Eberulf, I'm not sure I understood your point. I was just trying to say, if somehow theory reaches a point where it dominates the whole game too much at highest levels, switching to chess 960 would bring some fresh air.
If you're suggesting theory can also be developed in 960, sure, but it wouldn't be even comparable to current theory.
You lost me at American football.
is there anyone on this site remotely surprised that the great Afaf Bouradi turns her smug little nose up at american football?
it would be funnier if you weren't so GD predictable...
Oh. So I'm basically supposed to not have my opinions or share them because you find them to be of a "type" that you find off-putting? I'm sure most people are not as busy judiciously catagorizing who and what I am. We'll leave that task to you. When is my biography coming out?
So one way to proceed with 960 theory (in fact I think someone's probably already doing it) is to study 960 openings with one given property (say, "knights starting on adjacent squares") and just find the commonality in exploiting such an opening configuration regardless of where the other pieces are. And there will be some degree of tactical commonality among all such starting configs.
But the next move would be to take properties that each occur a high percentage of the time and study openings that have those two properties combined. So if property A and B on their own each occur 50% of the time, then together they occur 25% of the time in a 960 opening.
But to play a bunch of games in 960 with one specific property would be enough to develop a theory regarding that property (And I'm probably reinventing the wheel, here.)
I am not sure. After all, all standard openings begin with the Bishops on c1 and f1 but they don't always land on the same squares later, nor do they always fulfill the same tasks. The optimal plans for two starting positions with adjacent Knights in 960 might be very different because the rest of the setup is different. I doubt that it is possible to reduce the position to a single property, any more than it is in standard chess (and probably less).
Eberulf, I'm not sure I understood your point. I was just trying to say, if somehow theory reaches a point where it dominates the whole game too much at highest levels, switching to chess 960 would bring some fresh air.
If you're suggesting theory can also be developed in 960, sure, but it wouldn't be even comparable to current theory.
I'm thinking now I could have misread one of your points:
"I think 960 will be the eventual rescuer of chess when humans get closer to solving the game, and take away the burden of heavy preparation which will become increasingly dominant."
I thought you were saying that 960 demanded a lot of preperation (as some of us have been talking about having to study a 960 opening before starting play) and that this would continue to be the case until 960 was "solved." I now see you were talking about standard chess being solved and 960 being a remedy for that.
Your other point about standard chess being optimal or posessessing harmony in certain respects I essentially agreed with.
Eberulf, I'm not sure I understood your point. I was just trying to say, if somehow theory reaches a point where it dominates the whole game too much at highest levels, switching to chess 960 would bring some fresh air.
If you're suggesting theory can also be developed in 960, sure, but it wouldn't be even comparable to current theory.
I'm thinking now I could have misread one of your points:
"I think 960 will be the eventual rescuer of chess when humans get closer to solving the game, and take away the burden of heavy preparation which will become increasingly dominant."
I thought you were saying that 960 demanded a lot of preperation (as some of us have been talking about having to study a 960 opening before starting play) and that this would continue to be the case until 960 was "solved." I now see you were talking about standard chess being solved and 960 being a remedy for that.
Your other point about standard chess being optimal or posessessing harmony in certain respects I essentially agreed with.
Oh OK, maybe I should've been more clear.
About standard chess' harmony, to be honest, I haven't played 960 a lot, so maybe I'm not the ideal person to comment on it, but it just feels like it.
I remember Kramnik suggesting that a switch to chess 960 would be good, but a certain chosen position should be "locked" through the whole year (or a certain amount of time) so that players will prepare, his point was that good preparation and coming up with interesting ideas and concepts was also an important chess skill and it shouldn't be completely omitted, which made sense to me.
You lost me at American football.
is there anyone on this site remotely surprised that the great Afaf Bouradi turns her smug little nose up at american football?
it would be funnier if you weren't so GD predictable...
Oh. So I'm basically supposed to not have my opinions or share them because you find them to be of a "type" that you find off-putting? I'm sure most people are not as busy judiciously catagorizing who and what I am. We'll leave that task to you. When is my biography coming out?
Afaf, it doesn't make sense that you would be this into me. listen, i think you're a tool. stop trying to flirt with me. i'm sure there's a dead goat somewhere calling your name.
I am not sure. After all, all standard openings begin with the Bishops on c1 and f1 but they don't always land on the same squares later, nor do they always fulfill the same tasks. The optimal plans for two starting positions with adjacent Knights in 960 might be very different because the rest of the setup is different. I doubt that it is possible to reduce the position to a single property, any more than it is in standard chess (and probably less).
Atos [#47]:
You're essentially contradicting philodor_position in the post of his I was responding to. He mentioned certain properties of the standard startup and the fact that these properties led to that standard start position being "harmonious". So IOW he was generalizing based on a few simple properties of the standard setup (and I woudln't disagree with him there.)
There would be some degree of commonality, useful commonality, among all positions in 960 starting with two adjacent knights. But as I said, the next step would be to examine properties in concert where even still such joint properties will have a high rate of occurence.
Afaf, Give me a chance to google "the National Sport of Morocco" and I'll come up with an apt analogy regarding it 
. [In case it isn't standard football.] Get us some new non-lame smiley's chess.com.
...I remember Kramnik suggesting that a switch to chess 960 would be good, but a certain chosen position should be "locked" through the whole year (or a certain amount of time) so that players will prepare, his point was that good preparation and coming up with interesting ideas and concepts was also an important chess skill and it shouldn't be completely omitted, which made sense to me.
[philidor_position #49:]
I remember that comment as well. By my idea would be "thematic" 960 tournaments possibly, where the theme would be any random 960 position possessessing a certain property or set of properties. That would tell us all about a whole constellation of 960 starting positions, those possessing that set of properties, not just one starting position.
afaf - In all seriousness, not to malign Morocco in any way. It looks like someone else was doing that for some reason.
...I remember Kramnik suggesting that a switch to chess 960 would be good, but a certain chosen position should be "locked" through the whole year (or a certain amount of time) so that players will prepare, his point was that good preparation and coming up with interesting ideas and concepts was also an important chess skill and it shouldn't be completely omitted, which made sense to me.
[philidor_position #49:]
I remember that comment as well. By my idea would be "thematic" 960 tournaments possibly, where the theme would be any random 960 position possessessing a certain property or set of properties. That would tell us all about a whole constellation of 960 starting positions, those possessing that set of properties, not just one starting position.
Eh the standard position shares a number of properties with itself yet it didn't suffice one tournament to develop adequate theory. We still have people playing different openings, arguing on strategy etc.
#56:
I'm just saying that its the natural way to go about "partitioning" chess 960 [that's not the term I'm looking for I but spent 10 minutes trying to recall it]. People say 960 is for you if you're sick of all the theory, but imply that theory isn't really possible with 960 or if it is, its a long long way off. But I'm saying this is the way to go about it. I believe someone is already doing it this way actually.
Wow... well, I can't laugh.... too many embarresments to count... including my son (6) to a back rank mate..lol.
siiigh....
flags. thou dost protest too much.
eberwulf. that's okay...I think tennis, soccer, ice skating, luge, or any other sport would do fine.
flags. thou dost protest too much.
hey, pot... wait, you're calling me black?
flags. thou dost protest too much.
eberwulf. that's okay...I think tennis, soccer, ice skating, luge, or any other sport would do fine.
Bringing the Bard into it against an English teacher! Uh oh.
You lost me at American football.
is there anyone on this site remotely surprised that the great Afaf Bouradi turns her smug little nose up at american football?
it would be funnier if you weren't so GD predictable...