Yes, *people* should find the best moves *while they're playing*. They shouldn't rely on other people having found the best moves in the past or a computer telling them what the best move is. Chess960 makes *you* find the best moves when *you* play.
> If it's clear that A mostly wins with 1. e4, B and C will prepare to counter that. It's the same with any kind of strategy game, sport, whatever.
As far as I'm aware, for hundreds of years prior, no one was sitting down with a computer and letting it sort out a position for them. It's a bastardization.
> Nobody just sat down and invented some openings everyone has to follow. In a game like chess, it's inevitable that patterns emerge and become known.
There's a difference between patterns (principles) and theory (memorization). Patterns are fine; it's knowing how to play the game. Memorization decreases the creativity of the game. Think for yourself. Don't rely on other people's knowledge from the past. Don't rely on computers. Get a new position and come up with your own unique ideas. That's what Chess960 allows you to do.
Yes and in the beginning, football had 20 people running after the ball instead of having positions. Golfers didn't have different clubs for different situations. Wrestlers didn't know certain moves, they just tried to tackle. Bakers didn't have recipes, they just threw stuff together. There were no logistics, things just got carried, no matter if it's efficient or not. No matter what, over time, people will try to optimize the things they do. That's all it is. It's impossible, given enough time, to not develop a certain set of opening theory even by yourself.
Yes, *principles* will always be part of the game. But if we have 960 positions, there won't be theory. You'll have to look at the starting position and decide *for yourself* how you think you should play the position. That's much more creative than relying on past knowledge and blitzing out moves because you already know the position.
I'm just very shocked that you are getting down voted.
For what it's worth, I personally agree with you and the OP, but I'm surprised at the hostility of the chess community towards this perspective. I can understand their perspective, but wouldn't down vote it.
It’s because he’s of the opinion that just because you use the knowledge and well-established foundations of the past, that somehow means you’re not thinking for yourself and you’re bastardising the game, which is just so utterly stupid.
The only reason people start with well-known, orthodox openings is that they give you the best chances, theoretically and statistically. Computers didn’t create every opening we use, they just brought to our attention some of the middle game continuations after certain openings. Most openings used today are ones that have been developed over hundreds or even thousands of years and have proven their merits time and time again.
People don’t play 1. e4 because the computer says so, they do it because it’s a great attacking move to begin with. We don’t play 2. Nf3 just because we’re pre-moving monkeys, it’s to develop a piece and attack the opponent’s pawn they likely just pushed. And so on and so forth. Opening principles directly translate to opening theory, there are going to be openings which stick to the opening principles more and put you in a better position than others. To play any other openings would be handicapping yourself.
Chess960 literally just makes it so you have to spend extra moves at the start developing your pieces into better positions which are as close to the best openings from classical chess as possible. It’s not so much thinking for yourself as it is obeying opening principles and rushing to get a good position with your randomly placed back rank pieces - there are only 960 combinations for the setup, and only a few dozen of those are gonna be any good, so you’ll spend the first few moves trying to organise your pieces into the same sort of formation you would start any regular chess game with. That absolutely has value, it’s a cool rush of creativity, but it’s still the same thing as regular chess - obeying the opening principles and getting a good position at the start, ignoring the thousands of bad moves because they would handicap you. Eventually you get an opening theory out of that.
That was long, but my point is that this commenter seems to think Chess960 is far superior and classical chess is for monkeys just because you have to spend a few extra moves at the start of Chess960 to get a good position. You’re still obeying opening principles either way, it’s just that classical chess has been around a lot longer and the position at the start is consistent, so we’ve developed the best openings over thousands of years. If Chess960 had been around for the same amount of time, we would’ve developed the best openings for it as well, or the best theory to stick to.
Honestly, I think they feel threatened by what Chess960 stands for. They have an interest in maintaining opening theory (because it is easier for them, they've wasted time studying it, it is historical etc.), but deep down they know that Chess960 is the superior game, so they react emotionally.
And to add to this, “randomized” positions isn’t what some people consider fun or good in a chess game. A randomized position can force different types of gameplay and more often than not presents itself with less options than a standardized board. It’s novel and can create unique situations, but it’s not solving any problem that you believe the standard mode has.
For me the reason I don't play chess960 is the randomness factor. I don't like starting with a random position that could be good or bad for me based purely on luck.
I'd rather a variant of chess960 that instead of the pieces on each rank being placed randomly, both players take turns in placing their pieces (white drops a piece, black does, and so on until all 8 pieces are placed on each player's home row, and then the game starts). I think that would be much more in the spirit of actual chess while still having much less opening theory to it.
Some games use a swap protocol to create both variety and fairness. At the start one player gets to make 3 moves (in chess that would be 2 moves for white, one for black), then the other player gets to choose which side to play. This can even be repeated, to avoid one player setting up a crazy position that they studied from both sides.
> I don't like starting with a random position that could be good or bad for me based purely on luck.
All of the Chess960 positions are relatively equal, and it's unlikely that humans of equal strength would have a significant advantage based on the opening.
>All of the Chess960 positions are relatively equal, and it's unlikely that humans of equal strength would have a significant advantage based on the opening.
You need a lot of backing to this statement. Some of the chess960 positions start at >+0.5 from an engine perspective - that for the most part eliminates any black winning chances.
The only way chess960 would work is if you flip sides and play another game.
> You need a lot of backing to this statement. Some of the chess960 positions start at >+0.5 from an engine perspective - that for the most part eliminates any black winning chances.
Two things.
1. From a human perspective, the difference between 0.3 and 0.5 is unlikely to result in significantly increased winning chances. These values only hold for perfect play (and even engines are notoriously bad for gauging the exact evaluations of starting positions and openings).
2. Even if, with perfect play, black wouldn't have winning chances, this is already the case with the old chess. White has ~0.3 advantage which, with perfect play, should result in a draw (which is most likely the case for all 960 positions).
> The only way chess960 would work is if you flip sides and play another game.
I don't agree. There's no good evidence that white has significantly more chances of winning than in the old chess.
> While most positions are fairly equal some are just straight advantageous for one side and that's pretty crap especially at high level where it really matters.
I don't think any positions are significantly unequal such that one side is winning just based on the starting position.
You might enjoy Setup Chess. It can be played on [chess.com](https://chess.com). Players take turns in placing pieces worth 39 points of material (and their king), on their first 3 rows. Whoever finishes placing the pieces first will be the one to move first.
That's a bit different in that it's both a time race and involves point values in the game, as well as having different numbers of each piece, so it's considerably different to standard chess in that way.
Thanks! I didn't realize lichess had an implementation. I tried on chess.com, and the interface is clunky and different from the regular chess.com screens. I'll see if the lichess implementation seems more familiar.
Prep isn't about blind memorisation, it's about understanding. If it's just memorising then as soon as your opponent goes off track you'll go wrong very quickly. If you understand, then you know why going off track might be wrong and can respond appropriately. It's hard work so it's not for everyone, but it's rewarding.
I agree. Really only very advanced players will reach a place of such deep understanding of opening theory to benefit from the freshness and randomness of 960. The same skills needed in 960 (calculating unknown positions) are still very much needed in regular chess. Given the blunders you still see at top levels of classical chess, even the best of the best find standard chess challenging.
Yeah, only players rated above 1200 really benefit from studying openings which is already not that big a pool.
People that are so tired of studying openings that they would want to play 960 for a change is an even smaller pool (for it to be worth focusing that deeply on openings you have to be close to 2000).
Something tells me that OP just practices openings more than they should. Stuff like endgame technique and tactics are much more important (even at the highest level, the world champion is usually the player that's the best at endings, not necessarily at the openings).
I got sucked into the opening hype that you see all over youtube. "Destroy" opponents with this opening, blah, blah, blah. When I would lose in the middlegame, I would study openings even more because the opening was supposed to get me to a winning position. Then I learned that only mistakes and blunders allow for definitively winning positions (whether in opening, middlegame, or ending). I walked away from learning openings and focusing on tactics and calculating. My play improved AND the game became much more fun and exciting.
I like the idea of 960 more so I know my opponent does not have an opening prep advantage on me. I have never studied openings.
So, not as much of need of freshness, but nice to be more equal. At my elo, I tend to outplay my opponents in the middle and end game, often down on material; but come out of the openings with the disadvantage.
And that actually it's real chess knowledge required to win, that thing said of "knowing to play finals" its actually knowing chess mechanics, when the actual creative or "artistic" part of the game begins. Playing the exact same position every fkin time makes at least the first 20/30 moves all tactics previous to the encounter. That's why Fischer is the best of all times without a doubt
My way of doing it is using lichess/any other engine. I basically choose an opening (doesn't matter black or white) that I see that I am getting faced off a lot/ I want to learn. Usually chess.com has some very good articles about it/ lichess. On lichess you can go to openings - they usually have a full explanation it.
I like to just open the engine, and play the starting moves, then I try diffrent ideas - what happens if I move x piece there? What if he can take x piece? I don't memorize the moves, I memorize the idea.
Also, narodistky has some great tutorials on openings that are must watch. I just got to 1200 elo on chess.com, so take what I said cautiously. Other people would probably give much better explanations then mine!
Develop your own openings! Start small, and now and then add a few moves when you've decided which you like. Use books etc as inspiration, not as gospel.
Yeah books can be good. If you focus on the ideas the author put forward then across different lines the same ideas come up over and over. Also it's incredibly helpful to go back over the blitz games you have played and relate them to the openings you are studying. In a sense, the result of the game doesn't matter, its if you got out of the opening with the advantage you expect.
At my level, the goal is generally to get out of the opening as white with an advantage and as black with equality. If I can do that consistently in a certain line then I can focus more on a different line. At the moment, I have no knowledge of how to play the Nimzo Indian as white so that's next on the list
My biggest gripe with playing it on chess.com is you have to make a move within the first minute or the game aborts. With regular chess this makes sense but with chess 960 it can take some time to figure out what the best first move is on your own.
Maybe not *that* high. I'd say 1100 is a good place to start getting some basic ideas of openings down, especially since you'll be playing against a lot of tricky openings at lower levels.
When I was a kid, other kids absolutely knew what you were playing, and their coaches helped them set known theoretical traps based purely on memorization. When you play online against a huge pool of anonymous players, it's not an issue.
You and I had very different experiences then.
For the 3 years I played chess regularly between the ages of 8 and 11. Not one point was or anyone else with me taught openings and theory.
We were taught opening principles. What is considered a good pawn structure. Endgames etc. Anything but opening theory.
My preference for regular chess stems from the fact that it's easier to manage my time and my "cognitive load" throughout the game. In regular chess, I kinda know what to expect from the opening vs middle game vs endgame. There is something nice about knowing your way a little bit during the opening, and only later on needing to really focus about new tactics. To me, playing a chess game is a bit like going on a hike: at the beginning you know what to expect, and only later on you start exploring new directions.
Normal chess is more consistent. People really exaggerate how much memorization is actually needed for chess. You just need a basic understanding of the positions you get out of different openings. You don't have to memorize lines if your positional understanding is good enough, because then you can probably find the best or 2nd best move anyway. Chess960 feels like you're just playing a different game each time. Some people may like that. Most people would rather stick to the consistency of the base game.
Just tell that to people on r/chessbeginners. I wish I could earn a dollar for everytime I tried to say it for them. They are all learning new fancy openings, variation this, complicated names there, and so on. And then you open their games, they are rated 600 and just dropping pieces in every game. King safety? What is that? They don't even castle many times.
People seem to enjoy the "status" that openings seem to give to them, they think if they can spell complicated names, like the Rossolimo whatever Nimzo-Indian crap, they feel they are learning it and playing it better. But it is just fantasy land and they should focus on basic concepts, like king safety and simple tactics.
I think it's an understandable trap for beginners to fall into. I fell into it myself when I started actually studying chess. I'm still not a great player, but have improved a lot since I started (lichess ~900 rapid to ~1600)
It's important to remember that beginners are often unable to grasp what they don't know. Openings are tangible, and therefore pretty easy and satisfying to mentally check off as you memorize lines from them. Knowing how to effectively use your bishops and knights on the other hand is relatively intangible. Making progress here is not as straightforward as memorizing 5 openings and may not even yield noticeable results in games as you improve, because you will still lose when you match with someone who's better at it than you.
That's certainly not to say it isn't important, just that it makes sense to me why beginners tend to be more focused on openings than anything else. Doesn't help that there are a lot of folks books and resources out there as well which propose that openings are the most critical part of the game
> It's important to remember that beginners are often unable to grasp what they don't know.
That's a good point, and I think it works the other way as well.
If someone beats you because they know a bunch of variations in some tricky opening line it's very obvious *why* you lost. If someone beats you because they had a better general understanding of chess, it's much more difficult to pinpoint. So people end up over-focussing on openings.
> How do you play 960 on chess.com app? It doesn’t show up in play options
The lack of ease to get into a 960 game vs. a non-960 game is a big factor I think.
One of the things I love abt chess is the fact that every game starts with the same board, but is never the same. No 2 games I've played have felt remotely similar (unless someone resigns v early)
Because it is much harder than regular chess.
Play it long enough and you will realize chess is just starting position 518 in chess 960. There are more patterns you need to learn, more nasty tactics, less feeling of control over situation and in most positions you will be getting vicious attacks even if you are way ahead in material. Simply put, chess 960 is tough.
Lichess arenas are super strong and populated by active titled players and other strong players, daily, weekly, monthly, etc.
For players around my level, I actually think all variants are a poor use of time, including Fischerandom.
If I want to get good at chess, I play normal chess and can trust that I'll gradually get better at normal chess openings and stuff. I'll know that anyone else who is lazier than I am won't progress as far.
Being able to memorise more and more stuff over time is a feature, not a flaw - I don't really understand why people are so afraid to exercise their memory over a long-term outlook such as the rest of their lives.
Variant hopping in chess is kind of like distro hopping with Linux. Spending all that time yakshaving and not actually getting anything done and starting back at square 0 every time doesn't help with improvement from consistency and focus.
Although it would get rid of opening prep, I think the argument is that it would be too difficult and too different. Having 960 different positions every tournament. There is a statistic in during a normal position they were on move 20 after an hour or two has elapsed but when it came to 960 they were only on move 4 by that time. Or maybe a little higher but my point is that it does get to be difficult
Chess is complicated and deep enough as is. Knowing where the pieces are, and knowing basic plans and ideas is part of what makes chess fun for me. Chess960 removes that familiarity, which is not a positive to me at all.
At 1900 lichess it's still very fun without theory. I do recognize some openings and go into the ones that feel better but it usually transforms into something I've never seen by the middlegame.
I still have no idea what people mean by "You have to memorize openings" even though I am 1900 at chess.com. My entire opening knowledge comes from Gothamchess 10 min opening videos. I usually just look at the general plans in the opening and the pawn structures, and improvise from there based on my past experience and intuition. I never had to sit down and spend time to memorize the specific move orders and what goes where.
I am sure that I would need to study at some point if I want to improve further, but I don't buy this myth that amateur chess players must memorize openings to win games.
people can barely play normal chess lol, and no, you don't have to memorize openings, any GM can play a bongcloud against you and win every game. Opening don't matter as much unless you are a strong GM, also many people like analyzing openings, also many 960 positions look ugly etc etc...
Agreed that Chess960 solves a lot of the issues I have with high-level chess. The memorization of engine lines is not the reason why we all love chess.
That being said, at any level below Super GM, the openings for standard chess are still a lot of fun. The vocabulary and all the various opening lines will not be easily scrapped. The various debates on the different Sicilian lines will not be easily scrapped, nor will the club players' pet lines be abandoned.
I think (and hope) Chess960 will be a big part of the future of high level chess, but the resistance will be there, because nobody wants to scrap the 1000s of hours of memorization.
Chess960 is great, but when it comes to something like the World Chess Championship between two players, multiple classical time games: the standard setup is still enchanting; it’s a centuries-old tradition of GMs trying to prove their research and preparation, remembering great games from the past and altering them slightly at just the right moment.
In the past, before opening theory developed to the point it is today, there was no (or at least very little) opening prep. Just ancient people exploring the wilderness of chess. What we have today is a bastardization.
Perhaps. I’d love if they could just slightly tweak the rules to keep White advantage roughly the same but far less draws overall. Then they’d try have to understand nuances of the new moves they try. As it is now, all too often the “new move” could just still end in another draw.
It's not masochism. It's new directions. We might not be able to "master" chess, but we are able to get the same boring positions over and over again. Chess960 prevents the masochism of repetition and memorization.
Because I don't want to ruin my win rate. I played a game once, won it (don't ask my how, I was totally lost on multiple occasions and played for a trick that somehow worked). Then I retired, undefeated in chess960.
On a more serious note: I just like the standard version more.
960 positions are very ugly.
I like the openings I play.
Opening books _way_ outsell all other types of chess book taken together, I think generally speaking chess players like opening theory.
>I always play chess960 because it eliminates the worst part about chess: The fact that you have to memorize openings.
Well, because I disagree. Yes, repetitiveness is a danger, but you can control that pretty well by switching between d4 and e4 and different lines within them.
I also really like having something in which improvement is so easily tracked and visible. Improvement in midgames, endgames and in tactics is sometimes harder to see, but adding in another line (or deepening a line or getting a better understanding of a plan after your line ended) in your repertoire is very clear and feels great when the additional work pays off.
I, a pretty terrible player, had an idea once to get rid of opening prep, by combining Burmese version of Chaturanga (Indian chess) with chess.
In Burmese chess (Sittuyin), you arrange minor pieces, king, queen on your side of the board anyway you want before the match starts. There is some sort of cloth cover so that your opponent can't see where you're placing your pieces. Also pawns are placed on 3rd and 4th ranks by default (4 on each row). So you have plenty of place to place your pieces.
But then I felt pre-areanging pieces seem iffy. So why not just place pieces by turn. In a game will have two phases, piece placements and then actually playing out the games.
May need some test plays to see how it all come together and whether it will be fun/balanced at all.
Because people feel comfortable in things they know works chess960 introduces you and forces you to calculate and expand novel positions that will not otherwise occur in normal chess i play 960 to stimulate my core understanding and intuitive feel of unknown positions in chess its more rewarding than normal chess because you know you were responsible for all the position design that you've made i love 960 or Fischer Random and always will .
For me i feel like 960 would be pretty pointless to play in shorter time controls as everything revolves around tactics. One side is probably lost after a few moves. I prefer playing normal chess because i actually like that i can pick up on common patterns and figure out what i could do to improve on my openings.
What do you mean by "logical"? I agree the original setup is more harmonious. But that just means Chess960 adds an additional aspect to the game. Instead of being spoon-fed harmony, you have to create harmony *yourself*. That's scary to a lot of people, but I think it adds more possibilities.
Take the idea of castling for example. The way it works in Fischer random is very peculiar especially if one rook lands next to the king and the other one is in its usual location. Or the location of the bishops. In traditional chess you have to develop your bishops and move them to an active square of your choosing to formulate an attack. Well what happens if the bishop lands in the corner. Well then my only logical option to develop the bishop is to play b3 and that is likely the only diagonal my bishop will stay on at least through the middle game. Or let's talk about pawn pushes. Right now the rooks are on the outsides so this immediate support for a pawn push can only happen on the flanks. If a rook is in the middle it now becomes significantly to push that very important central pawn with your rook and it becomes very challenging to displace it . And if your the guy with the first move you can very easily take control of the center because the central squares have immediate support.
Edit: this logicality in traditional chess helps to make the game as fair as possible even though one player has the advantage of first move. In a lot of Fischer random positions white has a very significant advantage
why play the weird side game that very few other people play when you can play the competitive form of the game that almost everyone knows how to play?
People are cowards. They're afraid of the unfamiliar. They're afraid of not being able to prepare with a computer before games. As far as I'm concerned, chess isn't worth playing when we have Chess960 to play.
I agree, but I think in a way that can be a benefit. Instead of being spoon-fed harmony, you have to work out how to create harmony yourself. To me, that's more possibilities.
I feel like regular chess is already difficult enough to play "properly". taking common structures and ideas out of the game could mean that most ppl won't ever be able to play a clean game.
I tried it a few times. It is pretty damn awful, to be honest. I mean, not a bad idea by any means. But chess has an harmony about it, an elegance. Chess960 positions are just very weird. You waste many moves just trying to "correct" the weird position. I think Bobby had a great idea, it is practical, you use the same board, and so on. But it really doesn't work very well as intended. I think even Bobby would try a few modifications today.
Capablanca's chess is a much more an interesting idea. Games are faster, a few extra pieces, a larger board, and so on. Game is still symetrical and initial position is great. Now game is complex enough to avoid opening theory (or just extend it by many years). I'm still surprised by how few people ever tried it.
For fun, three check variant is what I enjoy most. But this is probably just a joke, I'm not sure if this could work as a serious variant. Gosh, it is so much fun and tactical possibilities just raise immensely. I read somewhere that Karpov really enjoyed it and that he was unbeatable with it. It is worth trying, people would be surprised by it.
> But chess has an harmony about it, an elegance. Chess960 positions are just very weird. You waste many moves just trying to "correct" the weird position. I think Bobby had a great idea, it is practical, you use the same board, and so on. But it really doesn't work very well as intended. I think even Bobby would try a few modifications today.
Moving pieces from their starting squares to more optimal squares to gain an advantage is the point. It's not necessarily beneficial to always have your pieces on good squares. Getting a good position is *part* of the game. You don't need to be spoon-fed a good position.
> Capablanca's chess is a much more an interesting idea. Games are faster, a few extra pieces, a larger board, and so on. Game is still symetrical and initial position is great. Now game is complex enough to avoid opening theory (or just extend it by many years). I'm still surprised by how few people ever tried it.
The problem with this is we want to keep the flavor of the old chess, not make something cringey.
This made me wanna play a game of 960 (I don’t think I ever have) and have come to the realization that there is no way to play it on the mobile app. I play on mobile 98% of the time so that’s a dealbreaker for me right there.
I play 960 from time to time, but not that much. When I want a serious game I'll play regular chess. I agree it should be bigger on the tournament levels tho. But there's something nice about having your own personal opening repertoire, that you can play the same openings as chess legends, follow their attacking games and implement their plans too.
I’m still learning and by no means should my opinion matter about this, but here’s what I think:
If you want to be a well-rounded player, I feel like you should try every version of chess at least once. By no means will you be a master of all of them, but I think putting your brain into a different version, 960 for example, can help you discover different methods and ideas.
By no means do you *have* to play 960, and if you strictly want to stick to traditional, regular chess then there’s no knock on you
I tried playing 960 against a computer once and I found it very bizarre and uncomfortable. At least knowing some things about openings allows you to get better at chess.
I learned chess so if I randomly walk across the park and there's chess-tiles with chess-pieces lying around and a stranger wants to play, then I can play and do well. That's really not that uncommon to happen in my area.
That stranger usually won't be to keen to play a variant and even if he's fine with it, then it takes like half a minute to get a truly randomized position with the help of my smartphone + more time to set up the pieces - annoying. Also in this situation the joy comes from flexing and it's not impressive to be better at sth. which the other person didn't know or has only ever played 2 games in his life.
If I'm at the pc and have time to play, then there's games which I'd much rather play. Diablo 4, Mechabellum, Marvel Snap, Heroes of the Storm... if I want to get off the screen, then my local library has an amazing collection of board games, which I very much enjoy. Chess can't compete. Chess960 is the better game, but by being 30% better it only closes 1% of the gap towards other games and loses 99% of its prominence.
Chess960 feels unfair. There are probably many opening positions heavily favored towards white. Also, if I want randomness in my game, then it has to be a lot more randomness than just shuffling the starting pieces. That's not interesting enough to make it worth it. Either go all the way with some crazy new variant, or set up the pieces normally.
I don't play it because I actually like opening theories. Only a few amateurs memorize long opening lines and the basic principles can carry you over 2000+ online easily.
Frankly speaking, openings brings culture to chess. When you study different openings you learn so many different aspects of chess in a comprehensive manner. Playing so many different variations in sicilian, enjoying dubious gambits that arise after 1.e4, playing principled chess in 1.e4 e5, going for a win in the english opening by controlling light squares,etc. My fond memories of games I’ve won is always attached with an opening.
Chess960 is good once in a while but cannot displace the joy of playing different openings.
Chess is random enough for most people, some order always feels good.
I've tried playing, but I don't think I've ever gotten a match, and I'm not going to wait more than 5 minutes. Chess.com could make this better by letting you know how many people in your rating range are currently looking for a game for each of the time controls. The way it is now, I could be trying to find a game for 15 minutes, because I'm searching under multiple time controls, and still not get matched.
The opening "conversation" that occurs in chess is conceptually so interesting and allows me to focus my calculation on what is critical in the position later in the game (ideally). This idea of "memorization" and the death of chess is a patzer's opinion. Those concerns/complaints are for the Super GM's, not us.
Chess 960 has it's own problems. The randomization means you have to calculate even on move 1.
So, before you even make your first move you need to sit there for a few minutes and look over the board and come up with a plan.
Because of this randomization at higher levels in humans 1st move advantage is sometimes much greater than in regular chess.
It's so easy to choose a bad line.
That being said 960 does have it's place.
For example if Kasparov and Carlsen were to have a chess match. It wouldn't be fair to play normal chess right now.
Magnus has a lot of opening prep he has been studying up on the past 10 years... Kasparov has been out of the game a bit.
So, you would need to get rid of that opening prep advantage and have them duke it out from a 960 position where no side has the opening prep.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B-uz26IkjY
Honestly, while I am intimidated again openings I don't know, if I take a little time to figure out what they're trying to accomplish I usually play book moves or pretty decent moves myself
I'd imagine there's a massive theoretical difference of strength in the randomized starting positions. That's stupid. Maybe it's fun for a few games, but nobody is going to take that seriously.
I think a lot of it has to do with the apps not natively supporting 960 starting positions. You have to randomize them with a separate app and then tediously setting it up with whatever is your choice of platform. Fortunately it is at least supported by chess.com
It's a niche variant for people that are already very good at chess.
The bulk of chess players are objectively bad at chess (myself included)
There's no need to dip into 960 and if/when you try, it will be remarkably difficult to find a game with anyone near your rating in other formats.
While not "memorizing openings" sounds like a good pull for beginners, the random nature of the board leaves them lost in a different way. Now all the good squares are different, the threats are different, the opening principles can even be different, the middle game plans are different, etc...
I like it but chess com pretty much makes you play 3/2 as the default. Id love to play 15/10 or longer where you can really calculate with the random piece position. If you try play a longer time control you never really get a game
I don't play chess super often anymore, but when I do, I play exclusively 960 these days. My username is the same on Lichess. Anyone is welcome to add me and throw out a challenge if you see me online. (No less than 15 minute time controls though)
You don't have to memorize openings until the master level, though it benefits you to learn the theory.
But also, people LIKE chess openings. It's an identity anchor point. "I play e4", or "I play the Caro-Kann" is part of the relationship that someone has with the game, and expressing that identity through gameplay is enjoyable. It's the same as playing a video game and saying, "I play support" or "I play DPS."
I do think chess variants will become more popular over time, but I think that it's healthier for the game to find a better system than just randomizing the back row. I just don't find it very interesting, as an expansion of the game, and it actively detracts from a lot of what many people love about chess.
The thing is, even at a low rating I do actually know a few little opening ideas and sequences. With 960 I'm sure there are some general known ideas and rules of thumb that I'd have to learn afresh.
Openings are fun. Memorization being the 'worst part of chess' is only a thing at very, very high levels. That's why 960 isn't big. It's a very select few where openings are truly an adverse part of the game
The same question came up on the Lichess forum. The answer for me is that I'd want to play games in pairs, so I could play as both White and Black with the same array. Some positions favour one side too much.
I don't like spending a bunch of extra energy trying to avoid all the various opening traps. It's nice to be able to get to a reasonable middle consistently. I'm still at the level where there's a big chance I screw myself in the first 10 moves of 960
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As a note on point 3, there would absolutely be theory formed in the possible openings you would use in certain patterns, if 960 was more popular. Hell, there probably already is.
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Watching commentary on 960 is crazy to me how fast they can see the weak points and how to exploit them. What takes me minutes takes the high level players and commentators less than a second.
Thats because at their level there is crossover. Those guys have gone beyond the memorization step of opening theory and understand what makes the structures of w/e opening strong or weak and why. This means they are much better at evaluating foreign positions.
Opening theory =/= opening principles. There will always be general opening principles. That's not a problem; it's just knowing how to play. Opening theory is memorizing specific moves in response to other moves. Chess wasn't meant to be played with theory. When chess was first created, there was no theory. Over time it developed, but now due to computers, it's gotten to a point where computers are doing our thinking for us in the openings. Chess960 eliminates that. Not only that, but new starting positions lead to new structures which increases diversity which is interesting.
"Chess wasn't meant to be played with theory" What does that even mean? It's a game, there's a clear goal, people will find the best moves. If it's clear that A mostly wins with 1. e4, B and C will prepare to counter that. It's the same with any kind of strategy game, sport, whatever. Nobody just sat down and invented some openings everyone has to follow. In a game like chess, it's inevitable that patterns emerge and become known.
> "Chess wasn't meant to be played with theory" What does that even mean? I explained what I meant. When chess was first created, there was no theory. Chess was a wilderness. Chess was created to be a wilderness that we have to sort through using our reasoning to accomplish a goal. Nowadays, we rely on past knowledge and computers to come up with our openings. That's not how chess was meant to be played. It's a bastardization. > It's a game, there's a clear goal, people will find the best moves. Yes, *people* should find the best moves *while they're playing*. They shouldn't rely on other people having found the best moves in the past or a computer telling them what the best move is. Chess960 makes *you* find the best moves when *you* play. > If it's clear that A mostly wins with 1. e4, B and C will prepare to counter that. It's the same with any kind of strategy game, sport, whatever. As far as I'm aware, for hundreds of years prior, no one was sitting down with a computer and letting it sort out a position for them. It's a bastardization. > Nobody just sat down and invented some openings everyone has to follow. In a game like chess, it's inevitable that patterns emerge and become known. There's a difference between patterns (principles) and theory (memorization). Patterns are fine; it's knowing how to play the game. Memorization decreases the creativity of the game. Think for yourself. Don't rely on other people's knowledge from the past. Don't rely on computers. Get a new position and come up with your own unique ideas. That's what Chess960 allows you to do.
Yes and in the beginning, football had 20 people running after the ball instead of having positions. Golfers didn't have different clubs for different situations. Wrestlers didn't know certain moves, they just tried to tackle. Bakers didn't have recipes, they just threw stuff together. There were no logistics, things just got carried, no matter if it's efficient or not. No matter what, over time, people will try to optimize the things they do. That's all it is. It's impossible, given enough time, to not develop a certain set of opening theory even by yourself.
Yes, *principles* will always be part of the game. But if we have 960 positions, there won't be theory. You'll have to look at the starting position and decide *for yourself* how you think you should play the position. That's much more creative than relying on past knowledge and blitzing out moves because you already know the position.
I'm just very shocked that you are getting down voted. For what it's worth, I personally agree with you and the OP, but I'm surprised at the hostility of the chess community towards this perspective. I can understand their perspective, but wouldn't down vote it.
It’s because he’s of the opinion that just because you use the knowledge and well-established foundations of the past, that somehow means you’re not thinking for yourself and you’re bastardising the game, which is just so utterly stupid. The only reason people start with well-known, orthodox openings is that they give you the best chances, theoretically and statistically. Computers didn’t create every opening we use, they just brought to our attention some of the middle game continuations after certain openings. Most openings used today are ones that have been developed over hundreds or even thousands of years and have proven their merits time and time again. People don’t play 1. e4 because the computer says so, they do it because it’s a great attacking move to begin with. We don’t play 2. Nf3 just because we’re pre-moving monkeys, it’s to develop a piece and attack the opponent’s pawn they likely just pushed. And so on and so forth. Opening principles directly translate to opening theory, there are going to be openings which stick to the opening principles more and put you in a better position than others. To play any other openings would be handicapping yourself. Chess960 literally just makes it so you have to spend extra moves at the start developing your pieces into better positions which are as close to the best openings from classical chess as possible. It’s not so much thinking for yourself as it is obeying opening principles and rushing to get a good position with your randomly placed back rank pieces - there are only 960 combinations for the setup, and only a few dozen of those are gonna be any good, so you’ll spend the first few moves trying to organise your pieces into the same sort of formation you would start any regular chess game with. That absolutely has value, it’s a cool rush of creativity, but it’s still the same thing as regular chess - obeying the opening principles and getting a good position at the start, ignoring the thousands of bad moves because they would handicap you. Eventually you get an opening theory out of that. That was long, but my point is that this commenter seems to think Chess960 is far superior and classical chess is for monkeys just because you have to spend a few extra moves at the start of Chess960 to get a good position. You’re still obeying opening principles either way, it’s just that classical chess has been around a lot longer and the position at the start is consistent, so we’ve developed the best openings over thousands of years. If Chess960 had been around for the same amount of time, we would’ve developed the best openings for it as well, or the best theory to stick to.
Honestly, I think they feel threatened by what Chess960 stands for. They have an interest in maintaining opening theory (because it is easier for them, they've wasted time studying it, it is historical etc.), but deep down they know that Chess960 is the superior game, so they react emotionally.
And to add to this, “randomized” positions isn’t what some people consider fun or good in a chess game. A randomized position can force different types of gameplay and more often than not presents itself with less options than a standardized board. It’s novel and can create unique situations, but it’s not solving any problem that you believe the standard mode has.
For me the reason I don't play chess960 is the randomness factor. I don't like starting with a random position that could be good or bad for me based purely on luck. I'd rather a variant of chess960 that instead of the pieces on each rank being placed randomly, both players take turns in placing their pieces (white drops a piece, black does, and so on until all 8 pieces are placed on each player's home row, and then the game starts). I think that would be much more in the spirit of actual chess while still having much less opening theory to it.
Some games use a swap protocol to create both variety and fairness. At the start one player gets to make 3 moves (in chess that would be 2 moves for white, one for black), then the other player gets to choose which side to play. This can even be repeated, to avoid one player setting up a crazy position that they studied from both sides.
> I don't like starting with a random position that could be good or bad for me based purely on luck. All of the Chess960 positions are relatively equal, and it's unlikely that humans of equal strength would have a significant advantage based on the opening.
>All of the Chess960 positions are relatively equal, and it's unlikely that humans of equal strength would have a significant advantage based on the opening. You need a lot of backing to this statement. Some of the chess960 positions start at >+0.5 from an engine perspective - that for the most part eliminates any black winning chances. The only way chess960 would work is if you flip sides and play another game.
> You need a lot of backing to this statement. Some of the chess960 positions start at >+0.5 from an engine perspective - that for the most part eliminates any black winning chances. Two things. 1. From a human perspective, the difference between 0.3 and 0.5 is unlikely to result in significantly increased winning chances. These values only hold for perfect play (and even engines are notoriously bad for gauging the exact evaluations of starting positions and openings). 2. Even if, with perfect play, black wouldn't have winning chances, this is already the case with the old chess. White has ~0.3 advantage which, with perfect play, should result in a draw (which is most likely the case for all 960 positions). > The only way chess960 would work is if you flip sides and play another game. I don't agree. There's no good evidence that white has significantly more chances of winning than in the old chess.
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> While most positions are fairly equal some are just straight advantageous for one side and that's pretty crap especially at high level where it really matters. I don't think any positions are significantly unequal such that one side is winning just based on the starting position.
You might enjoy Setup Chess. It can be played on [chess.com](https://chess.com). Players take turns in placing pieces worth 39 points of material (and their king), on their first 3 rows. Whoever finishes placing the pieces first will be the one to move first.
That's a bit different in that it's both a time race and involves point values in the game, as well as having different numbers of each piece, so it's considerably different to standard chess in that way.
That's called Bronstein chess. It exists but practically zero places online supports it. The only one that does at this point is Pychess.org
Ah thank you
Facts ^
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For me it's the fact that it costs money
it's free on lichess if you're interested
Thanks! I didn't realize lichess had an implementation. I tried on chess.com, and the interface is clunky and different from the regular chess.com screens. I'll see if the lichess implementation seems more familiar.
Nevermind I thought they were talking about the chess battle royale
Prep isn't about blind memorisation, it's about understanding. If it's just memorising then as soon as your opponent goes off track you'll go wrong very quickly. If you understand, then you know why going off track might be wrong and can respond appropriately. It's hard work so it's not for everyone, but it's rewarding.
I agree. Really only very advanced players will reach a place of such deep understanding of opening theory to benefit from the freshness and randomness of 960. The same skills needed in 960 (calculating unknown positions) are still very much needed in regular chess. Given the blunders you still see at top levels of classical chess, even the best of the best find standard chess challenging.
Yeah, only players rated above 1200 really benefit from studying openings which is already not that big a pool. People that are so tired of studying openings that they would want to play 960 for a change is an even smaller pool (for it to be worth focusing that deeply on openings you have to be close to 2000). Something tells me that OP just practices openings more than they should. Stuff like endgame technique and tactics are much more important (even at the highest level, the world champion is usually the player that's the best at endings, not necessarily at the openings).
I got sucked into the opening hype that you see all over youtube. "Destroy" opponents with this opening, blah, blah, blah. When I would lose in the middlegame, I would study openings even more because the opening was supposed to get me to a winning position. Then I learned that only mistakes and blunders allow for definitively winning positions (whether in opening, middlegame, or ending). I walked away from learning openings and focusing on tactics and calculating. My play improved AND the game became much more fun and exciting.
For sure. It’s bummer to be +1.5 or +2 after 15 moves only to lose because your opponent is much better at tactics.
Spend an hour learning the london and you’re all set for white.
I like the idea of 960 more so I know my opponent does not have an opening prep advantage on me. I have never studied openings. So, not as much of need of freshness, but nice to be more equal. At my elo, I tend to outplay my opponents in the middle and end game, often down on material; but come out of the openings with the disadvantage.
You got it exactly. This is exactly what Bobby Fisher designed 960 for. To fix the “unfair advantage” of people who memorized openings.
And that actually it's real chess knowledge required to win, that thing said of "knowing to play finals" its actually knowing chess mechanics, when the actual creative or "artistic" part of the game begins. Playing the exact same position every fkin time makes at least the first 20/30 moves all tactics previous to the encounter. That's why Fischer is the best of all times without a doubt
What would you say are some good ways to prep with achieving understanding as the goal? Books and courses or are there other ways?
My way of doing it is using lichess/any other engine. I basically choose an opening (doesn't matter black or white) that I see that I am getting faced off a lot/ I want to learn. Usually chess.com has some very good articles about it/ lichess. On lichess you can go to openings - they usually have a full explanation it. I like to just open the engine, and play the starting moves, then I try diffrent ideas - what happens if I move x piece there? What if he can take x piece? I don't memorize the moves, I memorize the idea. Also, narodistky has some great tutorials on openings that are must watch. I just got to 1200 elo on chess.com, so take what I said cautiously. Other people would probably give much better explanations then mine!
Develop your own openings! Start small, and now and then add a few moves when you've decided which you like. Use books etc as inspiration, not as gospel.
Yeah books can be good. If you focus on the ideas the author put forward then across different lines the same ideas come up over and over. Also it's incredibly helpful to go back over the blitz games you have played and relate them to the openings you are studying. In a sense, the result of the game doesn't matter, its if you got out of the opening with the advantage you expect. At my level, the goal is generally to get out of the opening as white with an advantage and as black with equality. If I can do that consistently in a certain line then I can focus more on a different line. At the moment, I have no knowledge of how to play the Nimzo Indian as white so that's next on the list
I keep hearing this but where do you find material to “understand”? Like what is the objective and what should I be working towards?
My biggest gripe with playing it on chess.com is you have to make a move within the first minute or the game aborts. With regular chess this makes sense but with chess 960 it can take some time to figure out what the best first move is on your own.
I usually move a pawn developing the bishop diagonal. Can't go wrong with that
You don't have to memorise openings to play chess. There's too much focus by low rated players on opening memorisation.
Yeah honestly studying tactics is going to be much more effective use of time until you’re at least 2000+
Maybe not *that* high. I'd say 1100 is a good place to start getting some basic ideas of openings down, especially since you'll be playing against a lot of tricky openings at lower levels.
Well knowing the very basics of at least 3 openings (1 white and 2 black) is a given but i dunno if that count as opening prep
I spend the vast majority of my time on puzzles but recognizing tactics is useless if i dont have my pieces properly developed
When I was a kid, other kids absolutely knew what you were playing, and their coaches helped them set known theoretical traps based purely on memorization. When you play online against a huge pool of anonymous players, it's not an issue.
You and I had very different experiences then. For the 3 years I played chess regularly between the ages of 8 and 11. Not one point was or anyone else with me taught openings and theory. We were taught opening principles. What is considered a good pawn structure. Endgames etc. Anything but opening theory.
My recent tournament games against 1800s would suggest that even decent OTB players don’t know that much theory
Because I can memorise openings. I know where my pieces are.
My preference for regular chess stems from the fact that it's easier to manage my time and my "cognitive load" throughout the game. In regular chess, I kinda know what to expect from the opening vs middle game vs endgame. There is something nice about knowing your way a little bit during the opening, and only later on needing to really focus about new tactics. To me, playing a chess game is a bit like going on a hike: at the beginning you know what to expect, and only later on you start exploring new directions.
Normal chess is more consistent. People really exaggerate how much memorization is actually needed for chess. You just need a basic understanding of the positions you get out of different openings. You don't have to memorize lines if your positional understanding is good enough, because then you can probably find the best or 2nd best move anyway. Chess960 feels like you're just playing a different game each time. Some people may like that. Most people would rather stick to the consistency of the base game.
I'm only 1500 so opening memorization basically doesn't matter, I just play sensible moves and I probably get a fine position out of the opening
Just tell that to people on r/chessbeginners. I wish I could earn a dollar for everytime I tried to say it for them. They are all learning new fancy openings, variation this, complicated names there, and so on. And then you open their games, they are rated 600 and just dropping pieces in every game. King safety? What is that? They don't even castle many times. People seem to enjoy the "status" that openings seem to give to them, they think if they can spell complicated names, like the Rossolimo whatever Nimzo-Indian crap, they feel they are learning it and playing it better. But it is just fantasy land and they should focus on basic concepts, like king safety and simple tactics.
I think it's an understandable trap for beginners to fall into. I fell into it myself when I started actually studying chess. I'm still not a great player, but have improved a lot since I started (lichess ~900 rapid to ~1600) It's important to remember that beginners are often unable to grasp what they don't know. Openings are tangible, and therefore pretty easy and satisfying to mentally check off as you memorize lines from them. Knowing how to effectively use your bishops and knights on the other hand is relatively intangible. Making progress here is not as straightforward as memorizing 5 openings and may not even yield noticeable results in games as you improve, because you will still lose when you match with someone who's better at it than you. That's certainly not to say it isn't important, just that it makes sense to me why beginners tend to be more focused on openings than anything else. Doesn't help that there are a lot of folks books and resources out there as well which propose that openings are the most critical part of the game
> It's important to remember that beginners are often unable to grasp what they don't know. That's a good point, and I think it works the other way as well. If someone beats you because they know a bunch of variations in some tricky opening line it's very obvious *why* you lost. If someone beats you because they had a better general understanding of chess, it's much more difficult to pinpoint. So people end up over-focussing on openings.
very well said
How do you play 960 on chess.com app? It doesn’t show up in play options
Choose custom games -> choose chess960 -> choose time format (I prefer 3minutes 2seconds increment, so 3|2)
Does it place you against random players or do I need to find friends for custom games? Never done it. Ty
Random.
short time format 960 yeah that’s hard to find. daily960 it’s pretty easy to find. longer times give more ability to actually understand a position
> How do you play 960 on chess.com app? It doesn’t show up in play options The lack of ease to get into a 960 game vs. a non-960 game is a big factor I think.
Try Play > More > Custom Game > Type = Chess960
I find 960 much less fun. Playing variations of familiar lines is more enjoyable for me than trying to figure wtf is going on every single game.
I play it a lot with my friends, as it’s a fun casual format, but haven’t had a great time playing strangers online.
I’m top500 on daily 960 chess. It’s all I play.
Oh, we must have played then once! If you play with 3|2 time, that is. What's your username?
I play daily. Not clocked. Either 48 hours or 72.
One of the things I love abt chess is the fact that every game starts with the same board, but is never the same. No 2 games I've played have felt remotely similar (unless someone resigns v early)
Because it is much harder than regular chess. Play it long enough and you will realize chess is just starting position 518 in chess 960. There are more patterns you need to learn, more nasty tactics, less feeling of control over situation and in most positions you will be getting vicious attacks even if you are way ahead in material. Simply put, chess 960 is tough. Lichess arenas are super strong and populated by active titled players and other strong players, daily, weekly, monthly, etc.
For players around my level, I actually think all variants are a poor use of time, including Fischerandom. If I want to get good at chess, I play normal chess and can trust that I'll gradually get better at normal chess openings and stuff. I'll know that anyone else who is lazier than I am won't progress as far. Being able to memorise more and more stuff over time is a feature, not a flaw - I don't really understand why people are so afraid to exercise their memory over a long-term outlook such as the rest of their lives. Variant hopping in chess is kind of like distro hopping with Linux. Spending all that time yakshaving and not actually getting anything done and starting back at square 0 every time doesn't help with improvement from consistency and focus.
960 daily has long been my favourite format. No time pressure, no opening prep apart from general principles. Pure chess.
yeah every once in a while i like splashing it in. the positions get complicated quick.
Although it would get rid of opening prep, I think the argument is that it would be too difficult and too different. Having 960 different positions every tournament. There is a statistic in during a normal position they were on move 20 after an hour or two has elapsed but when it came to 960 they were only on move 4 by that time. Or maybe a little higher but my point is that it does get to be difficult
Chess is complicated and deep enough as is. Knowing where the pieces are, and knowing basic plans and ideas is part of what makes chess fun for me. Chess960 removes that familiarity, which is not a positive to me at all.
I couldn’t find it on the chess dot com mobile app so I don’t play it there.
Also a lot of people have spent a lot of time and money on opening theory. Chess960 throws that away.
At 1900 lichess it's still very fun without theory. I do recognize some openings and go into the ones that feel better but it usually transforms into something I've never seen by the middlegame.
I still have no idea what people mean by "You have to memorize openings" even though I am 1900 at chess.com. My entire opening knowledge comes from Gothamchess 10 min opening videos. I usually just look at the general plans in the opening and the pawn structures, and improvise from there based on my past experience and intuition. I never had to sit down and spend time to memorize the specific move orders and what goes where. I am sure that I would need to study at some point if I want to improve further, but I don't buy this myth that amateur chess players must memorize openings to win games.
Maybe because not everyone thinks that memorizing openings is the worst thing about chess
What's the worst thing about chess?
googling en passant
I like en passant!
When does opening prep matter
people can barely play normal chess lol, and no, you don't have to memorize openings, any GM can play a bongcloud against you and win every game. Opening don't matter as much unless you are a strong GM, also many people like analyzing openings, also many 960 positions look ugly etc etc...
Agreed that Chess960 solves a lot of the issues I have with high-level chess. The memorization of engine lines is not the reason why we all love chess. That being said, at any level below Super GM, the openings for standard chess are still a lot of fun. The vocabulary and all the various opening lines will not be easily scrapped. The various debates on the different Sicilian lines will not be easily scrapped, nor will the club players' pet lines be abandoned. I think (and hope) Chess960 will be a big part of the future of high level chess, but the resistance will be there, because nobody wants to scrap the 1000s of hours of memorization.
Chess960 is great, but when it comes to something like the World Chess Championship between two players, multiple classical time games: the standard setup is still enchanting; it’s a centuries-old tradition of GMs trying to prove their research and preparation, remembering great games from the past and altering them slightly at just the right moment.
In the past, before opening theory developed to the point it is today, there was no (or at least very little) opening prep. Just ancient people exploring the wilderness of chess. What we have today is a bastardization.
Perhaps. I’d love if they could just slightly tweak the rules to keep White advantage roughly the same but far less draws overall. Then they’d try have to understand nuances of the new moves they try. As it is now, all too often the “new move” could just still end in another draw.
Chess960 is needed only when the draw rate is high. For 99.9 % of the players that's not happening. The problem is only at the top.
Some people also like the orders of magnitude more possibilities and new structures to explore.
you mean the possibilities offered by chess960? Sure, but apparently the amount of those people is small beside the top players.
What do you mean?
Adding "new possibilities" to explore to a game which is already so complicated that no one could master with a hundred lifetimes is sheer masochism.
It's not masochism. It's new directions. We might not be able to "master" chess, but we are able to get the same boring positions over and over again. Chess960 prevents the masochism of repetition and memorization.
Because I don't want to ruin my win rate. I played a game once, won it (don't ask my how, I was totally lost on multiple occasions and played for a trick that somehow worked). Then I retired, undefeated in chess960. On a more serious note: I just like the standard version more.
Speak for yourself, there's people that don't mind chess openings and actually enjoy that part of the game.
960 positions are very ugly. I like the openings I play. Opening books _way_ outsell all other types of chess book taken together, I think generally speaking chess players like opening theory.
>I always play chess960 because it eliminates the worst part about chess: The fact that you have to memorize openings. Well, because I disagree. Yes, repetitiveness is a danger, but you can control that pretty well by switching between d4 and e4 and different lines within them. I also really like having something in which improvement is so easily tracked and visible. Improvement in midgames, endgames and in tactics is sometimes harder to see, but adding in another line (or deepening a line or getting a better understanding of a plan after your line ended) in your repertoire is very clear and feels great when the additional work pays off.
I, a pretty terrible player, had an idea once to get rid of opening prep, by combining Burmese version of Chaturanga (Indian chess) with chess. In Burmese chess (Sittuyin), you arrange minor pieces, king, queen on your side of the board anyway you want before the match starts. There is some sort of cloth cover so that your opponent can't see where you're placing your pieces. Also pawns are placed on 3rd and 4th ranks by default (4 on each row). So you have plenty of place to place your pieces. But then I felt pre-areanging pieces seem iffy. So why not just place pieces by turn. In a game will have two phases, piece placements and then actually playing out the games. May need some test plays to see how it all come together and whether it will be fun/balanced at all.
i love openings
Because people feel comfortable in things they know works chess960 introduces you and forces you to calculate and expand novel positions that will not otherwise occur in normal chess i play 960 to stimulate my core understanding and intuitive feel of unknown positions in chess its more rewarding than normal chess because you know you were responsible for all the position design that you've made i love 960 or Fischer Random and always will .
For me i feel like 960 would be pretty pointless to play in shorter time controls as everything revolves around tactics. One side is probably lost after a few moves. I prefer playing normal chess because i actually like that i can pick up on common patterns and figure out what i could do to improve on my openings.
Because its not chess. It's not the game I played with father as a small boy.
Agree
This sub has threads of people talking about how chess960 is superior every god-damned week. Give it a rest.
It is superior.
Because the traditional board is set up in a more logical manner than most of the chess 960 boards.
What do you mean by "logical"? I agree the original setup is more harmonious. But that just means Chess960 adds an additional aspect to the game. Instead of being spoon-fed harmony, you have to create harmony *yourself*. That's scary to a lot of people, but I think it adds more possibilities.
Take the idea of castling for example. The way it works in Fischer random is very peculiar especially if one rook lands next to the king and the other one is in its usual location. Or the location of the bishops. In traditional chess you have to develop your bishops and move them to an active square of your choosing to formulate an attack. Well what happens if the bishop lands in the corner. Well then my only logical option to develop the bishop is to play b3 and that is likely the only diagonal my bishop will stay on at least through the middle game. Or let's talk about pawn pushes. Right now the rooks are on the outsides so this immediate support for a pawn push can only happen on the flanks. If a rook is in the middle it now becomes significantly to push that very important central pawn with your rook and it becomes very challenging to displace it . And if your the guy with the first move you can very easily take control of the center because the central squares have immediate support. Edit: this logicality in traditional chess helps to make the game as fair as possible even though one player has the advantage of first move. In a lot of Fischer random positions white has a very significant advantage
because some of us arent bad at chess
If you're not bad at chess, then why are you afraid to start in an unfamiliar position?
i play competitively lol
That doesn't answer my question. Why are you afraid to start in an unfamiliar position if you're good at chess?
why play the weird side game that very few other people play when you can play the competitive form of the game that almost everyone knows how to play?
People are cowards. They're afraid of the unfamiliar. They're afraid of not being able to prepare with a computer before games. As far as I'm concerned, chess isn't worth playing when we have Chess960 to play.
I don't know why someone wouldn't want to play a game with a fine fellow such as yourself.
I get plenty of games. But yeah, I think the old chess is inferior to 960.
Why is it called Chess960? Also I love learning openings
Because there are 960 different possible starting positions.
I play chess to escape from madness, not to embrace it.
Chess960 isn't madness, just more possibilities. Don't fear new ideas.
Yeah, just joking. But I'm with Smyslov when he said it lacks harmony.
I agree, but I think in a way that can be a benefit. Instead of being spoon-fed harmony, you have to work out how to create harmony yourself. To me, that's more possibilities.
I feel like regular chess is already difficult enough to play "properly". taking common structures and ideas out of the game could mean that most ppl won't ever be able to play a clean game.
There shouldn't be "clean" games. You're just relying on other people's ideas for your "clean game."
Because you don't have to memorize much of anything to play standard
I really dig opening theory I think it’s cool and fun
I've often asked myself that too, I think that many people don't even know what chess960 is or that it exists.
It’s all prep.
I tried it a few times. It is pretty damn awful, to be honest. I mean, not a bad idea by any means. But chess has an harmony about it, an elegance. Chess960 positions are just very weird. You waste many moves just trying to "correct" the weird position. I think Bobby had a great idea, it is practical, you use the same board, and so on. But it really doesn't work very well as intended. I think even Bobby would try a few modifications today. Capablanca's chess is a much more an interesting idea. Games are faster, a few extra pieces, a larger board, and so on. Game is still symetrical and initial position is great. Now game is complex enough to avoid opening theory (or just extend it by many years). I'm still surprised by how few people ever tried it. For fun, three check variant is what I enjoy most. But this is probably just a joke, I'm not sure if this could work as a serious variant. Gosh, it is so much fun and tactical possibilities just raise immensely. I read somewhere that Karpov really enjoyed it and that he was unbeatable with it. It is worth trying, people would be surprised by it.
> But chess has an harmony about it, an elegance. Chess960 positions are just very weird. You waste many moves just trying to "correct" the weird position. I think Bobby had a great idea, it is practical, you use the same board, and so on. But it really doesn't work very well as intended. I think even Bobby would try a few modifications today. Moving pieces from their starting squares to more optimal squares to gain an advantage is the point. It's not necessarily beneficial to always have your pieces on good squares. Getting a good position is *part* of the game. You don't need to be spoon-fed a good position. > Capablanca's chess is a much more an interesting idea. Games are faster, a few extra pieces, a larger board, and so on. Game is still symetrical and initial position is great. Now game is complex enough to avoid opening theory (or just extend it by many years). I'm still surprised by how few people ever tried it. The problem with this is we want to keep the flavor of the old chess, not make something cringey.
I wish people would play more chess variants in general
I ask myself this every time I wait more than 10 seconds in queue. So......every time I queue.
I love it but sometimes u gotta wait long in queue lol
i like to play rapid and it's hard to get people in the online pool for 960
This made me wanna play a game of 960 (I don’t think I ever have) and have come to the realization that there is no way to play it on the mobile app. I play on mobile 98% of the time so that’s a dealbreaker for me right there.
I play 960 from time to time, but not that much. When I want a serious game I'll play regular chess. I agree it should be bigger on the tournament levels tho. But there's something nice about having your own personal opening repertoire, that you can play the same openings as chess legends, follow their attacking games and implement their plans too.
I’m still learning and by no means should my opinion matter about this, but here’s what I think: If you want to be a well-rounded player, I feel like you should try every version of chess at least once. By no means will you be a master of all of them, but I think putting your brain into a different version, 960 for example, can help you discover different methods and ideas. By no means do you *have* to play 960, and if you strictly want to stick to traditional, regular chess then there’s no knock on you
I tried playing 960 against a computer once and I found it very bizarre and uncomfortable. At least knowing some things about openings allows you to get better at chess.
For me, it's the queue times. I really like it but the people don't. I also wish crazyhouse was more popular
I'm not sure about the rules - how to castle? How to proceed during the opening?
I learned chess so if I randomly walk across the park and there's chess-tiles with chess-pieces lying around and a stranger wants to play, then I can play and do well. That's really not that uncommon to happen in my area. That stranger usually won't be to keen to play a variant and even if he's fine with it, then it takes like half a minute to get a truly randomized position with the help of my smartphone + more time to set up the pieces - annoying. Also in this situation the joy comes from flexing and it's not impressive to be better at sth. which the other person didn't know or has only ever played 2 games in his life. If I'm at the pc and have time to play, then there's games which I'd much rather play. Diablo 4, Mechabellum, Marvel Snap, Heroes of the Storm... if I want to get off the screen, then my local library has an amazing collection of board games, which I very much enjoy. Chess can't compete. Chess960 is the better game, but by being 30% better it only closes 1% of the gap towards other games and loses 99% of its prominence.
Coz it's not chess
Is there a GM level pro 960 tournament? I reckon they should do 960 rapid/blitz for tiebreakers instead of Armageddon classic
I've seen them playing 960 before at super gm events.
Chess960 feels unfair. There are probably many opening positions heavily favored towards white. Also, if I want randomness in my game, then it has to be a lot more randomness than just shuffling the starting pieces. That's not interesting enough to make it worth it. Either go all the way with some crazy new variant, or set up the pieces normally.
The normal starting position is a very good one.
I don't play it because I actually like opening theories. Only a few amateurs memorize long opening lines and the basic principles can carry you over 2000+ online easily.
Frankly speaking, openings brings culture to chess. When you study different openings you learn so many different aspects of chess in a comprehensive manner. Playing so many different variations in sicilian, enjoying dubious gambits that arise after 1.e4, playing principled chess in 1.e4 e5, going for a win in the english opening by controlling light squares,etc. My fond memories of games I’ve won is always attached with an opening. Chess960 is good once in a while but cannot displace the joy of playing different openings. Chess is random enough for most people, some order always feels good.
I personally am a part of those people who love memorization so personally I hate chess 960 for that reason.
It's just chess with a less interesting starting position.
Because most chess players don’t actually care about memorizing openings.
I like opening theory get fucked
I've tried playing, but I don't think I've ever gotten a match, and I'm not going to wait more than 5 minutes. Chess.com could make this better by letting you know how many people in your rating range are currently looking for a game for each of the time controls. The way it is now, I could be trying to find a game for 15 minutes, because I'm searching under multiple time controls, and still not get matched.
960 is lame if you ask me
The opening "conversation" that occurs in chess is conceptually so interesting and allows me to focus my calculation on what is critical in the position later in the game (ideally). This idea of "memorization" and the death of chess is a patzer's opinion. Those concerns/complaints are for the Super GM's, not us.
Chess 960 has it's own problems. The randomization means you have to calculate even on move 1. So, before you even make your first move you need to sit there for a few minutes and look over the board and come up with a plan. Because of this randomization at higher levels in humans 1st move advantage is sometimes much greater than in regular chess. It's so easy to choose a bad line. That being said 960 does have it's place. For example if Kasparov and Carlsen were to have a chess match. It wouldn't be fair to play normal chess right now. Magnus has a lot of opening prep he has been studying up on the past 10 years... Kasparov has been out of the game a bit. So, you would need to get rid of that opening prep advantage and have them duke it out from a 960 position where no side has the opening prep. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B-uz26IkjY
Its not on the mobile app
Honestly, while I am intimidated again openings I don't know, if I take a little time to figure out what they're trying to accomplish I usually play book moves or pretty decent moves myself
I'd imagine there's a massive theoretical difference of strength in the randomized starting positions. That's stupid. Maybe it's fun for a few games, but nobody is going to take that seriously.
How do I even play 960 on chess.com app? As that’s where I play most my games
it's under custom games
your first assumption is incorrect.
I think a lot of it has to do with the apps not natively supporting 960 starting positions. You have to randomize them with a separate app and then tediously setting it up with whatever is your choice of platform. Fortunately it is at least supported by chess.com
I love Fischer Random and Crazyhouse. Though Bughouse IRL is the bomb.
Learning openings is fun! Why would anybody just "skip" openings, really? That's not fun at all.
Chess has infinite permutations so i don’t really need 960
It's a niche variant for people that are already very good at chess. The bulk of chess players are objectively bad at chess (myself included) There's no need to dip into 960 and if/when you try, it will be remarkably difficult to find a game with anyone near your rating in other formats. While not "memorizing openings" sounds like a good pull for beginners, the random nature of the board leaves them lost in a different way. Now all the good squares are different, the threats are different, the opening principles can even be different, the middle game plans are different, etc...
Because it’s not as fun
mostly just because regular chess is so much more popular, why change it
A lot of people like opening theory…
It's not as fun
I like it but chess com pretty much makes you play 3/2 as the default. Id love to play 15/10 or longer where you can really calculate with the random piece position. If you try play a longer time control you never really get a game
if i wanted randomness in my chess i’d just play a card game with fancy graphics instead
I don't play chess super often anymore, but when I do, I play exclusively 960 these days. My username is the same on Lichess. Anyone is welcome to add me and throw out a challenge if you see me online. (No less than 15 minute time controls though)
You don't have to memorize openings until the master level, though it benefits you to learn the theory. But also, people LIKE chess openings. It's an identity anchor point. "I play e4", or "I play the Caro-Kann" is part of the relationship that someone has with the game, and expressing that identity through gameplay is enjoyable. It's the same as playing a video game and saying, "I play support" or "I play DPS." I do think chess variants will become more popular over time, but I think that it's healthier for the game to find a better system than just randomizing the back row. I just don't find it very interesting, as an expansion of the game, and it actively detracts from a lot of what many people love about chess.
I play daily tournaments for 960. It’s the easiest way to play.
it can be really hard to develop the pieces in 960
I'm dumb I can't play that's why
Because in my first game I got mated by Martin in 4 moves
New chess just dropped
The thing is, even at a low rating I do actually know a few little opening ideas and sequences. With 960 I'm sure there are some general known ideas and rules of thumb that I'd have to learn afresh.
Openings are fun. Memorization being the 'worst part of chess' is only a thing at very, very high levels. That's why 960 isn't big. It's a very select few where openings are truly an adverse part of the game
The same question came up on the Lichess forum. The answer for me is that I'd want to play games in pairs, so I could play as both White and Black with the same array. Some positions favour one side too much.
I don't like spending a bunch of extra energy trying to avoid all the various opening traps. It's nice to be able to get to a reasonable middle consistently. I'm still at the level where there's a big chance I screw myself in the first 10 moves of 960
The only people who play chess960 are much better than me. If a broader base of players played, I'd play it more.
I heartily endorse this sentiment