I recently discovered that there was an option to play chess 960 on this website, so I clicked on the "play" tab and at the bottom of the page there was a link to it. However, when I clicked the button that said "play chess 960" it just took me to my turn-based chess home, and I couldn't find a place to start a 960 game. Anyone know how to do this?

From the Online Chess page (Play -> Online Chess). Where it says Start New Game in large friendly orange letters, DO NOT click on begin.

Instead, under the Play Chess set of functions, click on Start New Game.

Click on show more advanced options >>

You'll see a drop-down menu labelled Game Type.

Select Chess960.

(Perhaps this tortuous route needs better signposting?)

Thanks! And I agree that it needs more specific instructions.

There are more specific instructions here in the chess960 FAQ page :)

is there any difference between chess960 and the chess played more regularly here in this site?

is there any difference between chess960 and the chess played more regularly here in this site?

Chess960 (also called FischerRandom) is just like regular chess... except that the starting position is shuffled to include 960 different possible positions! So you can throw out your opening book, but keep your opening principles. You play the same, but you just have different placement of pieces on the starting row.

The only change in rules is that castling is funky - when you castle, the king/rook end up in the same position as when they castle in regular chess (king on g-file and rook on f-file for kingside, king on c-file and rook on d-file for queenside).

The 960 comes from the number of different possible starting positions where there is a rook on each side of the king and where there are bishops of opposite color.