All but one of my SP518 games as Black started 1.e4, which is also the move I chose in my games as White. In my 'White' games, all but one of my opponents responded 1...c5, which is also my preferred move. That means all but two of my games started as Sicilians (1.e4 c5), and another game transposed to a Sicilian after a half dozen moves. There's no doubt about it. Chess960 opening play is a *lot* more interesting than traditional chess. The difference is between making your own path or following in the footsteps of others.
In the absence of a more substantive post on my part, I'll recommend taking a look at Chess960 Jungle, where HarryO has been naming things: Naming the Bishop Pairs and Naming the Knight Pairs. It's a good idea that merits careful consideration.
Before reading HarryO's suggestions, I had already decided that the best way to classify chess960 openings is the start positions of the Bishops. There are 16 Bishop combinations, with 60 positions per combination. The positions with two corner Bishops (B******B) have much in common with each other, as do the positions with the Bishops in traditional positions (**B**B**). For those who insist on cataloging first moves in all 960 start positions, ECO becomes 'Encyclopedia of Chess960 Openings', with volumes A through P (the 16th letter of the alphabet).
Now I have to get back to researching Sicilians. I hope I'll have time for a more original post next week. In the meantime, don't miss the Military Knights.
1 comment:
Thanks for the plug Mark my hit's a languishing and so you have boosted them by a half dozen thanks. Most of the hits have been "noise" as random surfers coincidently hit my site. It is a great sadness for me as an Australian to see the Doebel Cup come and go without Chess960 this year!!! I am damaged by it but we fight on.
Bloggers of Chess960 we have a call to arms. We must write our own blogs on Chess960 and network up together! The Chess world is asleep out there and we need to gently stir them out of their slumber. If we shake them too hard they will fight back with useless ideas like Chess10, Chess11, Chess666 and then go back to sleep. This is Kasparov's tactics. He suggests alternatives to chess that he knows will not bite and in this way he keeps his control of power.
It doesn't matter what you write in your Chess960 blog so long as it is on Chess960 :-) We just follower each other and keep building from there. We should be able to get the blogs into the thousands this way.
If you liked the territory diagram of the Military knights, wait until you see the territory diagram for the Chivalry Knights it'll knock you over it is a total eye opener.
In chess we don't often see the knights cooperating so fundamentally from the very beginning.
Cheers
Harry
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