Hey I've been hoping to play some games of Fischerrandom/Chess960 ever since I heard of it. Could chess.com be one of the first sites to offer it? I know that if it was available a lot of people would give it a shot. How hard would it be for the programmers to implement? It would be fun to have a seperate rating system, like what is being done for the Livechess. Erik/Admins (if you see this), how many people would have to express interest for it to be put on the agenda? Sorry for duplicate thread if someone has already brought this up. Anyone else want to second this suggestion? Would you play it if it were available?

 Just putting it out there.

They have Chess960 on schemingmind.com.  I haven't played it and I have no clue how to play it, but I think I would give it a try if chess.com had it!  :)

I want to second the suggestion!

Good idea.

That's 4 votes so far. I wonder how many we need before we reach the attention of the admins. Keep expressing your interest guys! I bet it would be a bit hit and bring a lot of people to the site who love chess but simply can't put in all of the time for opening study. Fischer was on to something that involves the future of chess... I say in lieu of his death that we work to bring it onto this site.

What is Fischerrandom/Chess960 precisely since last I remember it was a random placement of pieces on the board introduced by Fischer, himself? 

Wikipedia is your friend...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960

Tell me that it wouldn't be really exciting to try out!

Support!

Great idea.

I would like it too.

It sounds fun, I'd give it a shot

 

If Wikipedia is to be trusted, Fisher invent Chess960 due to his opinion of high level chess being, because of the set nature of the pieces, less about tactical brilliance and more about memorization of patterns and openings.

I'm relatively new to the site, and my chess is nowhere near such a level that the 'joy' of chess is becoming supplanted with conditioned responses to certain moves... but thinking about it, Chess960 would be suitable for almost anyone, from high level players, who may or may not have encountered the same issues that Bobby Fisher complained of, to casual players looking for an entirely unpredictable scenario.

Chess960 would be a great addition to the site.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960

 

Thanks Rael for your proposal and reference to wikipedia. I read it and felt strong desire to participate. At least it can make chess more enjoying and more recognition of natural talent, rather than bookish strength !

You can count my support about it. 

 

I've been experimenting with Fischer Chess a little bit.  That is to say, I've been setting up some of the 960 variants manually.  

If we want to make it avaliable on chess.com, we need to find out three things: Who has access to the code for the Chess.com engine.  Who could alter it to implement it (probably a relatively simple task for someone with knowledge of Java, which I presume is the language it's based on). And finally, who are the administrators willing to make it happen.

 I think it would be a valuable addition to the site.  We should make direct contact with the admins and ask them.

I love Fisher Radom and vote a very enthusiastic yes they need to have it here.  For those of you that dont know how it works its just like the rules of chess and its set up with the same pieces and board.  The only difference  is in the Fisher version the back pieces are randomly placed on the back rank.  So the king and queen may not be together or the two knights might end up next to each other.  There are a 960 ways to randomly place the back pieces therefore somethimes it is called chess 960. 

We're up to a total of 12 votes! The more I think about the possibility of playing Fischerrandom on here, the more excited I get. I just hope more people keep offering their support so we keep this on the "recent posts" page and get the attention of the admins!

I think it would be a great idea.

As stated by mendelbot, we should make direct contact with the admins instead of letting the idea fester throughout the boards for eternity.

 

It sounds really interesting to me.  If Fischerrandom were made available here I would certainly check it out for sheer entertainment.

This has been brought up before, and I would be interested to see it. Like many people on this site, I have very few opportunities to play OTB, so for the time being if I ever get to experiment with chess960 then it's going to be on the Internet. If ratings are to be given, I think it would make sense for players to have separate ratings for chess960 than for orthodox chess (which 960 fans sometimes call "chess1").

 

Other people, including several other GMs, have proposed ways to save chess from being "played out" at the highest levels, but I think Fischer's suggestion is superior to any other. Capablanca's and Seirawan's ideas are interesting, but eventually standard opening patterns are sure to emerge even in these more complex takes on chess. In contrast, chess960 has so many possible starting positions that memorization of standard openings is (I believe) simply beyond the capacity of the human mind. A computer could be taught "right" openings for each starting position, but for real chess players the challenge would be a perpetual one.

 

My one point of disagreement with Fischer's system is that I prefer John Kipling Lewis's proposed castling rules, which effectively turn ches960 into chess480 but which introduce more varied scenarios and don't seem as bound to the setup of orthodox chess.

 

Xenien7: Fischer varied on his reasons for inventing this form of random chess. Sometimes it was to bring out the strategic element of the game and minimize reliance on memorized openings, which is a great idea. Other times it was because he was convinced that all top-level chess games were choreographed in advance, and randomization would end the farce. This is, I feel, a less compelling reason.

I would give it a try, sure bring it on