If you had to promote any alternatives to Classical Chess, having to choose some of the following options, which would you prefer?
1. Chess960
2. Chess18 (uses only the starting positions from Chess960 in which the king and the rooks are placed on the same home squares as in Classical Chess)
3. No Castling Chess
4. Reform Chess (boards-size 8x6, 6x8, 9x6, 5x8)
5. Double-King Chess
6. Double-King Chess960
I think no castling is the most interesting idea right now. It's the most complicated move in chess, so the game actually becomes simpler without it. It won't shock those people who really like the symmetry of the standard position and it should be just as easy to follow as a spectator, so if it can solve the opening theory problem, it seems worth a try. Because it's a fairly minor change new opening theory would develop much quicker than it would for 960, but it would actually be interesting to follow that, and have new openings named after contemporary players, and if top players become bored again, then more drastic changes could be made.
The first few times I tried to watch 960 events I didn't enjoy it at all, but I actually enjoyed the last event I watched, so I'm more open to it now. I'll never be good enough to have a problem with standard chess, but I want top players to be happy and motivated and creative, and I'd rather watch long time controls in 960 with grandmaster analysis than blitz events from the standard position. But honestly I think it would be a good idea to just eliminate castling from 960 before it becomes more popular, because it's even more complicated and sometimes even absurd.
I would like 960 chess, but with improvements: castling should look more understandable and less weird, bishops or knights shouldn't start in the corners of the board, the pawns should maybe be randomized a bit too (for example using the 3rd/6th rank aswell), there should be no weaknesses or unprotected pawns in the starting position.
So if we would reduce 960 chess to less options where all of the issues with 960 are resolved and maybe increase the options by giving the pawns more starting options instead and if we may vary how many knights or rooks are in the game then we could have very interesting, balanced games that are similar to Fischer random.
The most important part would be to find a system that really works 100% and people start liking it very, very much. Only with enough popularity will the majority EVER switch from standard chess to something else. In my eyes all the alternatives so far have simply failed. We need to put more thought into a new variant together.
2 (non-random, then random if that is the dogma, random among 18 might allow learning from experience about the backrank subtelties in the long run of many games)
1 (non-random, random over 960 does not allow learning over many games the subtleties in the long run about the backrank geometries))
3. as a flavor of any 2 or 1
knowing that the pool of games to be played is taken among 960, is enough, no need for random to achieve the goals usually attributed to having the random. (maybe think of many games chess?).
18 depending on the choice of the 18 (i assume some geometrical criteria, i would have to look at them), might be learnable at individual scale.
being able to learn from game to game does not mean long sequence tunnel digging and mapping. but good 18 subset random might be something to try. it might offer human scale long term memory association from close enough repetition events.
Perhaps the notions of intuition building are not really digested in the world of random 960. Or it is not an acceptable thing, to be able to learn from experience about the back-rank associations with downstream position characteristics.
Question: what is the background behind 18
1) why not 15, what if my biological capacity was 15 on long term contexts diversity and average human time scales for human long term memory associations from temporal proximal similarity exposure repetitions (yes, long short this is all a temporal ballet, but it is not science-fiction, ask the natural language thingies).
2) Otherwise and more on topic (I guess): what is the chess thinking behind the particular 18 back-ranks. (15 or whatever in that range).
Excuse me if I complicate things for you all, but I love solving Double-King Chess puzzles.
Why isn't 3D chess on the list?
In my club on weekends we have been doing Chess960 tournaments for a few years. We all enjoy these tournaments!
In some schools in Hungary Reform Chess was being played. I found it interesting,
I'm going with 1. Chess960.
It is a brilliant idea Bobby Fischer came up with. Each rule tested for hours. It neutralizes theory by giving us 959 new positions. Analyses have been done showing that white does not have a significant advantage in any starting position.
It takes takes rote memorization out of the game while prioritizing creativity AND preserving the mechanics, quality, and dynamic nature of the old chess.
In my opinion, it's a logical extension of the development of chess. Chess has always had rule changes, from the movements of the pieces, to adding castling, allowing the pawn to move up two on the first move (to deal with the problem of boring games), creating en passant (to deal with the problem of the pawn moving up two on the first move), to white always going first, etc.
Chess960 is a response to the modern problem of chess engines. In many cases, players are playing lines they studied using a computer. This has the effect of removing creativity, allowing computers to think for us, and turning chess into a memory game (with some creativity thrown in once players forget the correct moves).
IMO, Chess960 preserves the good parts of chess, but allows for 960 times the possibilities, making chess the creative game it once was.
I think it's worth remembering that prior to theory and computers, there was no memorization. Chess was a game of pure creativity. Chess960 brings us closer to the ancient game by removing the modern crutches.
@Prophiscient said in #9:
> I think it's worth remembering that prior to theory and computers, there was no memorization. Chess was a game of pure creativity.
I won't argue again with you, as we already did, just telling you that this is wrong and Fischer has said it himself in the interview. There has always been a lot of theory and book moves, fromout the beginning - not as much as there is today, but there has been theory. Always. Chess has NEVER been a game of pure creativity. There have been chess principles, chess theory, book moves, known openings, a lot of studying and preparation also back then.
