My First Chess960 OTB Tournament: Where Rooks Roamed Free and Sanity Was Optional
My First Chess960 Tournament: Where Rooks Roamed Free and Sanity Was Optional
There’s a moment in every chess player’s life when they decide to step off the beaten 1.e4 path and venture into the land of chaos, confusion, and king-side castling that feels like a drunk GPS recalculating. That moment, for me, was entering my first Chess960 tournament at the Toronto Chess Centre
For the uninitiated, Chess960 (or Fischer Random) is a version of chess where the pieces on the back rank are scrambled like eggs at a Sunday brunch. There are 960 possible starting positions, which is great unless you like knowing what you're doing.
The First Game: “Where’s My Knight?”
I sat down at my board, full of confidence, only to realize my knight was chilling out on a1, staring at the wall, while my queen was off-center like a rebellious teen.
My opponent looked calm suspiciously calm like someone who’d practiced this nonsense. Meanwhile, I spent the first five minutes figuring out whether castling would teleport my king into checkmate.
I eventually played a move. It was not good. My knight took four turns just to get to a square where it wasn’t being bullied by pawns. Somewhere around move 10, I tried a tactical sequence involving a rook and a deep sigh. It backfired. My rook was last seen taking early retirement in the corner.
Game Two: “Castling is a Crime”
In normal chess, you know that sweet feeling of castling kingside and tucking your monarch away safely? Yeah, not here. Here, I tried to castle and accidentally invented a new yoga pose for my king. The arbiter had to come over to confirm that yes, castling in this position technically meant leapfrogging two bishops and a dog-eared sense of dignity.
My opponent, meanwhile, castled like they were folding laundry. Smooth, efficient, and utterly demoralizing.
Game Three: “Do Bishops Even Matter?”
By game three, I embraced the chaos. I channelled my inner Bob Ross and treated the board like a canvas of happy little accidents. My bishop pair which started on the same colour, somehow took 30 moves to activate. One of them got stuck behind a pawn wall I built like I was prepping for medieval siege warfare. The other... wandered off.
I lost that game, but I lost with style.
Final Thoughts: “960 Ways to Cry”
Chess960 is beautiful. It’s also a maze of brain cramps and existential riddles. It’s like regular chess got drunk, spun around 10 times, and challenged you to a duel with salad tongs. And I loved it.
Sure, I scored a solid 0.5 out of 3, and yes, one of those games ended with my rook self-checkmating (don’t ask), but I came out of that tournament with a new appreciation for flexibility, improvisation, and how badly I miss the opening theory I used to complain about.
Would I do it again?
Absolutely. Just after a stiff drink and a tactical therapy session.
