Classical Chess at highest levels needs a change in the computer era

Everyone is so well prepped, everyone plays almost exactly even well into the middle game. Vast majority of games end in draws. Surprises almost never happen.

A few ways to fix this - two that I don't like - shorten the time controls. More time pressure, equals more mistakes, equals more interesting games.

You could go to Fischer Random - I don't like it, it isn't chess. I mean it is, but it isn't classic chess.
Here's how I would fix it:

Random First Move Chess. Here's how it would work:

Each pairing plays once with each color, the games are back to back. So no opportunity to prep.
The first move can be any pawn, one or two spaces, or either knight. That's 20 possible first moves. Prep simply isn't going to be possible to be that deep. And some of the first moves are going to be dubious - but both sides have to play it - so even if there's a disadvantage, it's an even disadvantage.

What would happen?

1. you're not going to see players blitz out 10, 12, 15 moves in prep. 
2. Time on the clock is going to be taken early. 
3. There will be a lot more time pressure as a result later in the game. 
4. Players will be forced out of theory and "play chess".

And players may not like being forced into openings they would NEVER play as an option - but that's what would make it fun to watch, they would be out of their comfort zone.
There will be a lot of strategies with odd-ball openings - and some players w

ill figure out how to transpose into an opening they're comfortable with, but other players may use that to be aggressive and put their opponent into really unfamiliar territory. No more, "we've seen this exact position in 219 games. . .."

Some players who are really comfortable with unfamiliar play may use the random positioning might play the clock and just try to add as much pressure as possible - others might try to work out every scenario and find surprising lines that take their opponent completely by surprise.

After the game, the players switch sides and play the same opening with the other color. So the contrast about how players use the random openings would be fascinating.

I think this would be a fascinating change to classical chess. And make watching them a bit less like watching paint dry.

We NEED this to be a chess.com variant 🙏.

I love this idea of random first move. But realistically, if this was to be implemented into higher levels, they would most likely blitz out their moves based off experience in these situations.

Some of Erik Allebest's recent interviews indicate that the advent of AI and machine learning type engines has actually led to more interesting chess because they're getting wins over the more traditional types of chess engines that did tend to favour strong positional play. Let's see how it goes before making any radical changes to the game like the ones proposed.

They should shorten the time control to 90|30.
There used to be 12 moves/hour, then 16 moves/hour, then 20 moves/hour.

A random first move would be bad. Starting with 1 g4? is a serious handicap: loses by force.
You would introduce a dice roll to skew the game of Chess.

привет

I'm reading this after the Candidates Tournament, and boy, this didn't age too well.

Exactly. Classical chess is fine.

What chess needs is perhaps more tournaments like this, where 1st place matters far more than others, in any case some incentive to play for a win. Top players are sometimes afraid to take risks because if they lose a game or two and lose some rating, they might not get invitations to top tournaments.