Chess960 Movers and Shakers

Last week's post, The Norwegian Connection, featured Eric van Reem's two part podcast interview with GM Jonathan Tisdall, where part 2 was subtitled 'Let's talk about Magnus and chess960'. At the end of the post I promised,

I'll cover van Reem's second chess960 podcast in another post on this blog. The invited expert was GM Andrey Deviatkin, another chess960 mover and shaker.

If you haven't already listened to the podcast, here's the link:-

• 2020-11-03: #9 GM Andrey Deviatkin, 'Let's talk about Chess960' • 'In this episode Eric talks to the Russian grandmaster Andrey Deviatkin. Andrey decided to quit his chess career a couple of years ago, because he wanted to try something else: Chess960. But why did Andrey stop playing "traditional chess"? He said: "I understood that chess has become an absolutely different game from the one I have played in my childhood and youth. The computer has changed it dramatically. I have been working hard to become a chess grandmaster, but now my interest is over". Enough to talk about in this episode!'

A few minutes into the discussion, the two chess960 experts address one of the nagging controversies:-

07:25 EVR: 'What is the correct name?' [lists several names for chess960] • AD: 'I thought a lot about it. Maybe my best answer is that, at some point, maybe five or ten years [from now], we'll just call it chess. The game we're playing right now will be called old chess or traditional chess or something like this.'

GM Deviatkin has been seen several times on this blog. For the most significant post, see 'The Essence and the Rules of Chess' (June 2017). That quote is his title, and the post went on to give his full Facebook entry, starting with:-

Seen on Facebook: 'From time to time, I receive requests for chess coaching...' (facebook.com/andrey.deviatkin)

The rest of the Eric van Reem podcast is more than 40 minutes of discussion about chess960. It touches on many of the issues facing chess960 today, most of them even more important than the name.