Tips for playing the chess variant: Fischer Random / Chess960!

Hello, this is @Phantom_beast23 and today, I'm gonna be talking about the chess variant, Chess960, also know as the Fischer Random. This is a very fun variant as it's not the usual chess setup you're used to and it increases your flexibility with other pieces! Fun fact, unlike other variants such as 3 check, there are national Chess960 championships that are hosted in a bunch of places! Note, This is also my 2nd blog on a chess variant for tips, you can check out my first one made about 3-Check which can be found HERE!

Unlike most of the other variants, this one has a more historical background as it was created by none other than Bobby Fischer! The purpose of this was to limit opening, and instead to bring out some creativity among players so they could realize how chess isn't always about theory. There are even tournaments that include this variant, including the FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship, founded in 2019.

Fun fact, the reason it's called "Chess960" is because there are 960 different possible setups/starting positions!

First, here are some rules! 

- The games end as how it would in a regular game eg: Time-out, Stalemate, Checkmate, Repetition and the 50 move rule.

- The bishops, just like in chess, always are in the opposite color on the board.

- Then there's castling. To be honest, I'm not very sure on this yet, but basically, the same rules apply as long as the king hasn't moved, or any of the rooks, They can castle. A more deeper explanation can be found HERE!

- Also note, the pawns are setup how they usually are and Blacks pieces mirror White's pieces, so it's more fair.

Tips!

1. Develop your minor pieces, knights in particular.

This is a REALLY fundamental tip: One we all already know, and is a tip that can be used in ALMOST ANY variant. But why I say knights in particular is because knights can attack key squares and can make some very attacking and scary moves. 

Lets take this position for example:

This is the same position from the one being used in the thumbnail I created. Some squares that are vulnerable (less protected) are h7, h2, g7, and g2. As you can see there are more pawns vulnerable than how many there would be in the traditional board setup. This is what can happen when knights are developed earlier than pawns

White is just better. Better in development, Better attacking position, and overall just better. After this, You can try some tricks such as Qg7# or Smothers Mate: here's what I mean-

Chances are, your opponent is probably not gonna be that dumb to fall for that and theyre probably gonna try different moves, but its always fun too see if they fall for these or not

2 - Avoid moving the pawn diagonal to the rook

This is a quick tip but anyways, for people that have been playing 960 for awhile, this is probably common knowledge for them, but for beginners and intermediate, this is a tip that's well known, but is often forgotten and can be quite devastating, especially if the bishop has the whole diagonal. 

Something that could occur:

This won't happen in most cases, but add in a few moves that makes it harder to see bxh8, black is now completely losing! This is a very "no duh" type of tip, but I just wanted to get that out before we go into more tips in Chess960!

3 - Castle...at your own risk!

Castling can be REALLY good...unless it's done at the wrong time. Sometimes castling is when the king is exposed to other pieces from the opponent. This is a HUGE no-no in chess and in most variants in general. 

Sometimes, this is a very obvious tip and can be easily avoided, such as this game that I won:

Obviously O-O-O was a mistake and due to him being higher rated than me, It was likely a mouse slip. But it's obvious that the intent of castling wasn't at the right time.

Another thing you might want to watch out/be careful of is something that could involve a Queen sacrifice which can lead two bishop's mate, something like this:

I actually just made up this game from my mind so it isn't a great game but, While your opponent probably wont play these bad moves, you probably get the idea of being careful while castling because you can lose pretty quickly if you're not being careful enough...

Also, this type of "2 bishop mate" is called the Boden's Checkmate, which is one of my favorite types of mating patterns of all time! While the one I showed didnt have a sacrifice unlike most others it still ended up being a mate involving 2 bishops. I actually made a blog on this so more info on the Mate can be found HERE!

Lastly, this isn't a tip, but a game I wanted to share in which I found in the chess960 game base. This game was played between Wesley So and Magnus Carlsen..in which Wesley won!