960 random thoughts

Hah!   I never noticed the starting position wasn't symetrical (king on left vs king on right).  That's really funny.  I mean in terms of the important files and pawn structure having it this way is a bit more orderly, I just never thought about it I guess.

Hmm.  I would be a fool to say the theory/strategy of standard chess is completely known today, but I wonder exactly to what extent 960 would be able to change it.  Certainly there would be unique and never-before-reached types of positions to analyse... but because the endgame truly is the same, I can't imagine middlegame theory being radically different.

Which is another interesting thought.  With each move as a 960 game transitions from the opening to the endgame it becomes standard chess.  The openings are radically different, the middlegames are different but the endgames are the same.  If the starting position somehow effected the endgame too, perhaps something to do with the promotion squares, it would lead to truly unique and uncharted strategy.

Which goes back to my previous point.  Chess 960 allows for a wider range of (opening and to an extent middlegame) ideas while standard chess affords a deeper understanding of those ideas.

I know I earlier took a jab by saying why not trying monopoly or candyland, but honestly for those that are hungry for a new challenge, a completely different game may not be such a bad idea -- after realizing endgames are the same 960 isn't looking as different as it did before.  There are many complicated well known strategy games around, shogi and go are easy examples that also can give you a lifetime worth of study.

I dare add a somewhat different dimension (or perspective)to this very interesting thread. I believe there is a very simple explanation for many chessplayers' desire to find new variants of this great game: as western society progresses, its members become bored increasingly quickly with the status quo, so to speak. Almost everything - from pastimes to products, from lingustic terms to media communication - needs to be rejuvinated more and more often in order to retain people's interest and/or patronage.

Just think, for example, of how many times - and how often - the "New and Improved" version of something is put out on the market. Westerns have less and less patience for just about everything. Trends in just about every sphere are replaced with increasing frequency; otherwise, people will cease engaging in them and die of boredom.

I'm rather surprised that many other pastimes, like ten-pin bowling, have seemingly been immune from all this. While I'm not saying that all this change is necessarily detrimental, for new possibilities always enrich the human mind and body, but I do think that we need to slow down a bit and  further explore what we have already been gifted with before we decide to toss it into the junkyard.

The ideas surrounding the starting position that have to do with symmetry, culture, government, and architecture I'm not too interested in, I just enjoy the game play.

What these ideas reminded me of though, is the game go, also a widely popular strategy game.  In terms of east vs west go starts with an empty board and builds till it's full while you may say chess, as a western example, starts with pieces and then destroys until there is less.  Here's a fairly well known quote from Lasker, a grandmaster in chess about the game:

"Go uses the most elemental materials and concepts -- line and circle, wood and stone, black and white -- combining them with simple rules to generate subtle strategies and complex tactics that stagger the imagination."

Go really captured Laskers interest.  Like I said I'm not really into the architecture and culture side of the discussion, but Lasker also studied go, even went to japan if I remember to study it.  If you're interested in these things just thought it would be worth mentioning to you.

Somewhat related -- this is how I got hooked on chess.  As a teenager I really liked video games and would try to break them down into sub skills, understand it, and master it to beat all my friends.  I was never interested in the storyline or graphics or anything, I only saw it as a set of skills to master so I could compete and win vs others.  However I noticed after spending a long time with a game that eventually a new one will come out and essentially I had wasted my time.  The two things that attracted me most to chess were 1) I could spent a lifetime continuing to gain skill in it and   2) There would always be people willing to play and challenge any new skills.  It was perfect, I was hooked

Not really tied into the 960 idea, but related to the quoted post

i wish to have a live 960 so it would go quick saying i dont know why but i always face people who hit the books for like 5 hors a day so i always get a lose or i spot a very bad stumble only one recenlty due to a person lost a rock and his queen to bad moves so i like 960 due to i can have more anylises and more of the opent to stumble

The idea of chess, whether standard or 960, is that at some point a position is reached that has never appeared previously. To be sure, the middlegame in 960 will look different from a standard chess middlegame, but in my experience by some point in the later middlegame, about move 25 or so, it begins to look pretty much the same. The endgame is definitely the same. If you can show me an endgame position from 960 that could never occur in standard chess please do. For example, what about this position would be impossible to occur in standard chess:

http://www.chess.com/echess/game.html?id=30742040

Also, there are variations in standard chess where the Knight lands on d3/d6, eg Capablanca was known to make this maneuveur quite often. Take a look at:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012500

Playing 960 could broaden our understanding of standard chess so that moves like Nf6-h5-f6-e8-d6, as played by Capablanca in that game, start occurring to us.

I think it's a mistake to attribute this to "Western" society. If you look at Chaturanga, the Indian predecessor of Chess, it changed as much if not more as it travelled east as it did travelling into the west. Xiang-qi and Shogi are significantly different from each other, and radically different than Chess. And Shogi's evolution didn't stop when it reached Japan. The Japanese seem more interested in messing with the pieces than the rules, but the certainly came up with a staggering variety of pieces.

I think it has more to do with the human condition. We're just not satisfied. We're always imagining how things could be better. So we try to change things. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

One additional comment, for the sake of balance. It seems to me that the standard position is the most logical starting position. Of course, this may seem so because we are familiar with it, but surely it was chosen for good reasons, ie it enables fast and natural development. In many of the other starting positions it is difficult to figure out how to develop the Knights without putting them in the way of the Bishops, how to activate the Queen (eg if it is in the corner), how to avoid moving pawns in front of what is later going to be the castled King's position and so on. The opening usually proceeds pretty slowly like some hypermodern opening and you don't really get much of a fight before move 15 or so. That is why I don't think that 960 will replace standard chess.

It wasn't chosen, it developed. When the postion was originally created, bishops and queens moved completely differently than they do now, and pawns couldn't move two. I wouldn't argue that all 960 positions are as easy to develop in, but I wouldn't argue that the traditional starting position is necessarily the easiest. I mean, wouldn't fast development put the rooks in the center, and the bishops already on the long diagonals? I guess it depends on where you want things developed to, but I think you could come up with something better than the standard arrangement.

Chess 960 will never "replace" what is considered now "standard" chess. The spirit of 960 is to get players out of standard rote theory and into a zone of pure chess knowledge. Players will cheat in either variation that is a given in all forms of chess as long as there is a virtual barrier, as in this format, the most prescribed method of play. I like 960 because of the art of pushing you to understand chess not just play it. Simplistic, yes, but that is the lure of the game. That 960 ends or resembles standard chess in the later stages is not the point. The point is it throws you on your own devices, your own brain to start and that is better then a mega database or even Rybka but as we know players will use any form to cheat just because they can which is certainly sad but the id is a strong force for the ego!

Atos

"If you can show me an endgame position from 960 that could never occur in standard chess please do."

in #66 I said:

"This is not to say that any position is not theoretically possible in standard chess,  but a huge percentage are highly unlikely. "

It seems obvious that any position could be arrived at from the standard starting point. The question is one of probabilities.  And I'm saying that things that only happen once in a blue moon in standard chess, i.e. not often enough for any formal theory to be developed around them, may be extremely common in "complete" chess (960 chess).  The example I gave in #59 of the knight landing on D3 illustrates it. In 20-25% of all 960 chess games it can happen on the first knight move by white.  But I'm speculating it doesn't happen in one game out of a 1000 in standard chess.  But there has to be a more rigorous mathematical statement of this principle somewhere, so I will try to spend some time and look it up.

------------------------------

But maybe you're right - by the time you get to a bonafide end game, where there's nothing but pawns and one two pieces on either side, there is no difference between 960 and standard  But I'm thinking that well into the middle game, 960 is a more complete game.

Well I've been playing here for nearly a year and a few months ago I was over 1400.  I've been on an incredible losing streak in standard, primarily because I decided to quit using known openings and get real experimental.  Also I've only been playing live chess and basically only 15:10.

It's certainly true that 15:10 live chess isn't proving to be my game.

(I was over 1400 just prior to the intro of Live Chess 2 when all the old records were erased.  And if I were lying I would probably say it was 1800.)

I don't understand why we can't just agree that chess is good, it's not dead, and that chess960 is a valid, enjoyable variant? I mean, that's overgeneralizing the stuff going on in this thread, but the first three pages just hurt my brain.

Regardless of where the argument is coming from they're still interesting ideas, and that's why I continued to post and think about it.  But Trickelv doesn't have the wrong idea here.  Only beginners and top GMs can get the idea that chess is "played out" and that's one reason chess stays fresh for me.  The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know and how many mistakes I'm actually playing (a lot).  So like Tricklev I add the disclaimer I hate that elitist stuff too.

From the standpoint that 960 offers new positions for analysis that's true.  But general middle game strategy will be the same (because the endgame is the same).  960 mostly sees how players can deal with novel positions that contain many pieces, but every move toward the endgame it gets closer to standard chess.  You may see many middlegames as radically different but after a few piece trades they look pretty familiar to me -- and if not the position the strategic ideas are nearly identical.

In 960 you have to use skill to get a good middlegame.  In chess you simply play the same old moves, with the same old ideas, and you get a good middlegame handed to you on a plate.

A little background:

I've been here since Christmas 2008. I hadn't played chess since my college days (early 80's). I'm a premium member here, so I get goodies like unlimited access to Game Explorer. I'm not a quick thinker and I enjoy analysis, so correspondence-style chess (turn-based) suits me. But I've grown weary of playing other people's games, which is how I view using Game Explorer or other databases for help in determining my moves, and playing against databases too, because I know other members are doing the same thing.

Along comes Chess960, and voila! My dreams are come true! I am no longer using databases as a crutch, and either are my opponents! It's turn-based, so I can take my time, analyze the position, and find the best move according to my ability. I can understand some of Fischer's sentiments.

So, "Thank you",  to erik and the rest here at chess.com for having Chess960!

Didn't say it very clearly in the last post... what I mean is although the ideas are interesting it's not clear if you (Eberulf) are presenting these ideas from a theoretical standpoint, as in outlining the extent of what 960 positions offer in terms of novel strategic ideas or more from a players point of view where the random starts level the playing field as far as memorized openings and opening theory.

In either case there are two basic points I had in the back of my mind.  First is, the more I think about it, I see all the fundamental middlegame strategy for 960 is the same as standard chess.  What it has is novel openings and unique middlegames.  The second is, due to your experience with standard chess you may not realize how deep and novel certain positions in standard chess can be.  For example how knights aren't uncommon on d3.

In short 960 doesn't seem as novel and unexplored as you may think and standard may not be as shallow as you may think.  They're actually pretty similar.  It's biggest appeal would be to GMs who have memorized countless middlegame positions.  For these players it's the most different.  As I look at some 960 games and ideas I'm realizing to a player like me it's actually a very similar game.  All the familiar advantages are there, simply break them down and configure my pieces around them.

This is why the initial reaction of some (like Tricklev) is to feel like "you don't get to pull that card" and like he said it isn't from an elitist point of view.

This has been an interesting thing to think about, I just realized... although it comes about the same way (a random initial setup leading to unfamiliar patterns) I think GMs and beginners actually think of 960 as novel in two completely different ways. 

GMs get to apply all the same strategy and technique but to new set ups.  Beginners think of it as new and different strategies because they never knew the basic ones to begin with.  For them to approach it from the GMs point of view makes no sense (so I'm sorry, but you actually can't share Bobby's sentiments ), but it is actually new to them too just in a different way because of the tools they implement when they play a game of chess.  In this understanding, middle of the road players, with limited opening knowledge, would find the least difference between the two, with players on either end finding the most difference (but for completely different reasons).

This may not be completely accurate, I just thought of it, but it seems about right.

I think this hits the nail on the head, along with another's comments about how so many people are needing 'new and improved'!   I also understand that to be ~chess10^120.  My favorite position is 1.32791*10^93, woot!  I wish I didn't fall into the new and improved seeking category sometimes!  (I find my arrogance comes into play with a bit of erroneous logic like this: if all chess players were starting from square one (w/o having played before) then I'd be a top player; chess960 is starting from scratch (not true I realize), so therefore if chess960 were to become the top game then my real glory will come to fruition.)

And, if we're making predictions, I say go with momentum, chess as it currently stands will be the primary chess-like tournament based game for the next 100 years.  As if people propagate things based on logic, and what's best!  Bah!

I love the side variants though, chess960 is a great one to whip out if someone really wants to compete out-of-book.

exactly. someone just starting out doesnt even know if 960 is better or not, because it all looks the same to them.. as in they only really know how the pieces move.. not how they work together. "piece harmony" is ideal IMO in the real setup, but sometimes a messy 960 setup can be good for creativity.

the Fischer quote doesnt matter to someone U2200.. and only truly matters for someone O2500+.