Could we please stop calling Chess960 a variant?

I agree, Fischer Random is much better. Calling it Chess960 is like calling chess SP518.

I want "SP518" on a t-shirt.

 It kind of sounds like some kind of powerful sun block cream, though.

I like the logic of saying that chess is encompassed withing Chess960.  It is an interesting argument.  But, Chess was created through a set of specific rules.  Changing those rules to create a more generalized version of the game, and then saying that the first game is really a variation of the more general game...I don't know.  It somehow smacks of....I don't know....it seems like something the Bush administration would attempt or maybe Clinton trying to get out of a lie.  What's the word I am looking for.....Treason!  That's it!

Long live SP518  (ok, now that is beginning to sound like a movie about a submarine to me)

Can we start calling Chess a Shatranj variant?

I like mutation better than variant.

chess960 is a set of variants of a particular aberration of chess resulting from a mutation of the initial set up of the pieces.

it's so easy....

SP534 (RNBKQBNR) has the same characteristics as SP518 (RNBQKBNR). Only the castling considerations are different, but that's enough to make it theoretically separate. - Mark

As long as a game uses the chess pieces, board and rules with additions or subtractions, I will always see it as a variant of the popular game. The same applies to the new editions of Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly, Uno, Pictionary or Charades.

Khet, on the other hand, was inspired by chess as evident by the grid board, turn-based play and ultimate goal: to zap the opponent's pharaoh. The laser concept and the pieces with mirrors give the game its own playbook of strategy, especially with the beam-splitter expansion piece (Eye of Horus) and the movable second level expansion accessory (Tower of Kadesh).

Roboto haven't you been following the news? Khet has been solved five years ago. Scotty beamed up in eighty-five moves at most.

 At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I've pointed out before that in the Chess variant Navia Dratp, you win if you get your king to the other side of the board.

I thought that was called touchdown chess

I must have missed that article in my monthly newsletter. Was the 85 moves on the original game only or were the two add-ons included as well?

Chess 960, a.k.a. "Fischer Random Chess", is correctly called a variant.  It was derived from the rules for modern Chess, not the other way around.

Chess960 and other generalizations

Totally agree.  It is and always will be Fischer Random Chess no matter how many times the wikipedia vandals try to re-write history. 

You mean TNG and Deep Space Nine?

I'm lost.

I was referring to the Khet game and the two add-ons: Eye of Horus and Tower of Kadesh.

I don't really care what it is called, variant or whatever.  It is still not the real chess.

I was referring to Star Trek. Apparently thats not the only thing to be nerdy about in this thread.

This is a thread about the discussion of variants of the game of chess on chess.com. What did you expect?