Talking About Chess960

Almost every month, when I'm preparing a post for this blog, I check on recent chess960 news. By 'recent', I mean going back no more than a year, and by 'news', I mean a straightforward Google search on all web pages. Since I have no particularly compelling topic for this post, I'll report on the results of this month's search. Many of the results referred to last year's World Championship (FWFRCC), which I will skip, instead referring visitors to my post 2022 FWFRCC Wrapup (December 2022).

The No.01 and No.02 results for 'chess960' were for the Wikipedia and Chessable pages on chess960/FRC. The No.03 result was for:-

• 2022-08-29: Chess960: Fischer Random Chess Explained | Magnus Carlsen and Lex Fridman (youtube.com; Lex Clips)

In fact, that clip was the lead video in what looks like a blatant promotion for Google's Youtube service. I captured the entire entry in the following screen shot.

No.04 and No.05 were for Digital Game Technology (DGT) and Chess.com. The following entries show other resources that I found interesting. Pages explaining the basics of chess960, for example, are excluded.

• No.08
  2023-02-27 [Google's date]: Why is Chess960 named as such when it was invented by Bobby Fischer and he called it Fischer Random? (reddit.com) • For one good reason, see 'Can I use this name "Fischer Chess"?' (December 2011).
• No.10
  Google Images; same comment as for No.03 Google's Youtube
• No.11
  2023-02-23 [Google]: Guidelines II. Chess960 Rules (fide.com) • Needs some sort of rule to ensure that start positions are selected fairly. Some of the algorithms in common use are faulty.
• No.12
  2023-06-26 [Google]: Chess960 (FRC) • 'Yay!' for the home team...

I used to classify chess960 tournaments as 'rare birds', because there were so few of them. See, for example, First Post, New Year (January 2019), where I wondered,

Should I retire the 'rare birds' series, last seen in (Not so?) Rare Birds, Summer 2017 (July 2017)? No, I'm a patient person, so I'll give it more time. I haven't seen any relevant announcements and all of the events mentioned above could have been one-offs.

That was indeed the last post in the series, until this current post. Now there are enough chess960 tournaments that there is no danger of imminent extinction. The next entry is one of several local tournaments that I could have flagged.

• No.13
  2023-03-14 [Google]: Connecticut Fischer Random/Chess960 Championship - POSTPONED (uschess.org; w/ PDF)
• No.14
  2022-08-27: Using Lichess's Public Data To Find The Best Chess 960 Position (lichess.org/@/rdubwiley)
• No.17
  2023-07-22: 11th Chess 960 World Cup - Semifinals (iccf.com)
• No.20
  2023-06-30: Big revelation in the reigning World Champion Ding Liren's latest @NewInChess Magazine interview! (twitter.com)
• No.27
  2023-01-26: The Case for Fischer Random Chess (Chess960) and Chicken Games (abelin.net)
• No.29
  2022-11-01: A simple rule variation could move chess out of a stalemate (popsci.com) • 'Chess960 is meant to keep the game's creativity -- and curb computers' edge.'
• No.31
  2023-07-15 [Google]: ACCENTUS Chess960 (ACC) - Biel International Chess Festival (bielchessfestival.ch; w/ PGN)
• No.42
  2023-02-10: In case you are exploring the #Chess960 sea... (twitter.com)
• No.53
  2023-03-28: Classical Chess960 statistics in 2019 WFRCC: Magnus & Hikaru are lowest? Nepo top 2! (mathematiciowned.wordpress.com) • Home page: Mathematiciowned | Blog of J Bruce Feynman Niccolo Pedrosa Bentulan

I stopped the exercise at no.60. After 'chess960', I did the same search on 'chess fischer random'. No.01 and No.02 were for Wikipedia and Youtube videos. No.03 and No.04 were both for Chess.com, while No.05 was for Chessable. Following are a few more, (mostly) not repeating what I discussed above.

• No.28
  2022-10-25 [Google]: ??? (forbes.com) • This returned a blank page. The Google cache returned Fischer Random Chess Championship: Magnus Carlsen An Even-Money Favorite To Win Title
• No.33
  2022-10-30: [Google] Why isn't Magnus Carlsen as dominant in Fischer Random as in standard chess? (reddit.com)
• No.35
  2023-07-30: [Google] Swiss Rapid Fischer Random Championship (bielchessfestival.ch) • The runner-up was popular streamer 'IM Rosen Eric'; possible action: review his resources.
• No.49
  2023-06-26 [Google]: Chess960 (FRC) • The home team again!
• No.54
  2023-04-07: Bobby Fischer’s greatest legacy: a new version of chess (theglobeandmail.com)
• No.57
  2023-02-01: Bobby Fischer’s Greatest Chess Move (splicetoday.com)
• No.59
  2022-10-05: Random chess is future of chess and Philippine-born Wesley So is in its midst (bworldonline.com)

I again stopped the exercise at no.60. All in all, there are some good leads for future posts.

TCEC FRD

A year ago on this blog I had a pair of related posts...

• 2022-07-22: TCEC C960 FRC5
• 2022-08-27: TCEC DFRC1

...where 'FRC' stands for 'Fischer Random Chess'. Last month on my main blog I had a pair of follow-up posts...

• 2023-06-12: TCEC FRC6, CCC20 Rapid; Stockfish Wins Both
• 2023-06-26: Stockfish Wins TCEC DFRC2; CCC20 Bullet Underway

...'FRC' is, of course, another name for chess960, where the start positions for the two players are mirrored. 'DFRC' is 'Double FRC', where the two players have different start positions.

In that post 'Stockfish Wins TCEC DFRC2', I noted that future TCEC FRC/DFRC events will use a format they call 'FRD', meaning 'Fischer Random Double'. For an explanation of FRD, see that post. Don't be surprised if this current post is the last mention of FRD on this blog.