Love 960 because all those chess books my opponent has read helps them nothing. Its like a chess sandbox.
Yes. Chess960 was supposed to be the "Solution," to revitalize chess. When I first saw it proposed, I was very excited to try it.
Chess without all those centuries of opening theory? What else could be better? I never considered myself much of an Opening Wiz, anyway. I've always thought a chessplayer should understand why a particular move works, rather than just memorize line after line spoon-fed to him by some Grandmaster.
Plus I though 960 would time-warp me back to the days of Greco and Lopez. Challenging me to invent opening theory, the way they did.
But now that I've tried 960 for a while, I'm not so sure. Okay, i'm shakey in the opening part, that much I expected. But I never realized how uncomfortable I would be in the middlegame as well. The middlegames I reach are completely unfamiliar. There is no sense of "been there, done that." The positions are almost an alien landscape.
Only as the endgame approaches, do things start to look familiar again.
I still intend to keep trying 960. But so far, I am disappointed.
960 is inevitable. I spent six months with Stockfish 7 "booking up" in all 960 positions (one page per starting position), and it definitely helped me clarify which "opening theory" applies to all of chess, and which is specific to "518," or classical chess (I have other names for 518 that would be censored here).
Most players have this idea that they will benefit from the lack of "theory," but that is true only if they develop something their opponents lack (which I did for a bit). When 518 is played out (and it will be), 960 will take over, but I'm guessing we're at least 15-20 years away from that point. Until then, 960 will continue to increase in popularity.
I am convinced that many top GMs are using 960 to train a lot more than they admit, at least by their openings.
With close to 2000 other chess variants why play anything invented by that prick Fischer?