Chess Engine Strength

20 years ago, the top humans in the world could still compete with top computers. But now, everything has changed. Humans are no match for the top computers anymore. Fritz's rating is estimated at 3110, hundreds of points above even Magnus Carlsen's rating. Rybka is even better with an estimated rating of 3227, while Houdini 3 is even better than that, at 3334. With computers, modern theory for top players is 20-30 moves long. Then ten moves later they make a draw. This is not the type of chess that people like to see, and also not the type of chess the media wants to see. Although computers have been very helpful in analyzing positions, they are also partially destroying the art of chess, and the creativeness of chess.

Chess960, or Fisher Random chess, may be another option, because it is almost impossible to prepare theory. I bet eventually in the future, people will abandon Chess and it's tons of opening theory and move to Chess960, where the best player wins, not the best prepared player. We, on chess.com, are very fortunate to have correspondence chess960 games possible. And on the Internet Chess Club, chess960 is one of the game mode options.

Another option is S-Chess, invented by GM Yasser Seirawan and FM Bruce Harper. You start with the regular position, but then you have two pieces, the elephant and the eagle. The elephant moves like a rook and a knight combined, and the eagle moves like a knight and a bishop combined. You can spend your move placing one of them onto an empty starting square for your major of minor pieces. This is also a solution to too much opening theory in regular chess.

Thanks for reading, and if you are willing to take your time, please leave a comment on whether or not too much opening theory drains the energy and excitement from chess, and if yes, what can be done to solve that problem.