Another way to determine the positions might be to do a stimulation. For example a colleague of mine pointed out that Fisher d6 bust to the King's Gambit was shown to be correct after 30 million games with engine vs engine. This was a phone conversation so I did not fact check. But thanks for the imput 
Chess 960. Good or bad for chess as a game.
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good
Oct 17, 2025
0
#84
Chess960 is good for chess. It has the power to make a player love chess all over again. Bobby Fischer was a genius.
I like normal chess.
Chess960 in my opinion is the 3rd worst variant (Above horde and racing kings).
Oct 19, 2025
0
#87
Preggo_Basashi wrote:
Yeah, it's a good point. Top players struggle with getting winning chances without taking big risks because everyone has done so much opening research.
A counter point to 960 I've made in the past is that you can just as easily diminish the skill element as enhance it though restrictions. At the extremes you have a game where anything is possible, which is arguably the most complex, but also with no rules it has no skill. Rules create that space where strategy is possible. And of course the other extreme is nothing is permissible, so there is also no strategy there.
So I argued that 960 positions is too much. Preparation and research is part of the skill. With too many possibilities you might as well remove the opening phase altogether and just make the players start from random positions where 5 or 10 moves have been played... another way to say it is that the opening position is too complex to figure out OTB. You'd need multiple days, weeks, etc.
So what I'd like to see is something like 10 positions chosen for some amount of time (like a year). Then when two players meet in a tournament, they can each reject 1 or 2 starting positions. Then with the remaining 6-8 positions 1 is selected randomly.
I think this keeps things fresh enough to not suffer from over analysis, but keeps it limited enough that players can prepare and do research on their opponents.
You’d like to see a restricted variant of David Bronstein’s Pre-Chess then. I’ve argued that allowing the players to choose where to set up their pieces probably de facto excludes at least the positions where a pawn is undefended.
Yeah, it's a good point. Top players struggle with getting winning chances without taking big risks because everyone has done so much opening research.
A counter point to 960 I've made in the past is that you can just as easily diminish the skill element as enhance it though restrictions. At the extremes you have a game where anything is possible, which is arguably the most complex, but also with no rules it has no skill. Rules create that space where strategy is possible. And of course the other extreme is nothing is permissible, so there is also no strategy there.
So I argued that 960 positions is too much. Preparation and research is part of the skill. With too many possibilities you might as well remove the opening phase altogether and just make the players start from random positions where 5 or 10 moves have been played... another way to say it is that the opening position is too complex to figure out OTB. You'd need multiple days, weeks, etc.
So what I'd like to see is something like 10 positions chosen for some amount of time (like a year). Then when two players meet in a tournament, they can each reject 1 or 2 starting positions. Then with the remaining 6-8 positions 1 is selected randomly.
I think this keeps things fresh enough to not suffer from over analysis, but keeps it limited enough that players can prepare and do research on their opponents.