Ringityding ding ding dooo!!!!!!!! Flick chess is the greatist variant ever invented. Far better than regular chess.
960 random thoughts
Sort:
Eberulf wrote:
Anyone who's not playing it is only depriving themselves. Makes standard chess seem stodgy, stolid, and boring.
Standard chess is like this joke my father use to tell about a joke teller's convention - everyone at it already knew all the jokes so they would just yell out joke numbers and everyone would laugh. Then someone yelled out a number and no one laughed and a visitor asked, "Why did no one laugh that time?" and a member said, "They didn't like how he told it."
In standard chess everyone already knows all the punchlines, and if you lose a game its because you haven't been hitting the books.
Even the greatest chess player of all time said as much, and his dying wish is that we all play 960, so I think we should comply.
Also 960 really lends itself to the analysis board, just going through all possible combinations to find the best move. Actually in any online chess game (960 or otherwise) the analysis board is crucial, and you can beat players much stronger than you just because you're spending a few extra minutes than them on the analysis board each move.
Already my 960 rating is nearly 300 points higher than my live chess rating, and its because of the analysis board. That is why live chess I think is really a better indication of your chess skill than online chess, contrary to what most want to assert in this forum.
No, Kasparov is not dead yet. Perhaps you're thinking of the second best chess player, Bobby Fischer.
orangehonda wrote:
I agree, S-chess is a bit of a joke to me heh (although sounds interesting to try lol). Add some uncreative pieces and you have a varient. In that respect 960 certainly does seem like the premier variant as you put it.
The reason that 960 is the premier variant is probably that it is the closest to standard chess. If you look at a position of 960 at move 25 or so, you probably wouldn't be able to tell that it was 960 that was played and not standard chess. It seems to me that playing 960 would be very likely to help one improve their tactics and endgame skills for standard chess. (That is in fact the main reason I am playing it, not to avoid opening theory which I probably know better than most players around my level.) Seirawan chess might be fun to try but it's a different game and any skills you develop there will only be good for Seirawan chess, not translatable back.
About Fischer, I agree that he was disturbed to say the least, but many creative people were. I am not sure if he really invented 960, some similar ideas were around before (eg Capablanca Chess). Anyway we don't evaluate telephone by who invented it or why.
.
Quite. He may have been a fantastic chess player, but his opinions on anything should be taken with a bucketful of salt.
As long as the strongest Grandmasters continue to lose to each other on a regular basis, the "chess has been played out" argument makes no sense whatsoever.
Mar 12, 2010
0
#47
I think the highest levels of chess(grandmasters) should be playing Chess960. I believe it would make the game depend on true mental brilliance/prowess/creativity over memorized pet lines and openings.
For those of us who are under 2200, I don't see the difference. Standard chess is Chess 960 for us, IMO.
Eberulf wrote:
As far as the existing Chess variants - 960 seems to be the most coherent, its certainly by far the most well known. It should not lose its premiere status just because of innumerable other obscure variants, like Seirawan's which was only invented a couple of years ago:
Seirawan chess is a chess variant invented by grandmaster Yasser Seirawan in 2007.[1] It is played on the standard 8x8 board and uses two new pieces, the hawk (which moves like a knight or a bishop) and the elephant (which moves like a knight or a rook). Yasser Seirawan has given simultaneous exhibitions for the game
a new elephant and hawk piece - that doesn't seem like a legitimate competitior with 960.
I'm not sure I would call FRC/960 the "premiere" chess variant. I used to work with the local high school chess team. Those kids had never heard of FRC, but man did they love Crazy House and Bug House. And I think S-Chess may appeal to a different crowd. I play Chess a fair bit at a local fried chicken place, and we play S-Chess about half the time. It gets a lot of interest from people who know chess but don't really play it. I think FRC may appeal more to people who are all ready into Chess, but S-Chess may appeal more to people who are the borderline of being into Chess.
960 is great. It makes chess a game of strategy, not memorisation, once again.
Mar 12, 2010
0
#51
I love it.from move 1 you have to start thinking...and it gets quite sharp,which is more to my liking.
Just some closing remarks in all seriousness. (W/ acknowledgements to the last several posts which I did read).
(The following may have been observed by others as well so not necessarily claiming to originate it.)
There have been a least a couple of posters in this thread who remarked that once you get to the middle game, 960 and standard chess are the same. And I think that's clearly not the case. Subsequent board configurations in a game have to be dependant to some extent on the initial board configuration. I think it has to be highly dependant, but that would take a mathematician to prove. But in 960 it seems clear you're hitting board configurations in the beginning, middle and end game that have practically never appeared in standard chess.
As one simple intuitive example, how often is the square D3 landed upon by a white knight in standard chess. The minimum number of moves it takes for Knight A to reach it is 4 and for knight B - 3. And aside from the minimal number of moves necessary, can one even imagine the scenario where that move would occur. Early in the game it must happen in 1 game out of 1000 or something. But any 960 board where there is a white knight starting on either C1 or E1 will hit D3 on the very first move. So as I guesstimate, that's what - 20% of all 960 games? So that should indicate in microcosm that there must be a huge percentage of board configurations that will virtually never be hit in standard chess.
So you have lets say 1/960th of true chess that has been explored for the last several centuries. There is potential theory which will never be developed in standard chess regarding board configurations that are highly common with a high percentage of 960 starting configs, but never occur in the standard. That theory has yet to be developed.
So the question would be, which version of chess deserves an asterisk next to it - standard or 960? You might as well start calling standard chess "Old Chess" now, because that is what it will eventually be called by everyone.
Perhaps chess.com could use its clout and get the ball rolling by say, offering a view option that labels 960 as chess, and ignores "Old Chess" altogether. (Am I completely serious on this last remark - probably not. But it seems inevitable it will happen.) And I shouldn't use the term 'Luddite' to refer to the opposition, but I guess I just did, and probably not the first.
OTOH, someone could claim we're really not hitting all the possibilities until you can just throw all the pieces on the board anywhere at random to start the game. Call it chess100000000000. Keep it fair by forcing each side to play black.
There are reasons why chess has evolved to be as it is today. For instance: You don't want the game to be an atomic explosion that is over in a fraction of a second, you don't want to fiddle about for ages before the game really gets going, you don't want the first move to be too much of an advantage and you don't want the game to be boringly predictable.
Over many centuries different starting arrays have been tried, the powers of pieces have changed and rules have been tweaked. The result is the finely-tuned game of skill we admire today. I don't suggest the evolution of chess is over but I wonder if 960 is an acceptable solution to a supposed problem.
crazy rant aside: anyone want to play a 960 game with me? I can't ever seem to find an opponent when I put out a seek. Challenge me!
aadaam wrote:
There are reasons why chess has evolved to be as it is today. For instance: You don't want the game to be an atomic explosion that is over in a fraction of a second, you don't want to fiddle about for ages before the game really gets going, you don't want the first move to be too much of an advantage and you don't want the game to be boringly predictable.
Over many centuries different starting arrays have been tried, the powers of pieces have changed and rules have been tweaked. The result is the finely-tuned game of skill we admire today...
I'm thinking its primarily speculation on your part that the starting config in standard chess is a result of a careful search process converging on the optimal. However, if you have documentation to back it up by all means supply it. I will look into it as well. Many things persist merely through convention, not because they're optimal. (Think genetic drift in biology for example.) In the 20 some odd 960 games I've played thus far, not a single one would I say was "boringly predictable" an "atomic explosion" or at all suboptimal in the colorful ways you have characterized. (and these 20 games would constitute a random sample of possible starting 960 configs +/- some margin of error.)
-----------------------
But it appears you've played more 960 than me, so if that's your opinion of it so be it.
(continued)
I guess if you're saying the standard chess starting config is optimal then there is something optimal about symmetricality. Because that is what is most notable about the standard chess starting point - its rigidly symmetrical, reinforcing the legitimacy and supremacy of authoritarian regimes with the monarchs at the center flanked by the religious orders upholding the legitimacy of the system, and the army of cannon fodder underlings ready to die first out front.
What is optimal about that? So iow, the starting config seems to be a picture of society in previous centuries, not something that optimizes the game of chess.
At least in architecture, I would say symmetricality is not exactly the most imaginative ordering principle, its sort of a default order in the human mind. But many many aspects of nature that are optimally designed are not symmetrical. (Though some are). The fibonacci series, trees, etc. are not symmetrical.
I think that the symmetry and setup has to do primarily with both sides starting out equal (as about every game I can think of does). The names (king, queen, bishop etc) may support some kind of archaic social order as you're saying, but that the most mobile pieces (read most valuable) are in back and shielded by the least mobile pieces seem to be the most logical set up. The same reason beginners are told not to bring the queen out early, ironically it's because she's the strongest that the lesser pieces can push her off squares.
The beauty of 960 is a random start, a unique position each time. The merit of standard chess is the ordered starting position can be analyzed to add depth and enjoyment to the game -- a merit of standard chess that I don't think has been mentioned yet. Of course a premise of 960's creation was that this analysis has gone too far, I'm just pointing out the flip side, that a static starting position allows for a "deeper" game while 960's appeal may be a "wider" game... poorly said perhaps but you see what I mean.
Just some more thoughts on it...
orangehonda wrote:
I think that the symmetry and setup has to do primarily with both sides starting out equal (as about every game I can think of does). The names (king, queen, bishop etc) may support some kind of archaic social order as you're saying, but that the most mobile pieces (read most valuable) are in back and shielded by the least mobile pieces seem to be the most logical set up. The same reason beginners are told not to bring the queen out early, ironically it's because she's the strongest that the lesser pieces can push her off squares.
The beauty of 960 is a random start, a unique position each time. The merit of standard chess is the ordered starting position can be analyzed to add depth and enjoyment to the game -- a merit of standard chess that I don't think has been mentioned yet. Of course a premise of 960's creation was that this analysis has gone too far, I'm just pointing out the flip side, that a static starting position allows for a "deeper" game while 960's appeal may be a "wider" game... poorly said perhaps but you see what I mean.
Just some more thoughts on it...
But as far as the symmetry itself, where the left and right side are a mirror image of each other, that strongly suggests a default ordering not arrived at through analysis. It is in the modern era, when analytical and computational approaches to architecture started to predominate when you start seeing architecture that is not rigidly symmetrical. In previous eras, it was sort of innate in peoples minds that things had to be designed symmetrically, so that's why I'm saying that symmetrical order isn't something that was arrived at through trial and error. It was innate.
[The symmetry I'm talking about is not between black and white - maybe that was not clear. I was talking about the pieces on a side being symmetrically arranged as mirror images to either side of the king and queen.]
Your second comment:
"The beauty of 960 is a random start, a unique position each time. The merit of standard chess is the ordered starting position can be analyzed to add depth and enjoyment to the game -- a merit of standard chess that I don't think has been mentioned yet."
I addressed this in 59, but to reword my comments, there are many types of board configurations that are simply not being hit in standard chess, presuming that the types of board congurations that can arise in a game are highly dependant on the starting configuration. This is not to say that any position is not theoretically possible in standard chess, but a huge percentage are highly unlikely.
If you look at the sum total of all possible starting configs (in 960) there is in all liklihood commonalities between many of them upon which a new theory could be built, IOW 960 will not prove to be a random featureless landscape, at all. But features of that general landscape are probably not even present in standard chess, because it only hits such a small percentage of possible board configurations. That is why a new and quite coherent chess theory will develop around 960 but one that is richer and more complete than for standard chess, I predict.
Just to emphasize, it appears you thought I was talking of the symmetry between black and white. That's not what I was talking about. That symmetry does have to exist for equality. I'm talking about the symmetry between either side of a given color. There's no objective reason for such a symmetry to exist, and it wasn't something that was proven to be optimal through trial and error. Its just how people do things by default.
-------------------
But the tie in of that left-right symmetricality to authoritarian regimes is this:
Think about Versailles - rigidly obsessively symmetrical. Think about Stalinist architecture or Nazi architecture - rigidly obsessively symmetrical. That is the theme being expressed in the symmetricality of the standard chess starting point.
"Organic" architecure is non-symmetrical. Form follows function, etc. This type of ethos was threatening to people like Hitler. The Nazis hated Bauhaus.
Something else I should mention - there's a post from me a year ago ridiculing 960. I only had to start playing it to change my mind.