People Also Ask About Chess960

Last week's post on this blog, An Underused Resource (June 2021), led to a post on my main blog, Key Moments in Video (ditto), where I looked at a recent development in Google Search. This week's post is about another, older feature in Google Search.

A simple search on 'chess960' yields a list of about four questions which result in additional questions -- apparently unlimited in number -- after expanding any of the original questions. Shown here is the list for chess960.

And here is the same list using numbered bullets:-

People also ask:-
1. Why is Chess960 not popular?
2. Why is it called Chess 960?
3. Is Chess960 better than chess?
4. Is Chess960 the future of chess?
5. How do I get good at Chess960?
6. How popular is Chess960?
7. How many positions are there in Chess960?
8. Will chess ever be solved?
9. Is castling a real chess move?
10. Is it good to play Chess960?
11. Do people play chess 960?

The two questions about popularity (no.1 and no.6) link to further resources, and I imagine that most (all?) of the other questions also lead to other resources. Some of the questions are about fact (no.2 and no.7), others are opinion (no.3 and no.4; I say 'Yes!', but I'm obviously biased).

One curiosity is that almost all references to chess960 use the uppercase form, 'Chess960'. Almost no one does this for 'chess'. Here's a similar list for a search on 'fischer random chess':-

People also ask
1. How do you play Fischer Random Chess?
2. Can you Castle in Fischer Random Chess?
3. What does Fischer mean in chess?
4. Why is it called Chess 960?
5. Who is the greatest chess player of all time?
6. What does FF mean in chess?
7. Can a rook be called a castle?
8. Can pawns move backwards?
9. How many times can we check in chess?
10. Why is Chess960 not popular?

Question no.6 had me stumped, so I expanded it. 'FF' apparently means,

A fairy chess piece, variant chess piece, unorthodox chess piece, or heterodox chess piece is a chess piece not used in conventional chess but incorporated into certain chess variants and some chess problems.

What does that have to do with chess960? We may never know. When I get a chance, I'll take a closer look at Google's 'People also ask' feature on my main blog.

An Underused Resource

For many reasons, we don't see too many instructive videos about chess960 -- small expert base, difficult thinking process, small subscriber base -- so any time a good video comes along it's worth featuring. This clip, from Youtube channel 'Chess on the Brain with NM David Bennett', does a good job of instructing.

Chess strategy explained with Fischer Random on lichess.org (3:53:56) • 'Streamed live on Sep 28, 2020'

The description says,

No opening theory, just pure chess strategy & tactics with Chess 960 / Fischer Random Chess. I aim to provide as lucid / honest an explanation as possible of my thinking process and the ideas behind the moves rather than just streaming live games.

The games were played at time control '3+3' (three minutes per game plus three seconds per move). NM Bennett spends much of the three minutes explaining the first moves, then gets into time pressure, then plays quickly to avoid time forfeit. All in all it's good entertainment and debunks the frequent criticism -- dare we call it a myth?-- that chess960 is too esoteric for expert commentary.

There is more chess960 material on the same channel, including some videos in Spanish. None of it has as high a view count as it merits.

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A second reason for featuring this video is that it popped up on Google search with the following annotation.

I had never seen 'key moments in this video' before and will take a closer look on my main blog. The 'key moments' here aren't really key; I would prefer the start times of each of the live games, but I'm not sure it's possible to do that.