Chess 960 improves evaluation?!

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Avatar of K_Brown

I thought this game was pretty interesting. If only my opponent would of taken with the pawn instead of the king.

This is the only game that I've played of 960 so far that didn't feel like it required any evaluation to me. My moves all seemed pretty obvious eventhough some felt weaker than others after seeing my opponents response.

Avatar of glider1001

Situation before 8.Bf3 is really a moment of evaluation. Stockfish gives it at roughly equal. Here you can see why Chess960 encourages evaluation right from get go. Big question for white should be

"how do I get my king safe?" Really difficult question for white considering the broken pawn structure. Very easy for black. O-O-O was a good option but never played by black.

White has a gaping hole on c4, bad pawn structure and difficulties castling, I'd say black is better, safer king options. White's backward pawn on e2 is going to need work to prepare any pawn break on e4 which is badly need otherwise black will just go hard down the e-file on that weak pawn.

White's play after that shows that he did not evaluate anything, and that is the explanation why you didn't have to evaluate anything either. You need to move on and play better opponents before evaluation becomes a very important skill.

Avatar of K_Brown

Yeah, that is what I'm hoping to do. I'm still getting a feel for how skilled I am at Chess960. I am thinking probably about ~1400 or under but I'm not sure yet. My rating is definitely inflated right now since I played the same person 4 times because they wanted rematches.