The second idea is a variation on this theme, with an added benefit that it may erase the benefit to having the white pieces.
Very simple idea: white sets up his pieces on the 1st rank however he likes, and black looks at that, and sets up his 8th rank pieces however he likes in response to that. Since white doesn't get to anticipate how black will set up his pieces, black gets some advantage from this.
Again, thoughts?
I would hate to see the rise of 960 etc causing a decline in chess. Of course you may say the rise in one doesn't mean a decline in the other, there is room for both. I'd agree there is room for both, but in a sense they are competitors in the same market. At the moment chess is the big fish with 960 etc very much peripheral. I would find it tragic if the proportions were ever reversed, or even changed much. I wonder if anyone else has strong feelings on this subject? Perhaps you can blabber on about it, I don't like typing.
How on earth could that be tragic? If 960 etc ever get to the point where orthodox chess actually decilnes in any noticable way, surely that would be a sign that 960 etc deserve such attention and following? You should also know that of the tournaments of 960 that have been staged, all have been won by incredibly highly ranked chess players, so obviously some top players think it has merit, and also don't think it is at risk of detracting from their own success in regular (and far more lucrative) chess.
If you think about it, why should it detract? Players don't need to prepare for 960 games, there's no point in it, beyond what you would normally prepare in chess. So if you were so inclined, you could play 960 games without damagine preparation for regular chess.
Assuming chess.com gets round to supporting arbitrary starting positions (including ones impossible in standard chess) BEFORE it gets round to implementing chess variants (including 960 - though "chess 360" would be a stronger marketing name for it), ... would that provide a realistic introduction to the 960 experience?
Hey, I've already kinda posted on this subject, and I've had a few more ideas about it and refined some of them
Most chess players would be familiar with some of Fischer's feelings that the modern game is sterile and dead, mostly because of opening memorisation and preparation. And he should know, he was renowned and feared because of his opening knowledge. Though I think his reaction is a little extreme, I have some sympathy for it.
So Fischer developed chess960 (if you're unfamiliar with the idea, google/wiki it, it's worthwhile knowledge if you're into chess), which is a wonderful idea and I've been trying to get to play more games of it (which is unfortunately rather difficult, but maybe casually it might be easier). But I have a few criticisms of it, and a few suggested improvements.
1. Castling rules are silly in chess960, and somewhat historically incongruous too, and I'm surprised Fischer designed something so orthodox-chess-centric too. Simpler by far is the traditional idea of "king jumps two spaces and rooks goes where king just came from" (and if king and rook are at the edge of the board, king moves one and rook blah blah blah, basically they swap). Of course, this means that now half the setups that are just the mirrors of the other half now have identical strategy, because before castling would be slightly different. So that would make it chess480 in reality, buuuut...
2. Like I said in my previous post on this topic: some kind of symmetric setup is obviously best for balance, but I like the idea that the game could have point symmetry instead of line symmetry i.e. black pieces are the white pieces rotated 180 degrees. So I would have it such that if the white king is to the right of the queen, you have point symmetry, otherwise rank symmetry. That precludes the orthodox setup, and if you don't like that, do it the other way around, it makes no real difference, I like like it that way.
3. point symmetry of the board makes a big possiblilty that there would be bishops on opposite corners, and white can "fianchetto" his, essentially trapping black's bishop where it is for the next few moves and making black's development a bit tricky. If all bishops are on corners, this is not so bad, black can just do the same to white on the other corner, which would make quite an interesting game. So I'd have it that bishops can either all be in the corners, or none, and still on opposite colours, so there are 10 possibilities (ah, bc, be, bg, dc, de, dg, fc, fe, fg) and they have equal chances of happening.
4. Bishops stay on their original colour, queens, kings and rooks can change colour at will, and knights change colour every move. This means bishops and knights are the only pieces to which starting colour matter in any way, and I think that warrants having the knights start on opposite colours too. They do in the orthodox setup, and this is actually fairly important, since when moved to Nf3 and Nc3 (their ideal squares) they control the 4 middle squares.
5. This setup would have: 10 positions for the bishops x 9 positions for the knights x 4 positions for the queen, and the king and the rooks get put in the places left with the king in the middle. This gives 360 positions. I think chess360 would be a cool name - some kind of slogan of "chess, it can go in any direction" or "chess from all angles" would work nicely. Also some kind of roulette wheel could be used to choose a setup, with a different setup at every degree of the circle.
Any thoughts? I'm going to post my second idea as a response to this.