Fischer Random Chess

Hello, I'm back from my mini-vacation and have played many OTB games of Fischer Random chess. I'm wondering how many people have tried this style of chess and what they thought of it. Basically, the pawns are placed in their original positions, but the 1st rank has pieces randomly placed. The king is placed between two rooks and the bishops are on opposite colored squares. Bobby invented this method because it more heavily relies on chess skill and not just memorization of opening moves. Any thoughts?

 I have played it . Actually it yields many new exciting positions. I still prefer standard but Fischer random is a great game.-SIX

I play shuffle chess once in awhile.  Here's a game I played on there awhile back (forgive the big images, I already have it in this format otherwise I'd do the FEN thing).

This variant is my favorite (and the only one I ever played), the king always starts in the middle, the rooks are normal and the bishops are always on opposite colors.  Castling is normal.  It's "Wild 1" one on [URL="http://freechess.org"]FICS[/URL].The queen just happened to be in the middle also in this setup.

I played black in this one.  Anyway, here's the starting position :

Here's the game.

1. d4 {looks like e4 but the kings are one over} d4
2. Ne3 {attacking the pawn} Nf6

3. Nf3 Ng6 {developing the knight & stopping white's Ne5 which could become annoying later}



4. c3 {letting his bishop out} Bd7
5. Bxg6 hxg6
6. h3 c5 {pawn sacrifice for central control, my kingside felt pretty safe and c3 felt too slow}



7. g4 exd4
8. Nxd4 e5
9. Nf3 Bc6 {protecting the d pawn in case of g5}
10. Qd2 Bc7
11. Nc4



11. ... Ne4! {and the queen must move and the knight on c4 is lost, note that Qd3 gets forked}

12. Qe3 dx4
13. 0-0-0

{and then, the final shot.}

13. ... Bb6 {winning at least the knight}



White gives a rook check, I snuggle over to c7 and white resigns.

That was fun.  My opponent was named monkeytrousers. :)