wouldn't fisher random be better

then regular chess?

Subjective.

Subjectively better or worse?

I think chess on bigger than normal board would make a real difference since it would rule out both theory and engines. Chess 960 only rules out theory.

Fluctuating pixels would rule out engine use, as well.

I don't like studting openings much. So I thought I would like 960. Now that I've tried it, I am surprised that I don't like it.

It's not the openings. It's that I cannot get the middlegames I like. There's no comfort zone.

I'm not saying 960 is wrong. Bobby was right that opening databases were becoming an increasing problem at master level. Something needed/needs to be done. But it will take me a lit of getting used to, before I can switch for good.

If you play chess on a 16 x 16 board you can have a standard setup of pieces ( no randomness ). Actually it is possible to play on a 16 x 16 board at FICGS ( this kind of game is called 'Big Chess' there ) but there are too few players who are willing to play in this format.

Chess960 is great, but one major problem is that when you use the random positions, white very often gets a stronger first move advantage.  There's a reason your bishop's diagonals face the side of the board and not the opponent's pawns in the initial position of standard chess :)...

In Chess960 there are positions where white is a clear pawn up by force right from move 1.

I still haven't figured out regular chess. Scrambling the pieces just irritates  me.

You are right: randomness is not the answer.

Could you please give an example of such position?

FISCHER you mean?!

Fischer tried to answer the problem of his own age ( this was theory ). The growing problem of our age is engines. The only way to play engine free chess is to make it computationally very expensive for an engine to make an effective tree search. With bigger boards the number of possibilites grows exponentially, there are less forcing moves and there are many nearly equivalent moves meaning that the engine will have no clue what to do.

watcha, I have to fully agree with you.

Bigger boards may mean a more intuitive, "human" game. Also, more types of pieces may bring more fun and creativity to the game.

Bigger boards, beyond theory and engines, also solve another problem - they decrease the percentage of draws at top level. They also allow players to develop to a higher limit of skill since there is more deepness to strategy.

At which point it's really no longer chess.  Might as well just play Go -- humans can still easily outpace engines in taht game.

Is it *really* necessary though?

The best player in the world right now is Magnus Carlsen and he doesn't really use engines... I would say this is irrelevant for 99% of players

Where can I download a Go software to play against computer? But one with an easy mode please.

I beg to differ. I tried to play Go but I was beaten to death, while at Big Chess I had good results. It is just not the same game. I want to use what I have learned in chess rather than learning something completely different. I insist that Big Chess is still chess with the principles and tactical motifs being the same just you have no assistance in the form of theory or engines. You are in the wild and have to find out things for yourself.

There is a GNU Go engine. Completely free. http://www.gnu.org/software/gnugo/

What's interesting is when the opposite is true.  This thought is probably formulated much better somewhere else, but isn't it interesting when lowering the skill limit demands more skill from the players while raising it makes the winner random?

For an increase in skill to create an increase in performance the game has to be of a certain simplicity, and I think this is one of the great strengths of games like chess that have been around for so long.  It's simple to learn and it's obvious enough how our play can be improved at each level.  At the same time it's complex enough that perfect play is a practical impossibility.