Chess960 Explained!

what do you suggest? no castling? I really don't understand something: what is the problem if something is hard to explain? I mean even if castling was hard to explain.

That's a lot of questions, I'll try to be as brief as possible. Let me know if you want more detail on a particular point.

Fischer made Chess960 as a way to reinvigorate Chess, which he felt had lost some spontaneity and relied too much on preparation. As a replacement for Chess, it would need to be backwards compatible, meaning that if you can make a move in standard Chess, you should be able to make that same move in Chess960.

There are a few ways to replicate the move that is Castling in Chess and transpose it to Chess960. Most chess boards come with rules. For example Wikipedia say "Castling consists of moving the king two squares towards a rook on the player's first rank, then moving the rook to the square that the king crossed." This doesn't work perfectly in Chess960 because sometimes you start a board like this:

In this position the King can't move two spaces toward the rook on the A file. (You could just exchange them.)

When you look at the solution that Fischer came to (from a game designer perspective) you can see he was using his knowledge as a player. He has a lifetime of moving his King and Rook in that pattern. In Standard Chess there are reasons for the move and it evolved from something called The King's Leap, which allowed the king to leap two squares on its first move. Modern Castling is a shortcut for this move. If you understand the history of Castling, then Fisher's version in Chess960 looks awkward.

Most of the moves in Chess can be easily explained to beginners, without requiring knowledge of the board coordinates. In particular you don't ever need to know the files, with some knowledge of the rows required for promotion. Chess960's castling rules are not easy to explain to a new player and require many games for a new player to become comfortable with identifying the specific squares involved. Over time players become used to it, but it's not easy or intuitive.  

Simple explanation: The castling pieces end up on the same squares and follow the same castling rules as they do in traditional chess.

Why would someone learn 960 before traditional?

I don't think there's anything intuitive in chess at all. If someone doesn't know the rules, every move and piece looks completely abstract. 

You completely changed my mind.

Websites make chess look easy or intuitive by not allowing illegal moves AND showing you your possible moves for each clicked piece. 

However the vast majority of people learned chess otb

If you always move the king two squares when castling, then in some 960 positions the king might end up in the center of the board after castling.

Yes, that's absolutely correct. However the King moves, unlike some Chess960 positions.

a

" when you castle, the king/rook end up in the same position as when they castle in regular chess". I think this rule is illogical.

Here is how I castle : Rook move against the King, then the King moves 2 squares through the Rook. If the Rook was already touching the King, then just permutt them. This seems to be the most logical principles for me.
Note that sometimes you have to alert your adversary (or the computer) you want to castle before playing...

Here is a XLS positions generator for 960 / Fischer chess that I created.

Note that you can allow same color Bishop if you want : that's fun !

Enjoy it !

https://www.dropbox.com/s/39pn77925mcio8j/BobbyFischer.xlsx

It's not a rule, it's just how it works. 

I will repeat: The castling pieces end up on the same squares and follow the same castling rules as they do in traditional chess.

Sometimes the rook is touching the king, but they'll both move to their castling position. Example this situation: R K R B B N N Q, if you try to castle on the right side, how does your "rule" apply? And what's about alerting adversary? Did you invent this?

Or this game I am playing... R N B B Q N K R... as black, to castle LEFT side, my king moves 5 squares, but surprinsingly: HE ENDS IN THE SAME POSITION AS REGULAR CHESS

Oh yes you are considering personal rules.. .so this is not 960, this is YOUR chess

We are talking about the rules of a game, not the rules we want the game to have.

No offense

In the last hour I've played my first three games of chess 960... by creating they game in custom... The games aren't showing in my stats. or game/opponent list. ( but I received some achievements) what did I do wrong??

I can see your last 3 games in your profile. Did you refresh the page? 3 won 960 games 

That's a very interesting idea. You're saying if the King and the Rook are already touching, then you just switch them? Like this?

In my suggestion the King would move to h1, but in yours, if I understand it, it would exchange positions with the King?

I agree.  The rules as they are work fine.  It's a pointless discussion.

We are talking about the Chess960 rule and how we don't like it.

So I guess its like those "stalemate is dumb", "en passant is dumb," "losing on time is dumb",  type conversations.  Some people like those type of conversations but I think they are all dumb.  I like to focus on the reality of the rules, since they aren't going to change.