Have you heard of this variant?

I'm sure you've heard of each peices approximate value. Pawns 1, knights, bishops 3 ect. In a standard game of chess, each player has 31 points of material, minus pawns. What if the players got to choose where they wanted their peices, and which peices they wanted for up to 31 points. For example, 3 knights and and one bishop, or instead of 2 rooks and one queen, two queens and no rooks (they'd have to be one empty space), and so on.

I was thinking, The king would have to be in the middle two squares and he should still be able to castle with whatever peice's are at the ends of the line at the start of the game, even if it's a knight.

How do you think a game like this would play out.

I think that it would be interesting. the only issue is that there are few combinations that add up to an elusive 31 pts. Also, when you set up your board the other player will want to alter his set up according to your set up, and there will be a never ending switching. Lastly, I don't think castling is necessary, if there was such a variant of chess, it ought to be for hte purpose of a quick decisive attack and castling prevents this.

There's no rule that says it has to add up to exactly 31. I'm sure some players could win with just 30 or 29, or the limit could be increased or reduced if needed. As for setting up peices, The players would build his start one peice at a time alternating. And I also feel that castling should at least be an option. There must be a clean way of moving and defending the king in a corner.

maybe a person could either add  a limited number of pawns in order to make the total points correct.  for example if one has 30 points they get an extra pawn.  Subtraction of pawns could also be allowed though I do not know if that would be a good idea.

I think choosing 31 pawns would be a guaranteed win over any combination of pieces.

 another 31 pawns?

is it a coincidence that the total number of peices in the back row, if you give the king a value of 1 for his square, that number is equal to the number of squares on that players side of the board. Maybe that has some deep connection to why a knight is 3 and queen in 9, ect.

What do you think, assuming you can't add or reduce pawns, would be the best starting position in this variation of chess?

 i was thinking of only allowing an addition of a limited number of pawns, likely to 2, since if you had 28 points you could add another bishop or knight.  This makes sure each side has the same value of points, but not to many pawns.

so what position do you think would give the biggest advantage?

This variant was posted on this forum some time ago under the name "Entropy Chess", by ChessAreBoring. You can look at it here: Entropy chess.