960 & Regular Chess

What are the thoughts of people regarding the playing strength of someone in regular chess in relation to 960? Does it translate; should someone strong in regular chess do very well in 960? If it (regular chess strength) does not translate well to 960 then what does one need to do to get good at 960, besides playing a lot of games. Are there tournaments using 960?

I wonder how strong Bobby Fischer would be in 960 and how he would rank among the top chess players. Who do you think would be good/great at it among the top GMs today and of the past?

Currently the world's no.1 in 960 is Kamsky. Okay, he is not no.1 in standard chess but he is near the top. The no.2 is Nakamura and guess who is no.3, Anand. 

I think that it translates pretty well.

I didn't know there were 960 rankings, I'm surprised Kamsky is over Nakmura and... that Kamsky is # 1 in the first place

Tactics and endgames are unchanged from standard to 960 -- and in my opinion these are the two biggest skills determining an amateur's playing strength.  GMs like Kamsky find 960 more different than us because not many of the estimated 100,000 positions they've memorized help them out.  They can still break a position down and coordinate pieces, just like in standard chess though, so yeah I think it translates easily, and especially at lower levels.

What I find weird is that some of the people here that have high or decent chess ratings have below average 960 ratings. I wonder why that is?

I think Capablanca would rule in 960, and probably Fischer would be dominant also. Capa is just a natural talent. He never studied openings so he would not care about the opening theories and not get bogged down by it.

Well, also the ratings in 960 are lower than in standard for some reason. The highest rated player on the site in 960 is only 2200 something. My rating in 960 is about 1700 which puts me in the upper 5 percent in 960.

That’s curious, is the formula used in calculating one's rating for 960 different from the one used to get your regular rating?

Even if it is different, should not one be able to win approximately the same (or close to the same) percentage of wins in 960 than in regular chess?

Maybe the highest rated player in 960 is only 2200 because they just have not played that many games yet...btw, who is the highest rated 960-player on this site? Anyone know?

I would love to see the 100 highest rated (regular chess) non GM-players on this site duke it out in 960 to see who really should be on top. That would be very interesting to see.

The formula is the same. And yes, you should be able to win about the same percentage of games. If you are playing the same people. But you're not. This is a classic example of why ratings for two different groups of players are not comparable.

Even if you are playing the same people, the game is different so how those people stack up in the ratings will be different.  Someone who relies heavily on their opening knowledge will have a relative advantage in classical chess and will likely have a relative disadvantage in 960.  The same is even true, although to a lesser extent, with different time settings within classical chess.  This is why even though the makeup of the two pools might be the same, they still need to be considered different pools and fundamentally incomparable.

http://www.chess.com/echess/players.html?type=chess960&page=1