Best 1st moves in ALL 960 Fischer positions

Yigor have you discovered any pawn gambits that work in Chess960? What I mean by "work" is that an = valuation either stays level or becomes +/= in all lines after the gambit. What I am noticing in Chess960 is that very rarely do I see a pawn gambit line as you see in SP518 but it could just be that I am not a good gambit player!

What I am seeing as amazingly common in 960 are exchange sacrifises very early especially BxR versions where a bishop becomes equal value to a rook and stays that way for a long time. However *many* types of exchange sacrifices seem to happen. A player like Topalov or anyone who is very knowledgeable about when to play exchange sacrifices would love 960 I think!

Cheers

Hey Harry, actually, I didn't think yet about sound gambits in chess960. If I discover something interesting, I'll let U know. During this summer, I'll start to create opening books for chess960 in the Open Encyclopedia here:

http://finaltheoryofchess.game-server.cc/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page

Thanks Yigor. Your efforts will help to give people more understanding of 960 both conceptually and in terms of memory tasks. I personally believe that 960 does have a very good principal on how to play all 960 positions, but that there will be a very small set of positions where the opening will simply have to be memorised by number because the starting position is simply so tactically brutal, that even GM's (and engines!) miss it. I suggest that at all tournaments, that the start position number is given to the players at the start of the game to help act as a memory queue for the position.

For example in your analysis I would be very interested to see what you come up with for SP941! I have done my own preliminary investigation of it here:

http://chess960jungle.blogspot.com/search?q=941

The position is very challenging for black unless black can see at least three intertwining tactical motifs. I think that the position has a way for black to play, but I wonder what you find. In the one practical example that I have seen, Etienne Bacrot missed the correct ideas but Aronian was the opponent and so this is a special case! Aronian found the correct *counter-intuitive* opening play for white! Without finding the counter-intuitive play, black would not have had a problem.....

If there are any critics of 960 reading this, bare in mind that these types of absolutely brutal positions are *very rare* and by far the vast majority of positions give black reasonable chances to find equality. We have to remember that essentially Chess960 is actually a universally deep study in how black can draw. It is no different for traditional chess which is but one position in 960 and asks exactly the same question!

And finally to any critics of 960 out there, Chess960 solves the practical problem of giving black more real world chances to win, because in Chess960 it is white that pays the first penalty on the chess clock. This gives black a fighting chance!

Enjoy 960

In glider1001's example, I think 2...g6 looks very playable. It helps take over the white squares so that whites bishop can be blocked with ...f5. Its main ugliness is that it blocks the corner knight, but I am convinced that corner knights are sometimes only worth two pawns in the openening (the closer the knight is to the center, the more it's worth). The knight will only become relevant later in the game. I did only look at the position for a couple minutes.

I was mostly looking at the rest of the blog. I like it very much, there are alot of good ideas. I wrote a blog several months ago, when I had only played about a dozen games, that I would be interested in seeing what you thought about it. I need to update it, but Ive been lazy. I think I organized the bishop pairs better than you did, but I will admit only skimming alot of the site, so maybe I don't quite understand why you organized them the way you did.

A short summary of my ideas would be this: there are ten types of bishop structure (see my blog for explanation). These are the ten basic categories of all chess960 positions. The trio of bishops+queen (this trio is important because they move diagonally) will combine aspects of three of the ten categories (a bishop and a queen function very similar to a bishop pair, but the queen is much weaker because of its high value).

There are 28 possible starting positions for the knights (28=triangular number of 7) Four of them are symmetric. The remaining 24 all have mirror images of each other so these can be reduced to 12. 12+4=16 different categories of knight interactions.

After you define where the diagonal trio are, and where the knights are, by default you have also defined where the rooks and king are because there are only 3 squares left and the king must take the middle square.

Thanks Menzhinsky you are not alone in thinking of catagorizing Chess960 start positions based on the bishops. Bemweeks has been thinking along similar lines:

http://chess960frc.blogspot.com/2011/05/naming-things.html

Personally my approach is purely practical. I tend to think of the minor pieces in terms of pairs with names because almost 50% of all Chess960 starts involve the "Patriarch" family of bishops (BB). Also pairings of knights in NN and N.N form are very significant as well (Military and Chivalry Knights). If you add the N...N form that morphs into N.N on many occasions, the NN and N.N pairings form almost 50% of games as well. Essentially the idea is to give these pairings names because in Chess960 they have such important properties when working together as a pair, that the whole character of the start position tends to revolve around them in more than 50% of cases. In traditional chess (SP518) we tend not to think of the minors working together as pairs.

The point about Chess960 is that there is no single best way to analyse them! The great and enoumous book of Chess960 positions was written by no-one and so we are free to study it in many fascinating and enjoyable ways. If I can remember I will try to folllow your blog on Chess960 Menzhinsky because it is wonderful that enthusiasts like yourself, myself, Bemweeks and Yigor are trying to help people to play Chess960. The more the better!

Essentially the only real reason why people do not play it more is that they are unfamiliar with it and think that it is "chaotic/random/stupid". They do not have a reference concept to fall back on and thus the positions look "random" without a concept. However once we gaze at the positions with an overarching concept or theory that help to make sense of it, Chess960 starts to become a very enjoyable game to contemplate with many meaningful patterns! It is the job of us bloggers to give players these concepts in the era before the professionals do it for us.

I can assure everyone that there is a basic and quite simple way to play most of the Chess960 positions quite competently.

Enjoy 960!

I know from playing around that there are a number of start positions that computers think provide white with a bigger edge then the standard position (books off); while the difference isnt really that much, it does seem to be easier to get into trouble in these positions without best play.   

It does look like 1.  e4 e5 is an actual mistake for black in the position you identify, but f5 might be fine (analyzed with a 2600 strength engine so Rybka could disagree). 

I tried a similar study but found that x=(BQRNBPPP*0.2467)/960+4(RRRQKPP+BBBNNN)-2 and the formula just didnt work out

bumping, new update in the first post 😎

i read ALL OF THEM.

LoL 🤣 a better presentation is necessary, regrouping Fischer's positions in some pedagogical manner. 😎

960 is great. Start with great talent and spend all your spare time studying openings and you only have to find move 2 over the board.

🤣