First off this seem to me like your just parading around trying to advertise this chess960. If your so unhappy with the way chess is played, I suggest playing "Go" for a while, the game has FAR more calculations involved and who goes first has little effect overall.
That being said, everyone has over-lining opinions over white having the initial advantage being able to move first, but in all honesty, I feel black being able to COUNTER white's initiative is actually an advantage. Playing on your opponent's mistakes is what chess is all about. White may get the early advantage but ultimately it comes down to HOW you play as white. I've won many games as black just on the sole reasons that I countered a mistake white made. I've also lost many games as white for rushing my initial attack, or overlooking specific calculations.
If you feel white going first is so much an advantage, maybe start honing in on your weaknesses for playing as black, and build that into strength.
Hi There
I apologize for getting on my soapbox, but when I feel that I am seeing something, I have to show it.
Why do we find acceptable that at the start of a game of Chess, white not only has the move and thus the undeniable initiative, but white also does not have to think on his first move in the slightest and his clock is not penalised? Black on the other hand has no idea of what they will be facing, is almost guaranteed not to have the initiative and has the double punishment of having their clock ticking down? Why have we become so accepting of this practice, when we have an alternative for already nearly fifteen years? Why do we think it acceptable that white does not have to think at the start of a game of Chess? For me it feels ridiculous and a little bit embarrassing for the beloved game that Chess is. This advantage white has was not an issue until the last few decades of very deep opening analysis. A century ago, even forty years ago it was fine. But time has marched on for Chess...
This problem does not exist in Chess960! We must just apply two important rules that are fundamental to Chess960 in my opinion:
1) We do not know the starting position before the game
2) As soon as the players are seated, white's clock begins to count down.
3) We do not restrict Chess960 to a limited set of positions
Because of years of playing Chess the way we have been playing it, we do not see that the opening of the game is a very beautiful, challenging, and confronting. The opening phase in any 960 game including Chess, is one of early scrambling to maintain an extend the initiative and should be one of very deep thought. It is very beautiful and should not be glossed over, ever, by the players or the spectators. But today in Chess, it is.
The way to think about this situation is this. Simply consider two opposing forces arriving at the battle front. They are at the moment of battle (the opening) but due to circumstances, their rear lines are not organised in a way that the parties would have wanted. The front line is perfect, but not the rear. The commander of the forces (the player) has to make a somewhat awkward and imperfect situation perfect! The player has to make a bad situation.....good! Is this not character building and truly positive?
If we put the pressure onto white after generations of the "vacation" that white has been on, we will find that Chess960 games will be fighting, exciting and unpredictable! White has the initiative but has to pay a penalty for that initiative (uncertainty and a cost in time). Black get's compensated for the lack of initiative by having seen the position for longer than white (while white was thinking his first move) and it gives black a fighting chance! I strongly suspect that this is the way to make Chess interesting in the future, and to bring the spectators back and the creativity as well.
It also brings in another strategic element to white's play. Take these combinations into consideration:
1) White strong playing a weak black player - White has to decide whether to play the first move quickly and put even greater pressure on the weaker black player (throwing the time clock to them), or to play the first move slowly so that the opening advantage will produce a quick error in black.
2) White and black equal strength - White has to decide whether the position before him matches his style of playing. It will be a difficult gamble to decide how long to take on the first move, knowing that black will be studying the position as well.
3) White is weak against a strong black player - white has to decide whether it is worth taking the risk and playing a quick move in order to throw the pressure onto black's clock. In all likely hood, the initiative will fall to black as it should.
In other words people explain to me why these simple Chess960 ideas are flawed? I want to learn. I think the opening in Chess960 is very beautiful. It is like looking at a vastly varied landscape of squares and pieces. We are surveying the future as best as we can, but always it is uncertain. What a wonderful way to play the game don't you think?
I totally understand that some will be thinking that if the position is random, that luck will tend to dominate over skill. I do not believe this is a big factor but it can be compensated in any case by the way the tournament is organised. For example the organizers can randomly select an opening for each round, and that all players in that round must face that opening across all the boards of that round. There are many statistical ways to organize tournaments to remove any small effect of luck that may exist in a Chess960 starting position for white or even black. I don't think it is a good idea to allow the same position to be played multiple times (because of the problems of computer assistance). I do not believe that it is a good idea to allow white and black to face the same position by swapping sides (except perhaps in Blitz games) for similar reasons. Any exposure that a player has to prior knowledge of the starting position between the period that sides are swapped (when they can walk away from the board and analyse the starting position), destroys the fairness of the game.
I totally understand too that in this era we are Chess players not Chess960 players. When we look at the Chess960 setup for the first time, it can make us feel uneasy and ill because of the lack of familiarity! However I have played nothing else but Chess960 for the last couple of years and I can assure that this ill feeling of uncertainty is just a temporary phenomenon! We just need to play thousands of Chess960 games. After a while our Chess960 mind begins to see general patterns in any and all of the positions. We begin to feel quite comfortable and confident despite the uncertainty of what opening we will face.
Try it yourself. Play many Chess960 games and just sit in front of the starting position for a while. At first you will be completely uncertain what to do. However after some contemplation (it get's shorter and shorter with practice), a plan begins to emerge in your mind. It is quite a remarkable phenomenon if you want to give it a try. You must be patient, for Chess960 will take many hundreds of games before you begin to notice it.
In my opinion, it is critical that we play Chess960 as I have suggested. If we don't and we allow white to sit at the board without time cost, black will suffer too much. White has the initiative. I have not found one single Chess960 position where white does not have the initiative on the first move. Secondly I believe it is critical that we play all 960 positions. If we only play a limited set, we will find that we slip back to our habits of old. We attempt to memorize, use computers and complain that this "limited set" of positions was never as good as the standard Chess position we hold onto dearly because of habit.
We have to take the plunge. We cannot just dip one foot in the water, because our reaction will be to pull our toe out of the water. If we do not swim, we are missing a wonderful new experience. We will not know the difference, but there will be other players who have jumped into the water in any case. I believe we and the game of Chess(960) will be the better for it, with just a little bit of consideration of how we start the Chess960 game in the ways suggested in this post.
Cheers