This week, the usual 5 round swiss tournament on Saturday has been Cancelled. But don't worry we still have chess (of a sort) for you.....

Not wanting to clash with the impending ECF Derbyshire County match this Saturday, I have set up this weekends tournament to be on Sunday afternoon the 14th of June. It will be the usual time control of 15\10, swiss, and 4 rounds but the set up will be a bit different. It will be chess 960! This chess variant has been asked for again and I thought it would make a change, especially as the time and day have been moved around already.  

Here is the link if you would like to join in the random crazy fun that is 960 chess:

https://www.chess.com/live#t=1255209

If you have not played it before it is worth reading the rules below here and maybe having a bash at it before sunday if you are not sure.

Fischer Random Chess (also called Chess960, Chess 960, Fischerandom chess, FR chess, or FullChess) is a chess variant created by Grandmaster Bobby Fischer (the World Champion of chess from 1972 until 1975). It was originally announced on June 19, 1996, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Fischer's goal was to create a chess variant in which chess creativity and talent would be more important than memorization and analysis of opening moves. His approach was to create a randomized initial chess position, which would thus make memorizing chess opening move sequences far less helpful.

The starting position for Fischer random chess must meet the following rules:

• White pawns are placed on their orthodox home squares.
• All remaining white pieces are placed on the first rank.
• The white king is placed somewhere between the two white rooks.
• The white bishops are placed on opposite-colored squares.
• The black pieces are placed equal-and-opposite to the white pieces. For example, if white's king is placed on b1, then black's king is placed on b8.
• Note that the king never starts on file a or h, because there has to be room for a rook.