Chess960 (FRC)

Some Awkward Choices

2012-01-28T17:28:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago, in Kings and Queens on Chess960,I mentioned that the December 2011 issue of Chess Life included a number of annotated chess960 games. In fact there were six, covering all of the five start positions used in the St.Louis event except the first round. Since I already covered games from the first two rounds in'Fianchetto the Light Squared Bishop'and'A Tempo and a Half in a Symmetrical Position',let's look at the start of a game from the third round. The initial position is shown in the diagram below.

If you had the White pieces, what would you play? The moves 1.c4 and 1.f4, to develop the Bishops that are awkwardly placed on b1 and g1, suggest themselves. If 1.f4, Black has 1...c5 attacking the f-Pawn, which can not be efficiently defended. If 1.c4, the move 1...f5 doesn't have the same effect, because 2.b3 both defends the c-Pawn and opens the long diagonal for the Queen.The moves 1.d4 and 1.e4 also look plausible. On balance, I prefer 1.d4, which makes the square d3 attractive for either Knight. The move 1.e4 addresses the center, but doesn't develop any pieces.

As for castling, castles O-O looks more likely, since only the dark-squared Bishop needs to get out of the way. Castles O-O-O is possible after both Knights have moved, but some other Pawn moves on that side will be required to develop the Queen and light-squared Bishop. Those moves will weaken the castled position.

SP108 QBNRNKBR

What did the Kings and Queens of St.Louis play? Three of them, including the experienced chess960 players Kosteniuk and Lahno, chose 1.c4. One chose 1.d4, and Irina Krush, who annotated the game for CL, chose 1.e4. Her opponent selected 1...c5, and the game continued 2.f3 b6 3.d4. On 2.f3, Krush noted,

I didn't see any other future for the Bg1, and the e4-pawn will need protection soon. But I was sad to take away the f3-square from the knight, especially as [my coach] has scolded me about doing that before!

Indeed, the Knights are also awkwardly placed. They are both competing for the same d-square, while Nb3 (or Nb6) interferes with the best development of the Queen. One of them will probably first go to its second rank.

That's typical of chess960. The pieces are seldom placed as harmoniously as in the traditional start position and their individual developments involve tradeoffs. Both players are grappling with the same difficulties, the only difference being that one of them goes first. Then it's a continuous balance of pursuing one's own plan while keeping an eye on the opponent's.

An Early Queen Sortie

2012-01-21T13:01:00.000+01:00

Here's a chess960 miniature that was played recently on SchemingMind.com. The player of the White pieces was rated in the 2200s, about 400 points above his opponent, and the start position was SP931 BRKRNQNB, as can be clearly seen in the first diagram.

The most pronounced characteristics of the position are the Bishops in the corners and the compact Rook-King-Rook formation. I once discussed the Bishop formation in a post Four Cornered Bishops. White's first move 1.e4 blocks the long a8-h1 diagonal, so the light squared Bishop can be developed without being exchanged immediately.

Black has a choice of initial responses, starting with the advance of the b- or g-Pawns either one or two squares. I always find this choice difficult to make. In the current position, it's worth noting that the Queenside Bishop (a-side for the purists) is protected, while the Kingside Bishop isn't.If Black doesn't advance the g-Pawn immediately, White can advance the b-Pawn on the second move, rendering the Black g-Pawn immobile for the near future.That might be why Black chose 1...g6. The advance of the e-Pawn one or two squares was another option.

White continued 2.f4, grabbing another piece of the center and preparing to develop one of the Knights to f3. Black noticed that the h-Pawns are unprotected and played 2...Qh6, attacking the Pawn on h2. If White defends with a Knight to f3, the f-Pawn is left en prise to the Black Queen.I don't like the move 2...Qh6, and would have given more consideration to 2...b6 and 2...b5. That choice illustrates a common tradeoff: the move 2...b6 preserves the option to castle O-O-O, but is more passive than the aggressive 2...b5, which itself has the disadvantage of rendering ...O-O-O problematic. Since ...O-O-O is already awkward because of the Rook on d8, it might be better to plan for an eventual ...O-O, by playing 2...b5.

Now White played 3.e5, taking the squares d6 and f6 from the Black Knights, and daring Black to capture the h-Pawn. This is exactly what happened with 3...Qxh2, bringing us to the second diagram.

Although Black has an extra Pawn, the Black Queen is separated from its own forces and doesn't have an easy path back to them. White answered 4.Ne2, protecting both the f-Pawn and the Bishop on h1.The game continued 4...b6 5.b4 f5, where Black's last move is very hard to understand, since it develops nothing. Was Black trying to prepare protection for the Queen on g4?

Black's position was further weakened after 6.Nf3 (attacking the Queen) 6...Bxf3. The exchange of the Bishop for the Knight defends the Queen, but seriously weakens the light squares on Black's Queenside.After 7.Qxf3, Black tried to swap Queens with 7...Qh5, and must have been surprised to see 8.g4. White not only avoids the Queen exchange, but also attacks the Black Queen and opens the long diagonal for the light squared Bishop, taking direct aim at Black's King.Now if 8...fxg4, White continues 9.Qa3, with a winning Queenside attack. Instead Black tried 8...Qxg4, but after 9.Qd3, Black either gets mated or loses the Queen to 10.Bf3 Qh4 11.Rh1.

A chess960 player can sometimes consider the early development of the Queen to a square considered dangerous in traditional chess. In this game it wasn't a good idea.

Krush's Advice

2012-01-14T15:18:00.000+01:00

In my previous post,Kings and Queens on Chess960,I quoted from IM Irina Krush, who both played in the St.Louis event and covered it for Chess Life. After presenting her thoughts as a newcomer to chess960, she discussed the preparation she undertook for the event. Mixed in with her account of her training procedure were a number of insights into chess960 specifics. For example:-

The thinking starts immediately on move one.•Until the game crystallizes into a normal looking chess position, evaluation is a much harder task; the difficulty stems from the fact that there are so many more variables to keep in mind, and they’re in a less fixed state.•It's so tempting to just play in moves, of course with some ideas, but not necessarily a grand construction for the whole position.•You need to fight for the center.•It is definitely a challenge to avoid poorly placed pieces.•Black should generally avoid symmetry. [...] There will definitely be cases where symmetry is fine or even the best option, but in many positions, Black can do better by forging his own path.•Bishops in the center of the board (i.e., d1 or e1) are not actually "undeveloped" pieces and I don’t have to give them first priority in development ... of course, knights in the corners tend to come out early.•I found it hard to find the right balance; I tended to play either too passively or too aggressively.

Some of Krush's advice seems obvious ('thinking starts on move one'; 'need to fight for the center'), some not at all obvious ('Black should generally avoid symmetry'; 'Bishops [that start] in the center are not "undeveloped"'). I'll keep her tips in mind for future posts.

Kings and Queens on Chess960

2012-01-07T12:34:00.000+01:00

A few months ago I covered the St.Louis Kings vs. Queens Tournament in a series of four consecutive posts starting with Chess960 Kings and Queens.Chess960 interest being what it is, I wasn't expecting to see much about that half of the event in the mainstream chess press, so you can imagine my surprise when it was featured in not one, but both, of the magazines I read monthly.

First it was mentioned in the November 2011 issue of Europe Echecs ('Rois Contre Reines', p.24), where GM Kateryna Lahno, one of the players for 'Les Reines', annotated her round two game against IM Marc Arnold of 'Les Rois'. We've already encountered Lahno in a couple of posts from 2010 --Women, Chess960, and VideoandMore Women, Chess960, and Video-- on the women's chess960 event at Mainz 2008, but it's also worth noting that one of her games from that event, an annotated loss to GM Alexandra Kosteniuk, appeared in the October 2008 edition of Europe Echecs (p.44).

A month after the 'Rois Contre Reines' piece, the St.Louis event got a 12-page spread in the December 2011 issue of Chess Life (cover by Shirley Szymanek pictured in the corner), where most of the writeup by IM Irina Krush and all of the annotated games covered the chess960 action. Of her own participation, Krush had this to say (p.21):-

Up until July 2011, I'd never played a Fischer Random game, nor did I know the rules. I got my first taste of it at the 2011 Canadian Open, which had a Fischer Random side event that I eagerly attended with the aim of getting some practice for St. Louis. I played two games against Bulgarian GM Dejan Bojkov, winning with white and losing with black (pathetically, in 14 moves.) I didn't know if I'd like Fischer Random, but I loved it!
In Fischer Random, the thinking starts immediately on move one. There are no well-worn paths to follow; you're the first to reach the frontier ... and just as life on the frontier is dangerous and uncertain, so is the situation on the 64 squares.

Her co-author, GM Ben Finegold, provided most of the annotations and was quoted on his own participation.

Here is what Ben, who scored an amazing 5/5 in the Fischer Random and finished second in the event overall, had to say about his thoughts going in:
"I was quite worried about playing Chess960, since I had no experience. To prepare, I played about eight games on the Internet Chess Club in the week leading up to the event. I won them all, but my opposition was rated about 1500, and the games were not impressive. The best advice I got was from World Champion Vishy Anand. When I asked Anand how to prepare for the games, he simply said, "You cannot prepare for Chess960." This gave me some confidence that I could do no wrong in my prep!
"I spoke to [GM Hikaru Nakamura ] briefly about strategy, since Hikaru is not only a great chess player, but possibly an even better Chess960 player! Hikaru said to play in the center and activate your pieces (just like regular chess!). Hikaru also was able to score 5-0 in the Chess960 games. He played extremely quickly in the Chess960 games and seemed to feel at home, somehow."
And Ben's feelings about Fischer Random after the event?
"I guess I felt more under pressure and nervous during the Fischer Random games. I was worried I would blunder really early. I was more confident during the regular chess, but my results do not show any of that! I liked Fischer Random more than I thought I would, and it wasn't as scary as I expected.Which did I enjoy more? In hindsight, the Fischer Random ... not what I expected to say."

Let's have that again:'I didn't know if I'd like Fischer Random, but I loved it!',and'Which did I enjoy more? In hindsight, the Fischer Random ... not what I expected to say'.For my next post on this blog, I'll come back to the games.

Setting Chess on Course for the Next 100 Years

2011-12-31T16:48:00.000+01:00

In my previous post, I pursued the frequent objection to chess960 that it will somehow be responsible forSetting Chess Back 100 Years.I quoted from IM John Watson'sBook Review #82,where he tackled a chapter from 'Nunn's Chess Puzzle Book' by GM John Nunn.In that chapter, titled 'The Test of Time', the British GM presented (to quote myself) 'the results of a study where he compared the games of the great 1911 Karlsbad tournament with the 1993 Biel Interzonal'. Nunn wrote,

My general impression of the play at Karlsbad was quite poor, but the main flaws did not show up in the areas I expected. It is often said that the great growth of opening theory makes it hard to compare the chess of other ages with that of today, but I did not find this factor very important. It is true that there was no Sicilian Najdorf theory in 1911, but this is irrelevant as nobody played the Sicilian Najdorf. The range of openings played at Karlsbad was very narrow by today's standards. [...] The whole of ECO E was represented by just two games, nor was there a single game in the range B80-B99. The openings which were played had been developed theoretically, not to the same extent as today, of course, but enough so the players were not at a total loss.

He also concluded that the time control was not a factor. If not the openings and not the clock, what then? The words are Nunn's, the brackets are Watson's, the italics are mine:-

On the whole, the main deficiencies revealed at Karlsbad fell into three categories.The first was a tendency to make serious oversights. It is quite clear that the Karlsbad players were far more prone to severe errors than contemporary players. Even the leading players made fairly frequent blunders. Rubinstein, for example, who was then at virtually the peak of his career (1912 was his best year) failed to win with a clear extra rook against Tartakower. He also allowed a knight fork of king and rook in an ending against Kostic. [...]The second problem area was an inclination to adopt totally the wrong plan [examples follow].The third main problem area was that of endgame play [horrendous examples of elementary blown endgames follow].

How exactly would chess960 return the royal game to the level of 1911? Taking Nunn's third point first, the endgame play in chess960 is exactly the same as in traditional chess. While there are some positional features that can occur in chess960 but never occur from the traditional setup -- a Bishop on a corner square blocked by an adjacent Pawn on the diagonal -- it is unlikely that they will endure into the endgame. Even if they do, they can be handled by the same general techniques that apply to all other endgames.

As for 'the wrong plan', Nunn's two examples are at move 20 and move 17, the point in a chess960 game where the position is looking very much like a game of traditional chess. In both examples, Nunn uses specific aspects of the position to determine a general course of play, a course contrary to the move selected in the actual game. This application of chess logic is no less valid in chess960 and any player capable of reasoning this way has a good chance of finding the right plan.

As for serious oversights, aka blunders, Nunn again gives two examples. The first leaves a piece en prise, while the second overlooks a two move tactical sequence. I can see modern masters making such mistakes in a blitz game, but not under standard time controls. Did the old timers calculate variations less effectively than modern players? So it would appear, but why?

So if it's not the opening, not the time control, not carelessness, not planning, and not endgame play, what is inherent to chess960 that puts chess back 100 years? The games from 1911 were played before the hypermoderns presented their case, before Nimzovich codified positional play, and before the Soviets adopted scientific methods of tackling a chess game. All of those evolutions apply just as equally to chess960 as to traditional chess. Chess960 doesn't invalidate them. It's not taking us into the past, it's taking us into the future.

Setting Chess Back 100 Years

2011-12-24T17:44:00.000+01:00

In my most recent post,Not Everyone Likes Chess960,my second of three examples included a quote from Yakov Damsky.

'One Step Forward, Two Steps Back' is the title of a book by that chess lover V.I. Ulyanov or Lenin, and that is wholly pertinent as a judgement on Fischer's idea.

Damsky didn't explain what he meant by that remark, and since he died in 2009, we're not likely to get an explanation. I understand it as saying that chess960 somehow sets chess back, a notion which I've already encountered in this blog.

First we hadMore Arguments Against Chess960,where I quoted Tim Krabbé saying, 'Any form of shuffle chess puts chess back 200 years'. This wasn't just the respected Dutch writer having a bad hair day. Some time earlier he is on record saying, 'chess would be put back 100 years'. The more he thinks about chess960, the more it puts chess back.

Later we hadA Highbrow Dismissal of Chess960,where I quoted Mark Dvoretsky saying, '[Chess960] games almost never show us any aesthetic value. If we remember how hard it can be to discover the secrets of a position even in traditional chess, where we can refer to many generations' worth of experience, what I’m saying becomes logically obvious.'

I was reminded of all this when I encountered John Watson Book Review #82 : Historical and Biographical Works, Installment 3on TWIC. In that 'review', really several reviews rolled into one article, the American IM tackled two books by GM John Nunn: 'Grandmaster Chess Move by Move' and 'Nunn's Chess Puzzle Book'. The review isn't dated, but the newest book reviewed was published in 2007, so it's from a few years ago.My interest on this blog is in the 'Puzzle Book', where Watson wrote,

I'd like to describe a fascinating and potentially controversial section that Nunn incorporated into this book, one that seems to have escaped notice in most book reviews: his historical comparison of older, pre-World War I players to modern ones. Nunn calls this section 'The Test of Time'.

In his review Watson quoted large portions of the book, enough to let us follow Nunn's complete train of thought. The British GM started,

One of the great perennial questions in chess is: how do the great masters of the past compare with the leading players of today? Like all really interesting questions, it is very hard to answer. It is even possible to disagree on the ground rules for the comparison: for example, should you take into account the development of chess theory over the intervening time, and not mark down the old masters for their naive handling of many opening systems?

He then went on to describe the results of a study where he compared the games of the great 1911 Karlsbad tournament with the 1993 Biel Interzonal. Since the Karlsbad tournament was played 100 years ago, you can guess where I'm going with this post...

***

Today is Christmas Eve, I'm running late, and there are more pressing matters than the evolution of chess theory. I'll leave you to read Watson's synopsis of Nunn's findings and will come back to the topic for my next post, scheduled for the day of New Year's Eve.

To all those who celebrate the holiday, have a Merry Christmas! And please be careful about drinking and driving.

Not Everyone Likes Chess960

2011-12-17T16:22:00.000+01:00

The title of this post is borrowed from a post I wrote two years ago on my main blog,Not Everyone Likes Chess,and reused recently to introduce a silly video inLife's Too Short for Chess.Saying 'Not Everyone Likes Chess960' is the chess960 understatement of the year. In recent weeks I collected a few more examples that I'll share here.

The first example is from the one player who can challenge Fischer for the title of best chess player of all time. A few weeks ago I summarized a recent video interview inAsk Kasparov. About 44 minutes into the video the 13th World Champion had this to say:-

As for Fischer Random or similar ideas, I'm very much in favor. Let's be very specific. Fischer Random in its purity is not such a great idea. It creates a mess at the chess board from the very beginning. Out of 960 positions, 95% are quite bad.
What I think could help, and I've been saying it for almost ten years, if certain positions selected by a committee of grandmasters or chess fans, I would say at least 20 positions are pretty good. They are playable and these positions could be picked up on a random basis for a whole year, or for a special tournament. They could be announced in advance, a week or two. If you want, you can play for a whole year. Even one year is not enough to come up with a comprehensive theory, but it adds a component that is very important.
Starting from scratch is wrong. It eliminates a very important element of chess beauty. When you are preparing, you are looking for strategies. You won't do much, but at least you will be able to start in unknown territory and start working out some kind of decent strategy for games to look real. Not to have Pawns blundered at move ten or five, which happens, because the geometry is totally alien to our eyes, with new weaknesses in the position. That's my take.

After hearing Kasparov say, 'As for Fischer Random or similar ideas, I'm very much in favor', you might take him at face value, but when he says, 'Out of 960 positions, 95% are quite bad', you know which side he's really on. I've explored his proposal before, so if you search this blog for 'Kasparov' using the search box on the right, you'll find those posts. There is nothing to stop any circle of players -- be they GMs or club players -- from restricting their chess960 activity to a handful of positions. This is, after all, what traditional chess does in restricting its focus to SP518 (RNBQKBNR). The rest of the world should not be obliged to follow their narrow choice.

The next example is from 'The Batsford Book of Chess Records' by Yakov Damsky (p.222). It's an interesting book, although somewhat sloppy, which is why I've let the typo stand.

Out of artistic indloence [sic], the genius Capablanca -- who had not even had a chess set in his home -- demanded in the late 1920s that the positions of Bishops and Knights should be swapped round in the starting position. This would nullify all the theoretical work on the openings, which for all its modest dimensions at that time, was not the forte of the third World Champion.
Across the span of the decades, he was echoed by another Chess King -- Fischer. Gone were the days when the young Robert James's opening preparation dumbfounded his opponents and plunged them into gloom. A quarter of a century of absence from chess had duly left its mark. Catching up with the 'theoretical train' which had pulled off into the distance became unrealistic, so the ex-World Champion sought a different way out: by starting the game with the pieces arranged at random.
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back is the title of a book by that chess lover V.I. Ulyanov or Lenin, and that is wholly pertinent as a judgement on Fischer's idea. Whereas 'Fischer clocks' immediately caught on, 'Fischerandom chess' has yet to establish itself in tournament practice, and is hardly ever likely to -- even though semi-official Fischerandom World Championships have already commenced...

Although I've explored the idea ofSwitching Bishops and Knightsand once looked atCapablanca and Chess960,I wasn't aware that the ideas were somehow related. Until now I was only familiar with Capablanca's idea of playing on an expanded board. The Damsky book deserves a closer look, which I might do on my main blog.

The last anti-chess960 example harks back to my recent post Chess Isn't Boring,where I pondered an anti-chess960 idea from Chessvibes.com; see that post for a link to the original. One of the comments said,

Fischer Random's flaw is that it's too wildly different, as you point out. As its name and creator remind us, it's random (incoherent, meaningless), and therefore disrupts in too violent and shocking a way the inner coherence and logic of chess that is its essence. A game perhaps appropriate only for Bobby Fischer himself, or someone of his inner chaos and insanity. If only we could stop idolizing far-and-away the single most insane and dangerous of chess genius, we may be more receptive to good ideas.
Many amateurs won't appreciate the idea because they won't think it's a major difference. They like Fischer Random for that reason. But the truth is a pawn on a3 or a6 is a monumental difference. Some of those who bemoan the dying of chess by opening theory, in my view, are plain dishonest with themselves. They laud themselves as ultra-creative as a defense mechanism to defend bruised egos. Their problem isn't really with opening theory, it's that they lack comprehension, may be a bit lazy (or frustrated with past attempts) and, yes, may lack creativity compared to better players. Wanting to "invent" from move one is not a sign of brilliance or creativity, people! Like some spoiled child who slaps paint on paper and wants to be praised a brilliant artist, they want to be appreciated as creative geniuses without doing any work or respecting the history of the game.
In what other field -- math?, science? -- do we praise people who want to invent everything anew, without absorbing the body of material collected by humanity first? Most theoretical chess opening lines leave us in early mid-game positions that are unclear, with many possibilities reflecting different styles and values. That's where the limitless creativity kicks in, and if you listen to any GM review his or her games you won't help but be filled with an appreciation for his/her creativity. Do some opening lines lead directly to equal endgames? Sure. The exception proves the rule.

There are so many curious statements in this flat-earth diatribe that I hardly know where to start. When I read the question 'in what other field -- math?, science? -- do we praise people who want to invent everything anew', I immediately thought of the science of astronomy. What would we know of the universe if astronomers everywhere pointed their telescopes at the same little piece of the sky? Then I thought of similar examples in other sciences. Suppose all botanists studied the same plant family or all mathematicians worked only on number theory. I thought HarryO countered the scientific angle rather well in a comment toWhen Vishy Met Bobby.

[Some people] are confusing the idea of a game with the idea of scientific inquiry. The only difference between traditional chess and 960 is that traditional chess has a huge opening database of accumulated "facts" that support the theories on best practice.But since when has chess been about scientific inquiry? That is just one aspect of it. Chess is a game, that is all! It is good to have theories that are tested over the board on the spur of the moment but that have no substantive fact to back them up. It's just a game!

Shall We Play Amar's Opening?The author of the Chessvibes comment answers with an enthusiastic 'Yes!'. On the one hand we have the idea of forcing White to open with a dubious move; on the other hand we have Fischer's brilliant conception. Amar or Fischer? Fischer or Amar?

The one thing all of these commentators have in common is that it's obvious that none of them has ever tried chess960. But why should they? If they are happy with the current state of chess, that's great. At least they're playing chess. Just show me the same courtesy and don't start calling me a 'spoiled child who slaps paint on paper'. I don't need anyone's permission, Kasparov included, to enjoy the entire gamut of chess960 positions.

'Can I use this name "Fischer Chess"?'

2011-12-10T12:06:00.001+01:00

Toward the end ofWhen Vishy Met Bobby,there's a link to a Macauley video where various well-known chess personalities talk about Fischer just after he died in 2008. One of the speakers is Hans-Walter Schmitt, akaMr. Chess Classic Mainz.At 7:50 into the clip he says,

My children [said about] this Fischer chess, or chess960, 'This is the modern chess.' Modern chess is the right name for them.

There's a nice story about the name when we go for looking for a name. In 2002 we [ask] 500 people around the world, 'What is the right name to [use]?' More than half of these people ask, or vote, for 'chess960'. Then there is some [contact] with Fischer and he says this is not correct what we do. 'The right name is Fischer chess'.

'So can I use this name Fischer chess?'

'No, this is my idea and I [might] want to license it some day.'

Although I've edited the dialog a little, I haven't changed the meaning. When Fischer talked, people listened.

When Vishy Met Bobby

2011-12-03T11:51:00.001+01:00

An article yesterday on Guardian.co.uk has been getting mentions on chess blogs everywhere -- not too surprising in that it features the current World Champion talking about one of his greatest predecessors:Vishy Anand: I found Bobby Fischer surprisingly normal and calm. Here's the portion that relates to this chess960 blog.

Q: The BBC are currently showing the documentary Bobby Fischer, Genius and Madman. You met Fischer in 2006, a couple of years before he died. What was he like?
A: I found him surprisingly normal. Well, at least not very tense. He seemed to be relieved to be in the company of chess players. He was calm in that sense. He was also a bit worried about people following him, so the paranoia never really went away. But I am really happy I got the chance to meet him before he died in 2008. It was weird as well because I kept having to remind myself that this was Bobby Fischer sitting in front of me!
Q: Were you tempted to whip out a pocket chessboard and challenge him to a quick blitz game?
A: No, because he whipped out his pocket chess set first and we started to analyse some recent games I'd played.
Q: Really?
A: Yes, I showed him some of my games from Wijk aan Zee and tried to share some interesting developments. He was sort of able to follow everything – he hadn't lost his sharpness for chess – but his methods were a bit dated. In that sense he had fallen behind.
Q: How do you mean?
A: Well, he had some suggestions, and he was sort of in the ball park … but when I would tell him that the computer says white is winning here, for me that was a sign to move on – but for him it was a starting point to argue with me! [Laughs]. I found it difficult to say to him 'No, no, no – these computers are really strong. You shouldn't be arguing with them!"'

Is it a coincidence that, as I recounted in 'Hardly Ever Played Chess960 Before',Anand first played chess960 the following year?Whatever the reason, another account of the same meeting appeared in October 2008 on Chessbase.com --Vishy Anand: 'Chess is like acting'-- which featured an interview with Anand from Der Spiegel:-

Q: The American Bobby Fischer, who died at the beginning of the year, was chess crazy, paranoid, misanthropic. You met this chess genius two and a half years ago in Iceland, where he was living in exile. How did that happen?
A: I played in a tournament in Reykjavik and the Icelandic grandmaster Helgi Olafsson asked me if I would be interested in meeting Bobby Fischer. Olafsson picked him up from his flat, while I waited in the car. Fischer probably wanted to avoid my knowing which apartment was his.
Q: What did you talk to him about?
A: Fischer told me how he sometimes rode around Reykjavik with the bus, in order to see the city. He complained that he could not get Indian balm [Amrutanjan] in Iceland. Suddenly he wanted to go to McDonalds. So there he was, this legend of the chess world, asking me if I took ketchup.
Q: Did you talk about chess?
A: Of course. We were standing in a park and Bobby pulled out an old pocket chess set and we analysed a couple of games between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi in 1974. He wanted to prove that all world championship games after his victory were prearranged. He did not convince me.
Q: Why did Fischer specifically want to meet you?
A: Perhaps he felt an affinity. We are both from countries in which chess was not popular until we came along. I am not Russian and Fischer felt persecuted by the Soviets in the past. And there is evidence to suggest that Soviet grandmasters actually ganged up against him.
Q: Fischer proposed a new variation of the game, which is called Fischer Random Chess. He wanted the pieces in the starting position to me shuffled before every game. Would that not be a more creative form of chess?
A: I do not think much of a random placement of the pieces. That is perhaps something for people who were previously active and now have very little time. They don't want to study openings theory. But the opening systems are part of chess.

Looks like we won't be seeing Anand anytime soon in another chess960 tournament. In fact, that assessment complements an item posted by Thechessdrum.net just after Fischer's death in January 2008:Fischer wanted to play Kasparov, Anand.

A story from the Iceland’s Morgunbladid has stated that Bobby Fischer desired one last match with Garry Kasparov and/or Viswanathan Anand. [...] In interviews he stated that he would only play Fischer Random, but there was keen interest in a match with a top player. [...] Anand had been asked about a match with Fischer and expressed keen interest in the possibility.

It's not clear from that account whether Anand's 'keen interest' for a match applied to chess960, or was reserved for traditional chess, where he would have trounced Fischer. The Chess Drum's post leads to another account of the Anand - Fischer meeting, this time preserved on video --Fischer Remembered | Macauley on blip.tv -- where Anand speaks about the Reykjavik meeting at both 5:50 and 7:40 into the clip.

[NB: I could be wrong, because I haven't seen either documentary, but the Guardian's reference to Bobby Fischer, Genius and Madman seems to be the same film as the Liz Garbus effort titled Bobby Fischer Against the World. To be confirmed...]

The Impact of Chess960 on Chess Publishing

2011-11-26T17:34:00.000+01:00

A couple of years ago I jotted down some thoughts about the potential negative impact of chess960 on the publishing industry -- Some Numbers on Chess Book PublishingandWhistling Past the Graveyard?-- followed by a couple of potential solutions:Kasparov's Chess960 ProposalandWinter's (Chess960?) Proposal.Neither of these solutions is completely satisfactory. Kasparov's violates the spirit of chess960, while Winter's, a reaction to the emphasis on opening books, assumes a greater interest in chess history than the facts suggest.

After two more years experience of playing chess960, I have a little more insight into the subject. First, I've found that I have a far greater interest in endgames than I did previously. While I've always known that endgames were important, the time involved studying -- dare I say memorizing? -- opening theory doesn't leave much time for endgames. Since chess960 eliminates the need for the study of specific openings, that time is available for endgames. I know that many players consider endgames to be dry and somewhat tedious, but that might be because they've never applied themselves to the subject. An analogy would be the attitude that non-players of chess have to the game itself. It takes more than superficial knowledge to appreciate the subtleties of the game (or its endgame).

I've been exploring endgames more and more on my main blog (seePosts with label EndgamesandPosts with label Endgame TB, where TB = TableBase) and am convinced this isn't a coincidence. I have more time to spend on endgames and the time I spend on them increases my appreciation substantially.

Another area of chess publishing where chess960 is bound to have an impact involves middlegames. It is certain that, because it introduces so many types of middlegame positions that can't arise from the traditional start position, chess960 lifts middlegame theory to new heights. I don't own any reference resources specific to the middlegame, so I did a quick survey of the web to find out what's available.

I started by looking for encyclopedia-like resources and found two. The older of the two is 'Encyclopedia of Chess Middlegames: Combinations', published by Chess Informant in 1980. The qualifying word 'Combinations' tells us that it's about tactics.A Wikipedia article onChess tacticsgives an idea of the book's content:

The Encyclopedia of Chess Middlegames gives the following tactical categories: Double Attack, Pawns Breakthrough, Blockade, Decoying, Discovered Attack, Passed Pawn, X-ray Attack, Interception, Deflection, Pin, Demolition of Pawns, Overloading, Annihilation of Defense, Pursuit (perpetual attack), Intermediate Move, and Space

without identifying it definitively as the volume published by Informant. Other references to the book confirm that it is indeed organized by tactical motif. That organization is, of course, equally valid for chess960.

The more recent reference is 'Encyclopedia of Middlegame', a software series produced by Convekta starting around the year 2002. As is typical of Convekta, the product is sold both alone and bundled into other products, which complicates any casual attempt to understand exactly what is offered. I found descriptions of the individual components of the series on Wholesalechess.com:Encyclopedia of Middlegame I,II,III,IV, andV.Their description of 'Encyclopedia of Middlegame I' says,

[A] program for studying the middlegame plans behind various openings and the playing techniques. A theoretical section includes over 600 games/lectures, each of them illustrating the popular openings' typical plans and methods. There is also a special training section with more than 1000 exercises for a user to solve as well as 400 training positions to be played against the built-in chess playing program Crafty. The course is composed by GM Kalinin.

The descriptions of the other components are similar and all reference specific openings. This leads me to understand that the series is based on the study of specific openings, an approach which is not feasible for chess960. It's not clear how any systematic study of the chess960 middlegame could be based on positional themes rather than tactical motifs, but that might be because we just don't have enough experience.

Finally, although chess960 diminishes the need for encyclopedias of chess openings, there is still a need to catalog common chess960 opening ideas somehow. I'm not aware of any breakthroughs in this area, which might well be because the subject is so new and hasn't attracted sufficient attention. As with so many other aspects of chess960, time will tell.

A Few More Chess960 Resources

2011-11-19T16:42:00.001+01:00

Although my two most recent posts --Chess Isn't BoringandShall We Play Amar's Opening?-- were mostly critical of Chessvibes' suggestion aboutNon-random Fischer Random,there was one mention of chess960 history that I was pleased to see.

I recently went to watch the Dutch Fischer Random Championship in my hometown, Amsterdam. I was just in time to witness what everybody felt was the ‘dream final’ - the decisive game between Dutch GM Dennis de Vreugt and Yasser Seirawan, who in regular chess beat many a World Champion in his best days, including Karpov and Kasparov.

This reminded me of one of the video clips in the recent St.Louis event (seeChess960 Kings and Queensfor links) where someone mentioned that GM Seirawan was a former chess960 champion of the Netherlands. Now I had enough information to conduct a search with some hope of success.Living in bilingual Belgium, I understand some Dutch, which helped in the search.

After a few minutes I found Het Martin Walop toernooi om het open NK Fischer Random Chess 2011which Google dates to June 2011. Unfortunately, the links near the bottom only lead to results, not to games. The home page of that site,Fischerz.nl,has a section 'Random Chess' in the sidebar with info on previous events stretching back to 2004, where Seirawan was the winner with a perfect +7-0=0, 1.5 points ahead of the runnerup.

The details from those events lead to the discovery of other pages, like Reinderman wint open NK Fischer Random(Google: May 2010), with a report on the 2010 event, including a few annotated moves and a couple of working videos at the bottom of the page. DGT, the Dutch supplier of chess clocks, including a chess960 model that I mentioned once inDGT960 Chess Clock,sponsored the event in recent years.

***

A recent post on Susan Polgar's blog,Chess 960, Breathing new life into the game!,pointed to a chess960 resource that looks like a recent convert:Chess 960, Breathing new life into the game!(OnlineChessLessons.net). The site, operated by NM Will Stewart (see his Chess Biography)has a heavy emphasis on bughouse, so maybe we'll see more on Fischer Random Bughouse.

Susan Polgar's post reminded me that she once played an early version of Fischer's invention with the 11th World Champion himself, a topic I explored inPictures of a Fischer Random Precursor. It would be useful to explore her previous posts on chess960 (sometimes called 'Fischer Random' on her blog), but that will have to wait for another day.

Shall We Play Amar's Opening?

2011-11-12T16:20:00.001+01:00

In my previous post,Chess Isn't Boring,I pointed out that the rationale behind chess960 was not 'to avoid any kind of heavily analyzed opening theory', but rather to avoid the increasing role of memorization in playing a chess game. The scenario -- which becomes obvious in a match at the highest level, such as a World Championship match -- is of two players working alone (or in teams, it makes no difference) to study reams of computer analysis, memorizing the highlights of that analysis, and eventually meeting the opponent over the board to test the quality of the memorized variations.

If the crisis facing chess was mainly a question of heavily analyzed opening theory, then chess960 would only be interesting to elite players at the highest level, because it is exactly those players who have mastered the intricacies of modern opening theory. As it is, chess960 is also interesting to average players at the club level, players who just want to play a game of chess without falling into some trappy variation which the opponent happens to have analyzed extensively in home preparation.

Having said that, let's suppose that there are players at all levels who are indeed attracted to chess960 because they want to avoid all opening theory -- 'boring theoretical chess duels' and 'boring computer preparation' as Arne Moll put it in Non-random Fischer Random.His alternative is to force the start of a game down lesser known pathways.

But let's for a moment assume that it's impossible to force the King's Gambit (or the St. George, or any other opening that's not considered to be 'main stream') down professional players' throat: what if we simply adjusted the starting position a little to help the pros make up their minds? Suppose from now on everybody would need to start their game with the following position:

Here he gave a diagram of the traditional start position (RNBQKBNR) with a Black Pawn on a6 instead of a7.

All openings would have to be studied anew, because the slight modification will create all sorts of subtle and not so subtle differences. The game would still resemble chess sufficiently not to lose the interest of the general public, but the nuances would be different enough for the insiders to immediately appreciate the complete make-over of "boring" chess opening theory.
Perhaps some will argue that this new beginning position is actually to Black's advantage, even though it's still White to move. Well, that might turn out to be true, but how "fair" is the current starting position? Isn't that considered to be better for White? Even so, to make it a bit fairer maybe we shouldn't put a black pawn on a6 (which might also makes queenside castling slightly less attractive), but a Black Knight?
Heck, we could even have this position and let White choose whether he wants to play with White or Black. It still would be a much more modest change and thus be much more likely to be accepted by both professionals and laymen. Doesn't this modest change of the initial position makes the "real" Fischer Random chess look absurdly radical?

As someone pointed out in a comment to the essay, Moll's idea is equivalent to forcing White to play 1.a3. His alternative, to start with the Black Knight on a6 instead of b8, is equivalent to forcing White to play 1.Na3. A few years ago I wrote an introductory tutorial onChess Openings - Unusual First Moves,subtitled 'the good, the bad, and the really ugly'. I concluded that 1.a3 was (at best) 'bad', while 1.Na3 was (indisputably) 'ugly'. In his 1858 match against Paul Morphy, Adolf Anderssen played 1.a3 in three games, scoring +1-1=1. Was the wily German romantic avoiding Morphy's opening preparation or did he really believe that the 'new beginning position is actually to [White's] advantage', as Moll worries?

Whatever Anderssen's reason, it's hard to imagine that excluding all variations other than 1.a3 confers any kind of advantage over multiplying the possibilities by 959, as in Fischer's creation. Furthermore, the idea of limiting a chess game to 1.a3 or 1.Na3 doesn't address the scenario where players simply memorize computer moves. It just starts the memorization much earlier than move 15. The same drawback applies to arguments that chess960 would be more attractive if, for the foreseeable future, we were to limit the number of authorized start positions.

In another comment to Moll's essay, someone else pointed out that IM Mark Dvoretsky had already proposed something similar to the 1.a3 idea. I mentioned this almost a year ago in a post,Dvoretsky on Chess960,and noted,

The sixth section, 'An Alternative Suggestion' is an attempt to decouple chess from the burden of opening preparation while keeping the familiar RNBQKBNR setup. I don't know if anyone has tried the idea in competition, but I'll leave the investigation to others who are more interested than I am.

I concentrated instead on Dvoretsky's objections to chess960 itself, which I summarized in A Highbrow Dismissal of Chess960.I'll also leave the investigation of 1.a3 to others who are more interested than I am. In that 'Unusual First Moves' tutorial, I mentioned that 1.Na3 is known as Amar's Opening. Shall we play chess960 or shall we play Amar's opening? The choice is clear for me.

Chess Isn't Boring

2011-11-05T16:12:00.000+01:00

Am I keeping my promises or what? In my previous post,A Chess960 Almanac,I followed-up a topic introduced inChess960 Encounters, Past & Future,and now I'm going to follow-up a second topic.The lucky winner this time isNon-random Fischer Random,an essay by Arne Moll that appeared on Chessvibes.com last month.Moll is one of my favorite chess writers and I've enjoyed reading many of his previous essays. He usually knows what he's talking about, but he missed the mark on that Fischer Random piece.I'll start with a few excerpts from the essay.

Watching the 7th game [1.Nf3 b5 2.e4 a6] of the Kasparov - Short blitz match last week made me realize once again how radical Fischer’s proposal to shuffle all the pieces on the first rank was and still is. If you want to avoid boring theoretical chess duels, all you have to do is force the players to play an unexplored variation or opening – problem solved.

The italics are mine. Here's another excerpt.

Short also beat Kasparov with the now-rare King’s Gambit -- and with a rare line within the King’s Gambit at that -- providing another argument for those people (and I think I consider myself to be among them) who claim that all it takes to solve boring computer preparation is some creativity in the opening. Is that too much to ask of professional chess players?

At this point Moll introduced the main idea of his essay, playing the traditional start position with a Black Pawn on a6 instead of a7. Why do this?

All openings would have to be studied anew, because the slight modification will create all sorts of subtle and not so subtle differences. The game would still resemble chess sufficiently not to lose the interest of the general public, but the nuances would be different enough for the insiders to immediately appreciate the complete make-over of "boring" chess opening theory.

And here's an excerpt from one of Moll's comments.

I love our game as it is and I think there's plenty of room to avoid boring theoretical duels without doing anything to the starting position! But some think more radical measures are needed, such as Fischer Random. This article is mainly written for them: my position is that you don't need Fischer Random to avoid existing opening theory: if you want to get rid of current opening theory, then all it takes is making minimal changes to the starting position.

Here's another excerpt from a comment, this time without the keyword 'boring'.

Isn't the main goal of this form of chess to avoid any kind of heavily analyzed opening theory?

No, that's not the 'main goal of this form of chess'. It's a side effect. Fischer addressed the real issue in a quote I used in another post,Fischer: 'The *Old* Chess Is Dead':

Q: Do you follow chess at all? A: I follow the old chess, I follow all the pre-arranged matches, like the last Kramnik - Kasparov match [October 2000]. At the highest level it is all pre-arranged, move by move. You have very interesting, beautiful pre-arranged games being created by very intelligent players, working with computers, working in teams. I have no objections to people creating such games, but they must say these are pre-arranged games, but they must not claim that they are finding the moves over the board. I have learned so much from these pre-arranged matches and all these cooked-up notes, they're wonderful. But they are fake, they are flawed.

And because Fischer's 'pre-arranged' accusation has been so misunderstood, here's another quote from him that I used inFischer Compares Chess960 to Puffed Wheat:

'Because I know what chess is all about. It's all about memorization, about pre-arrangement.'•'But creativity?'•'Creativity is lower down on the list', shaking his head.•'But you became World Champion on creativity.'•'First of all, it was a long time ago when I played with Spassky the first match. And even the second match is already some time ago, thirteen years ago. And chess just in the last few years has changed dramatically with all this computer stuff. But really, if you analyze chess objectively, very objectively, it's been a lousy game going back even to the time of Morphy. There was a lot of book.'

Fischer never said that traditional chess was 'boring'. He said it was 'dead'; he said it was 'about memorization, about pre-arrangement'; he said it was a 'lousy game'. He never said it was boring.This entire train of thought reminds me of another of my recent posts --Capablanca and Chess960-- where I encountered a different 'straw man' argument.

While we're on the subject, there is indeed a boring aspect to chess. Short draws are boring. Remember the 1984-85 Karpov - Kasparov match, or the 1995 Kasparov - Anand match? Short draws, especially one after another, are *really* boring, but chess960 won't eliminate them. If you want to prevent two players from agreeing to draw after playing only a few moves, other mechanisms are needed and those mechanisms apply to chess960 as much as they do to traditional chess.

Back to Moll's solution to his 'straw man' argument against chess960, the use of a slight alteration to the traditional start position, I'll discuss that in another post (a follow-up to this follow-up). It's the second time the idea has appeared from a knowledgeable source as an alternative to chess960, so it deserves some consideration.

A Chess960 Almanac

2011-10-29T16:20:00.000+02:00

In my latest post,Chess960 Encounters, Past & Future,I gave myself a number of actions to followup. Contrary to my usual treatment of followups, I'm now actually going to follow one of them up. The lucky winner is the 'Chess960 Almanac', mentioned inChess960 II, a Wordpress blog.Zenquaker, the author of the post, wrote, 'I could probably count the number of people in the world interested in this on both hands even if you chopped off all my fingers.' Ouch! At least that makes two of us who are interested.

The downloadable almanac is an XLSX spreadsheet with three sheets. The first sheet ('Data') is a list of the 960 start positions with a number of technical characteristics calculated for each position. The second sheet ('Fields') is an explanation of each of the characteristics in the first sheet. The third sheet ('Swaps') is specific to one of the fields in the first sheet.

For example, the 'Data' sheet has five columns ('Fields') showing the equivalence of five different numbering systems for each start position. These include 'Scharnagl's scheme', which has already been widely adopted as a standard (this blog included); 'Milener's scheme', proposed by the author of one of the early books on chess960; and the 'number of the position in alphabetical order', where 'BBNNQRKR' is no.1, 'BBNNRKQR' is no.2, etc.

Another set of fields tracks the relationships between pairs of identical pieces. For example, 'files of the two Knights' and 'files of the two Bishops' are 'bg' and 'cf' for the traditional start position RNBQKBNR. This reminded me of a post Naming Things,where I linked to a couple of Chess960 Jungle blog posts that assigned names to the various start configurations of the minor pieces. Some people also believe that a field 'flag for Knights on different color squares' has special importance. Time will tell.

An idea that I haven't encountered elsewhere is 'the number of two piece swaps required to get the postion' and 'the swaps required to get the position, each swap represented by a number or character'. That character is documented in the third sheet ('Swaps') mentioned above. I don't see how these swaps were derived, but given the accuracy of the rest of the data, I have no reason to doubt them.

I've also done a little work in analyzing the characteristics of each start position, which I derive from a personal database last seen a year ago inCastling Patterns VisualizedandWhen Castling Undevelops a Rook.I dragged my database out of storage and compared it to the almanac.

My first check was the data I derived for postsUndefended Pawns in Chess960 Start Positions,Naturally Weak Pawns, andFour Weak Pawns.Almost everyone agrees that -- even if their importance is only fleeting -- weak Pawns deserve special attention at the beginning of a chess960 game. Moreover, if anyone ever finds a start position that favors White heavily (to date no such position is known), it will probably be due to a naturally weak Pawn. Fortunately, my own calculations and the relevant fields in the almanac matched perfectly.

After that, I checked the data I used for posts onRandomness in Chess960 Start PositionsandMore on the Concept of Distance.The almanac has a pair of fields 'offset = number of pieces not in their starting position' and 'displacement = a list of how far each piece is displaced from it's starting position', which touch on this subject. The 'offset' was a new idea for me, while 'displacement' was an intermediate result I had also derived to calculate the 'Concept of Distance'. The term 'distance' is a measure of how far removed the pieces are from their normal start positions in traditional chess.

Here's a table showing the number of positions that have a certain 'offset' and a certain 'distance'. By definition, offset=0 and distance=0 apply only to the traditional start position.

Besides the traditional position, there are a few other unique positions flagged in this table. For example, offset=8 and distance=4 indicate a position where none of the pieces are on their traditional start squares, although they are not very far. It turns out that this position is SP329 NRQBBKRN. Note that this is the traditional position RNBQKBNR where, moving left to right, each pair of pieces has been swapped with its neighbor : the Queenside Rook has been swapped with the Queenside Knight, the Queenside Bishop has been swapped with the Queen, and so on.

How does this study of start positions improve your chess960 play? Quite frankly, I'm not sure that it does. It does, however, make you more aware of subtle differences across the 960 positions, all of which tend to look very similar to the unpracticed eye. It might indeed be the first step in some uber-theory of chess960 openings.

Chess960 Encounters, Past & Future

2011-10-22T17:36:00.000+02:00

My most recent post,Capablanca and Chess960,pulled in more comments than I usually get on a chess960 post. Two comments that really got me thinking were both on the subject of chess variants and evolution. HarryO pointed to an old thread on Chess.com,Could we please stop calling Chess960 a variant?,to which I'm drawing attention here because it was the same discussion I had in mind when I wrote the Capablanca post.

For me, the classification of chess960 as more than a variant is not a simple difference of opinion on semantics. It's critical to the eventual adoption of Fischer's creation. Many chess players dismiss chess960 as 'just another chess variant', like Capablanca chess or Seirawan chess, because they don't realize how close chess960 is to traditional chess. One of these days I'd like to construct a quiz featuring middlegame positions taken from real games of both chess and chess960.The object of the quiz will be to decide which positions are which.I mention the middlegame because the opening is too easy to distinguish and the endgame is almost always impossible.It should be fairly easy to find dozens of middlegame positions where the obvious answer is the wrong answer.

Another comment on the Capablanca post was from GeneM, the author of one of the few chess960 books ever published. At the same time he left a few other comments on other posts, one of which was Pawn Power in Chess960,where he mentioned 'Reuben Fine's famous list of nine opening principles'. I'm only familar with the 'ten practical rules' that I listed inFine's 'General Principles' of Opening Theory,and wonder if we are talking about the same thing.GeneM left even more comments on the Chess960 Jungle blog, which HarryO pulled together into a new post,Play Stronger Chess By Examining Chess960.

***

An email from a regular reader of this Chess960 (FRC) blog alerted me to a 'Chess960 Almanac' (seeChess960 II)on the Zen Quaker blog, a resource that was new to me. One of the concepts in the Almanac is 'Displacement', defined as 'how far each piece is displaced from it's starting position'. This reminded me of some investigation I once did on a concept I called 'Distance', and which I documented in a pair of posts Randomness in Chess960 Start PositionsandMore on the Concept of Distance. In a future post I'll combine zenquaker's tables with my own unpublished data to see if we are indeed talking about the same thing.

The first of zenquaker's chess960 posts, appropriately titledChess960 I,looked at the choice of start positions in the recent St.Louis event. I also covered this topic in The Chess960 Wheel of Fortune.It appears that the St.Louis organizers used a faulty procedure for determining the start positions in their tournament.

***

Another recent chess960 article, Non-random Fischer Random,appeared on that staunch supporter of traditional chess, Chessvibes.com, a site sponsored by New in Chess (seeReview: NIC Yearbook 100for a discussion of the relationship).That 'non-random' post raises so many discussion points that it deserves special treatment. I'll return to its points in a future post.

***

Also worth noting is a page Chess Quotes (aka Rotten Tomatoes)mentioned in an earlier post of mine,Stats and More Stats. The page has evolved since I first mentioned it and I should include it in a series I last discussed on my main blog inWorld Championship Opening Preparation in 2010.

***

Finally, I updated the list of 'Correspondence (Turnbased) Chess960' sites in the sidebar to add E-chess960.com.I haven't spent much time on the site and it deserves a closer look.

Capablanca and Chess960

2011-10-15T17:31:00.000+02:00

A frequent argument against chess960 is that Fischer, when he proposed it, was just repeating Capablanca's lament from the 1920s about the death of chess. That line of thought inevitably leads to two conclusions:-

Chess didn't die in Capablanca's time, so it can't be in trouble now.
To avoid the imminent death of chess Capablanca proposed a chess variant which never caught on, so Fischer's creation is doomed to the same fate.

In other words, Capablanca was wrong, so Fischer must be wrong. I was reminded of this dubious logic in a recent post on the USCF's forum -- Nakamura on Modernizing Chess-- and used the opportunity to make two points:-

Capablanca and Fischer were addressing two different illnesses that have beset chess.
Unlike Capablanca's solution, Fischer's creation is not a chess variant, it's an evolution.

On the first point, Gligoric said it succinctly in a quote I used a year ago inThe Rampant Expansion of Theory.

Capablanca feared the spectre of the "draw death" of chess, while Fischer feared the rampant expansion of theory.

On the second point, Fischer talked about the differences in a conversation that was captured on video. I transcribed this in'Me and Bobby Fischer' and Chess960.

I was just looking at a book Saemi [Palsson] gave me, a book about Capablanca. Capablanca had a very interesting game that he proposed, it was 10 by 10 or something. [...] It might be a very creative game and maybe much better than Fischer Random, but it looked very intimidating. [...] You can learn Fischer Random in five, ten seconds practically, so there is no impediment. [...] People think I'm anti-chess. No, I'm not anti-chess, I'm pro-chess. I'm trying to keep it alive. I'm not coming up with anything radical at all.

There's a lot more to be said on this topic -- What exactly was Capablanca's lament? What is the relationship between opening memorization and draws? Will there come a day when chess (or chess960) is 'played out' or 'exhausted'? -- but I'll leave that for another time.I suspect that Capablanca, an intuitive player who was blessed with a marvellous positional sense, would have been an excellent chess960 player. Fischer, too.

'A Tempo and a Half in a Symmetrical Position'

2011-10-08T11:51:00.000+02:00

Returning once more to the St.Louis eventChess960 Kings and Queens, I covered the first round in my post titled'Fianchetto the Light Squared Bishop'.Thanks to the power of social networking on the web, I was able to ask Eric van Reem, who was invited to St.Louis because of his long experience with the Chess Tigers of Mainz, whether he could recommend a game or two from the event. He replied

I liked Finegold - Kosteniuk a lot. As far as I remember, Finegold was very happy with the game.

That game was played in round two, so I reviewed the commentary preserved in video for that round. The start position SP713 RKQBBNNR, shown in the first diagram below, sparked some immediate commentary.

YS (GM Yasser Seirawan): I always find it difficult when either of the Bishops are on e1 or d1. In this particular position, both Bishops are on the center squares. In order to control the center, you're going to have to bring those Bishops out.
JS (WGM Jennifer Shahade): What is it you don't like about the Bishops on d1 and e1?•YS: Let's take the Bishop on e1 for instance. In this particular position Martha [Fierro] opened 1.e4. How is she going to develop the Bishop on e1? How is she going to develop the Bishop on f3? It would be great if White could play both e4 and d4, followed by Bf3 and Bc3 together. But after the logical response 1...e5, it's hard to get in d4, Bc3, and Bf3. The move 1.e4 opened up the Bishop on d1 to be developed, but after Nf3, a very natural move, the Bishop on d1 still hasn't been solved. Also, once you've played Nf3, the Bishop on e1 has another problem: how is it going to solve its development? [...] It's almost tortoise-like to get your Bishops off d1 and e1. Black, of course, has the same difficulties.

The Finegold - Kosteniuk game, won by White in 25 moves, started 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Ng6 3.d4. When it was over, GM Ben Finegold chatted with the commentators about his impressions during the game.

BF: Normally, I don't play the Scotch, but I thought it was funny in chess960 to do that. •JS: It's also funny how people keep referring to the openings by their chess names.

3...exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Ng3 d5

BF: The move ...d5 surprised me. Then we were symmetrical.

6.exd5 Nxd5. (See the second diagram.)

7.Bf3

BF: It seems like I'm better because I can castle O-O quickly and when my Queen goes to e3, Black can't move her Queen out, so I've stopped her from castling O-O. It's weird. I had a symmetrical position against Anna [Zatonskih] yesterday and I was much worse with Black. Here is also a symmetrical position and Black is worse. We got double edged positions.

7...Nb6

YS: We thought in case of 7...Bf6, you get one of those positions where you're a tempo up in a symmetrical position and after castling that tempo might be meaningful.•BF: Maybe a tempo and a half, because the Bishop has to move.
BF: I expected 7...Nb6, because I wanted to play Bc3. Then ...Na4 seems annoying, but I realized I have this bxc3 idea. That's not the way I play chess, but if the King is on b8 and you can't castle, then I'll play that way.

8.Qe3 Bf6 9.Nh5 Be5 10.Bc3 Na4 11.O-O

YS: This is the longest King move you've made in your career.

After a few more moves, everyone agreed that Black's position was 'really bad'. Black couldn't even castle O-O-O because of Qxa7. The game ended when Black overlooked mate in one.

JS: How do you like playing chess960 so far?•BF: I like the results, but I don't know if I'm a big fan yet. As soon as the position is set up, I just stare at it until the bell rings [to start the game]. OK, g2 is hanging. That's what I figured out before the game. Does that matter? I don't see how Black is going to take on g2, but don't lose it in the first five moves, because that's embarrassing.•JS: Some great chess960 tips here!

Yes, some great tips indeed.

The Chess960 Wheel of Fortune

2011-10-01T17:49:00.000+02:00

In a comment to my previous post,'Fianchetto the Light Squared Bishop',HarryO informed that the most recent episode of The Full English Breakfast (FEB) --World Cup Kings and Queens --the 13th podcast in the FEB series, included a long segment on the chess960 portion of the St.Louis event.Toward the end of that audio clip, there's a mention by St.Louis arbiter Chris Bird of a roulette wheel used to select two of the five chess960 start positions (SPs) played in the event. There's more about the roulette wheel on TheFEB Facebook page,underBonus Clips. It turns out that the wheel was one of several methods used to select SPs.

CB:Half an hour before the first round started we realized we didn't have any idea [how to select the SP] so we quickly devised the card system, a through h. [...] In the second round we built the giant die about an hour before the round started. We used 2' by 3' [that's feet, not inches!] poster boards and cut a foot off each poster board to keep the die in shape.[...] FEB:And then came the roulette wheel.[...] CB:Depending on the spin of the wheel, whichever piece came up we started on a1 and worked our way across the board.For the fourth round we used some games that the previous players had played, based on the last move in those particular games. We chose the games that finished one with a King move, one with a King move, a couple of Knights... The two players that didn't have games chose in order alternating which game they would choose related to which piece we would place on the squares. For our last round we used the roulette again, slightly modified.

The last round selection is captured in a video clip.

Kings Vs. Queens - Selecting the Chess 960 Starting position (4:49) • 'Arbiter Chris Bird and GM Yasser Seirawan chose the final Chess 960 position in St. Louis.'

While it was a great idea to make a ceremony for the selection of each round's start position, there are easier ways to go about it. A random procedure to determine the start squares for the Queen and minor pieces also establishes the position of the King and Rooks. To have a completely unbiased choice, the Bishops are best placed before the Queen and Knights. Another idea that I've not seen anywhere else is the set ofSpecial Chess960 Diceused in Canada last year. After I wrote that post, I asked the organizers if they knew where to procure the dice, but never received a response.

The FEB podcast wasn't only about roulette wheels. There was also a discussion about the prospects of chess960 ever catching on in a big way. GM Kosteniuk, one of the five women who played in St.Louis, was surprisingly downbeat.

Q: So you don't see chess960 growing to become more established or more widely played among grandmasters? A: I don't think so. It's interesting, it's fun. You don't have all these theoretical lines, but it's not considered to be serious and I don't think it will substitute for classical chess.

This is the most important question that can be asked and answered about chess960. I think Kosteniuk is wrong, but no one really knows for sure.

'Fianchetto the Light Squared Bishop'

2011-09-24T18:13:00.000+02:00

Getting back to the recent 'Kings vs. Queens Tournament', I discussed the chess960 portion in my post on Chess960 Kings and Queens.There is a wealth of information to be gleaned from the video commentary by GM Yasser Seirawan and WGM Jennifer Shahade, although at the beginning of the first round, I thought we were off to a bad start.

Seirawan (YS): The start position is 'goofy'.•Shahade (JS): 'The [position] that we have is nothing like real chess'

Goofy? Nothing like real chess? Were we in for a bout of bashing Fischer's greatest invention? Then I remembered that chess960 commentating is new for everyone, including these two experienced chess commentators. The level of the discussion soon improved when GM Seirawan gave some excellent advice that applies to all start positions.

YS: 'You have to develop a long term plan early. It's very difficult in chess960 (*) how to best use your time. I start very slowly. When I get the feeling that my pieces are finding their natural squares, I speed up. But I start very slowly, then I get faster.'

Here's a diagram of the position used in round one.

SP874 QRKRBBNN

When I first saw it, my eye went immediately to the minor pieces on the Kingside. The commentators' first remarks were instead about the Queens.

YS: 'One of the things you have to be really watchful for is Pawns that in regular chess you assume are defended. In chess960, tactical opportunites really happen very early. Unfortunately, because the Queens are buried in the corner, I don't see real tactics breaking out in the first dozen moves or so.'•JS: 'I was talking to Eric Van Reem, who wrote the FIDE rules for chess960. He said that some of the toughest positions to play are those in which the Queens start in the corner.'

The discussion quickly moved from generalities to specifics. Seirawan used a technique that I've discovered is particularly helpful : start by examining the castling options, what it takes to achieve them, and where they leave the King.

YS: [Discussing the diagrammed position notes that the move b3, to develop the Queen] 'may open you up to ...Ba3+. I noticed that Anna [Zatonskih] at the board is really studying. I would do exactly as she is, trying to think the long term plan here. I would think that e4, Nf3, Ng3, Bc4, developing the Kingside pieces and then castling O-O would be the natural inclination. It will be interesting, since all five games start from this initial position, what opening plans the White players will develop.'•JS: 'It will also be interesting to see how many people wait and look to see how Hikaru [Nakamura] is playing.'

Later in the same session, we had a chance to hear from GM Nakamura directly, who won with White against IM Martha Fierro. I doubt that his thoughts on the position would have helped any of the other players.

JS: What did you think about the starting position and how long did it take you to decide what you would play?
Nakamura (HN): I think the time showed that it didn't take me long to randomly pick something. I haven't played chess960 in quite a while so this was the first time I'd seen a rather unusual position at the beginning of a game.
There are two approaches. Either you can take 3-5 minutes on trying to figure out which move makes the most sense, looks the lost logical, and go from there, or you can sort of randomly pick. I looked briefly at all the first moves and none of them really impressed me.
This morning I had a conversation with a good friend of mine and I told him to give me an idea what to play on the first move. He said, 'Play something to fianchetto the light squared Bishop'. I wanted to play g3, but after ...b5 I wasn't in love with the position. [Interruption] If the Bishop had been on b1, I would have played a3 and Ba2, but the Bishop happened to be on f1. Therefore g3 made the most sense, but after 1.g3 b5, I didn't really like the position that much. I thought 2.Nf3 e5 and I didn't like the feel of the position. Black's going to get a lot of squares in the center.
One thing that I've noticed about chess960 from playing a couple times in Germany is that when you try to play these openings where you don't put Pawns in the center, like Alekhine's Defense or the Pirc/Modern, those sorts of setups, you tend to get in a lot of trouble because the pieces don't go on the squares they normally should. Therefore you usually want to play in the center. I had already agreed that I was going to move the Bishop to g2 if I could, but g3 wasn't any good, so I had to play g4.

With Nakamura, you're never completely sure if he's taking things seriously, but the idea to start with 'fianchetto the light squared Bishop', no matter what the start position, was new to me. The conversation continued,

JS: So you had your eye on the Queen on a8.
HN: It works out that way. Clearly I knew what the starting position was going to be ahead of time, so that's why I made this agreement to put my Bishop on a light square.
JS: So you knew like 10 minutes before the game?
HN: I just knew. I'm psychic.
YS: Being psychic and a chess player, that's a good combination. So after g4, how did she play? Could you take us through the moves?•JS: We liked the position she got.
HN: Martha made very standard moves. I think she played ...e5. Since Martha's not that familiar with chess960, I thought that playing something a little more offbeat made some sense as opposed to say, the game Lahno - Cao, where they found a way to transpose back into a normal position which you could reach out of a Ruy Lopez or one of those systems. I figured it was to my advantage to throw Martha off very early in the game. That's why it also worked out.

There's a lot more to the discussion, but you can listen to it yourself if you're interested. In my next post, I'll continue with another game from the event.

***

(*)Throughout the commentary, different people use different terms to describe the game that I call chess960 on this blog. In transcribing the remarks, I'll adhere to my own convention.

Chess960 Kings and Queens

2011-09-17T18:14:00.000+02:00

When I mentioned in my previous post,Rare Bird Tracking: Summer 2011,that St.Louis would be hosting a chess960 event, I was hardly expecting the extravaganza we got this week.The official web site,Kings vs. Queens Tournament,hosted on the main site of the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, told us,

This will be a Scheveningen-paired tournament, in which each of the five team members will play each of the opposing team members twice: once in a Fischer Random (Chess 960) game with a time control of G/25 + 10-second increment and once in a rapid game with a time control of G/25 with a 5-second increment.

and

GM Yasser Seirawan and WGM Jennifer Shahade will provide live commentary of the event, which will be open to the public.

The team of 'Queens' included GMs Kateryna Lahno and Alexandra Kosteniuk, both of whom competed in the last Chess960 Women's Rapid World Championship at Mainz 2008, won by Kosteniuk (seeWomen, Chess960, and Video), while the 'Kings' featured GM Hikaru Nakamura, who won the unrestricted World Championship title at Mainz in 2009 (seeCCM9: Nakamura, Grischuk, and Rybka).

The Seirawan / Shahade live commentary is preserved in video clips on the official site (all clips are around 90 minutes long) and is worth a look, especially for the Nakamura interviews after his first four rounds.The complete set of Aviv Friedman's reports on all five rounds is available on TWIC atKings vs. Queens Tournament 2011.The Queens were trounced in both the chess960 and the rapid events, making me wonder if it was such a good idea to bill the event as a 'Battle of the Sexes'. Both Nakamura and teammate Ben Finegold, also a GM, scored 5-0 in chess960.

The starting positions for the five chess960 rounds were:-

R1: SP874 QRKRBBNN
R2: SP713 RKQBBNNR
R3: SP108 QBNRNKBR
R4: SP763 RKNNBRQB
R5: SP326 NRBQKBRN

The five games in each round used the same position. There are lots of interesting games to choose from and I'll present a position or two in subsequent posts.

Rare Bird Tracking, Summer 2011

2011-09-10T17:22:00.005+02:00

A year ago I wrote a pair of posts -- Rare Bird Sightings and Rare Bird Tracking -- about the dearth of chess960 tournaments in the world. The situation hasn't changed much since then.

The Swiss Chess960 Championship was one of the events making up the 44th Biel International Chess Festival in July, where Magnus Carlsen finished ahead of second place Alexander Morozevich in the elite GM event. GM Boris Grachev (RUS, 2680) edged out GM Tigran Gharamian (FRA, 2670) on tiebreak to win the chess960 event. GM Alexandra Kosteniuk (SUI, 2530) finished third ahead of 37 other players, which was good enough to become the 2011 Swiss (!?) chess960 champion.

For the second year, the U.S. Open featured a chess960 side event, attracting 12 players this time; see Fisher Random (sic, see also below) for the results. WGM Jennifer Shahade, a two time U.S. Women's Champion, participated and wrote about the event for USchess.org: Jennifer on 960 (Fischer Random). She also mentioned another rare bird,

I'm really excited to deepen my understanding of 960 as some of the most creative chess minds in the World, including GM Hikaru Nakamura will face off next week in alternating rounds of 960 chess and rapid chess in K v. Q aka the Battle of the Sexes in Saint Louis.

GM Kosteniuk will be one of five women representing the Queens team in the Scheveningen style tournament.

***

Call it chess960, call it Fischer random, call it anything you want; just don't call it 'Fisher' chess, as in DAIVD NAVARA: FISHER CHESS HELPED ME (chess.ugrasport.com, the official site of the 2011 World Cup, currently in the quarter final stage). OK, they spelled GM Navara's first name wrong as well -- it's David, of course -- but at least they got a good quote from him after his first round victory.

My opponent made a good preparation and surprised me. I made a mistake, then another one and at some point Black had got an advantage. There was a non standard position where it was easy to blunder. But I play Fisher chess very well, I like these positions and as a result I managed to win.

The moral of the story: Even 2700+ GMs can be outprepared by opponents rated 200 points below them. Add chess960 techniques to your arsenal of chess weapons.

Chess960 with YouTube's Kingscrusher

2011-09-03T12:19:00.002+02:00

In my most recent post, Chess960 on YouTube's ChessNetwork, I spotlighted a chess960 video from a popular chess instruction channel on YouTube. Here's another clip from a different instruction channel that is also extremely popular.

Chessworld.net presents: Kingscrusher vs Kingscrusher Cafe Team (28:41) • 'Consultation game - Fischer Random' • SP431 RNQNKRBB

For more video clips, most of them about traditional chess but with a few chess960 videos in the mix, see Kingscrusher's Channel.

Chess960 on YouTube's ChessNetwork

2011-08-27T13:13:00.002+02:00

ChessNetwork is one of the most popular chess instruction channels on YouTube. Here's a chess960 clip from its owner, Jerry, 'A National Master in chess who enjoys educating others.'

LIVE Blitz Game #12 - Fischer Random - Chess 960 (14:19) • 'This is a video where I share my thoughts while playing a Fischer Random / Chess 960 blitz game.' • SP304 BBNQRKRN

For another chess960 clip from the same channel, see LIVE Blitz Game #17 - Fischer Random - Chess 960.

Updated Database of SPs (2011-08)

2011-08-20T17:56:00.004+02:00

For some reason I thought I had updated my database of start positions (SPs) after the beginning of the year, but was surprised to discover that it had in fact been almost a year ago: Updated Database of SPs (2010-08). I added 14 posts written since then that had addressed specific SPs, including two SPs where I had previously discussed the position:-

For SP535, which appeared in important rounds in two different years at Mainz, the post I added was the third.

'Alles muss raus!'

2011-08-13T15:43:00.002+02:00

In a perfect world this is the time of year I would be reporting on the chess960 events at Chess Classic Mainz (CCM). Unfortunately, the world we live in is far from perfect, and as I reported six months ago in No Place for Chess960, CCM is no more.

My first ever post on CCM was Chess Classic Mainz 2008 (CCM8), written a few months after I started playing chess960. I followed this up with an overview of all previous CCMs in Chess960 @ Chess Classic Mainz, a post that I frequently consult for detailed information on the different events.

In early 2009, I wondered if the Mainz event would survive the global economic slowdown that smacked our imperfect world in 2008, but was soon reassured that the organization was on track: Chess960 @ CCM9. As things turned out, the report on the 2009 event, CCM9: Nakamura, Grischuk, and Rybka, was my last. The chess960 events at CCM 2010 were severely curtailed to a single simul (see Rare Bird Sightings) and six months later the entire CCM 2011 extravaganza was cancelled for lack of sponsorship. The global slowdown had taken two years to exact its toll.

A few months ago I posted about one of the early events, CCM 2003,
and I plan to go back to the other early events -- 2004 through 2007 -- that I've never looked at in any depth. I would rather work with new material, but there just isn't any.

***

This year, at what should be CCM11, the only sign of life is a fire sale on CCM memorabilia, including t-shirts and caps: Alles muss raus! ('Everything must go!'). Get 'em while they last.

A Logical Contradiction

2011-08-06T12:04:00.002+02:00

This week I spent some time cleaning up my Every Move Explained series (see Last Proofreading? on my main blog) and was reminded of a relevant quote by GM Korchnoi that I used in the game 1969 Sarajevo - Kovacs vs Korchnoi.

Modern opening theory helps the weak, strange as it may seem. One can learn and even understand a variation without having a high chess qualification, but true strength manifests itself in positions which have been studied little or not at all. In playing [his previous move], White, in contrast to the positions in fashionable variations, quickly moves away from the well-trodden paths. As early as the next few moves, he is forced to think for himself, and this, as is well known, is the most difficult.

I've noted in the past that one of the arguments against chess960 is that, by obliterating opening theory, it somehow helps the weaker player against the stronger player; see, for example, More Arguments Against Chess960, although I could have used other sources. This seems contradictory. If opening theory helps the weaker player, how can the absence of it also help the weaker player? Who's right, Korchnoi or the chess960 critics?

Pawn Power in Chess960

2011-07-30T17:49:00.001+02:00

If the title of this post reminds you of the book 'Pawn Power in Chess' by Hans Kmoch, that's exactly what it's meant to do. I read it years ago, and while I can't say that it had any direct impact on my knowledge of chess, it certainly made me think more about Pawn structures. Already having some familiarity with the book's ideas, I wondered, 'How much of its content is relevant to chess960?'

'Pawn Power' is divided into three parts: 'The Elements of Pawn Play', 'Pawns and Pieces', and 'Pawn Power in the Game'. The first part, the 'Elements', presents the basic formations of Pawns that can arise during the course of a game: passed, isolated, backward, doubled, chained, etc. Unfortunately, Kmoch introduced an entirely new terminology that obscures his explanation and that renders his exposition meaningless without a guide to translation. For example,

'Helpers and sentries neutralize each other if there is a helper for every sentry. A half-free Pawn with inadequate help is no true candidate, but a faker.' (p.6) • 'An unfree Pawn or a faker may suddenly become a passer of decisive power by means of a sacrificial combination. We call such a Pawn a sneaker.' (p.8) • And much more of the same.

Chessville.com has just such a guide: Glossary of Terms 'Pawn Power in Chess'. If you manage to cut through the jargon, which was never adopted by other chess writers, you will see that his catalog of Pawn structures is comprehensive and applies equally to chess960.

The second part, 'Pawns and Pieces', presents specific characteristics of Pawn structures that enhance or reduce the powers of the Bishop, the Knight, and the Rook, with one chapter on each of the three pieces. For example, Bishops are affected by masses of Pawns on the same color or the opposite color that the Bishop moves; Knights prefer outposts where they can't be harrassed by enemy Pawns; Rooks work best on open files. This again applies equally to chess960, although Kmoch's examples are naturally drawn from positions in traditional chess (SP518 RNBQKBNR) where the specific opening is usually discernible in the position.

A further chapter, 'The Sealer and the Sweeper', deals with Pawn moves that close and open the position. I can't remember seeing any of this sort of action in any chess960 games, but there is nothing inherent to chess960 that excludes it from taking place. The last chapter in part two, 'The Center and the Fork Trick', is about a specific tactic that occurs in traditional chess, usually from 1.e4 openings.

The third part, 'Pawn Power in the Game', is about common formations that arise in the opening of traditional chess. About 60 pages, representing 20% of the book, deal with Benoni formations. I doubt there is much here that applies to chess960.

A web search on 'Pawn Power in Chess' returns reviews of more recent books in the same genre, for example Understanding Pawn Play in Chess on JeremySilman.com. While I haven't read any of these other books, I wouldn't be surprised to find that their content is just as relevant to chess960 as Kmoch's opus: 50% exclusive to traditional chess, 50% generic to chess960. This is still a higher percentage than most chess books, especially books on the opening, which are 100% exclusive to traditional chess.

Castling Too Soon

2011-07-23T10:14:00.005+02:00

My most recent pyramid game on Schemingmind.com (see Pyramids and Dropouts for an explanation) was an instructive example of when not to castle. I outrated my opponent, who challenged me, by almost 700 points, so the result was a foregone conclusion, barring some kind of a horrible blunder on my part.

The diagram shows the game after my opponent's first move 1.g3. At first I was puzzled by the move, but then realized that he intended to play the Queen to g2 and castle O-O as quickly as possible.

SP168 NBRNBKQR

After 1.g2-g3

While King safety is certainly important, the Kings are not in any particular danger here. I played 1...c5 with an eye on (1) development -- the move opens a diagonal for the Bb8, opens a file for the Rc8, and prepares ...Nc6 -- and on (2) the center, by staking a claim to d4. After the expected 2.Qg2, I continued 2...d5, opening a diagonal for the Be8 and staking a bigger claim to the center. Black's second move invites 3.Qxd5, but after 3...Bc6, I calculated that the complications were in Black's favor.

The game continued 3.O-O Nb6 4.c3. Since White's fourth move continued to ignore the center, I decided that it was already time to attack the castled King with 4...h5. After the further moves 5.h4 g5 6.hxg5 Qxg5, Black's attack is probably winning. By the time I castled O-O-O on the 11th move, all of my pieces were aimed at the White King. White resigned on the 18th move.

While castling is generally good, it's not always best, especially early in the game. It's primarily a defensive move, which renders it somewhat passive, and it fixes the position of the King as a target for the opoonent's pieces. Its shortcomings were exemplified in this miniature.

Fischer Random Bughouse

2011-07-16T16:44:00.001+02:00

Although it's been ages since I last played a game, my favorite four-person chess variant is bughouse. It's fast, it's social, and it lets you blame losing on your partner's bad play. If you're not sure what bughouse is, see the Wikipedia entry on Bughouse Chess. The USCF's Chess Life Online recently ran a piece titled The Secrets of Brooklyn’s Bughouse Champs, Part I: Openings, where you can see that bughouse players, for the first few moves at least, follow the same opening strategies used in traditional chess.

When I was active playing bughouse, I came to the conclusion that there were a lot of chess openings that didn't work very well. Wikipedia confirms this:-

There are significantly fewer bughouse openings than there are chess openings. Many chess openings create weaknesses which can be easily exploited in bughouse.

An obvious solution to this drawback is to introduce chess960 start positions (SPs) into bughouse. When I mentioned this idea to a friend who is both a teacher of traditional chess and a keen bughouse player, he answered,

Fischer Random Bughouse seems logical, because the choice of bughouse openings is not a large one. On a practical level, however, it is unlikely to take root just because it takes to long to set the board up. Among young players now, there is practically no down time between the end of one game and the start of another. It's all I can do to get them to wait a second so that the clocks can be started simultaneously. It could be an interesting idea for bughouse tournaments.

This is useful feedback, and I see no reason why the same SP couldn't be kept for the duration of a session. It would allow the players to explore some of the subtleties of the chosen SP. At the same time it occurred to me that keeping the same SP would also be an advantage in a chess960 blitz match.

The upshot of all this would be some sort of a gadget that allows the players to record an SP and then refer to it at the start of each new game. Nothing fancy is required. Eight tiles showing the pieces and a rack to hold them in place would be sufficient.

Chess960 Chaos

2011-07-09T17:24:00.003+02:00

Over on Chess960 Jungle, in a post titled Tricky Tricky Chess960, HarryO investigated a start position that I encountered in A Chess960 Catastrophe. The position, SP941 RKRBNQBN, was the start of a game at Mainz 2005, where GM Bacrot was completely lost against GM Aronian after four moves. HarryO concluded, '[Bacrot] stumbled on what I think could be amongst a few very very tricky SP's for Black to play and even worse it was against Aronian!' and 'There will be a very small number of SP's where Black's first move may have to be memorized or at least the tactical motifs will have to be memorized.'

Critics of chess960 like to say that there are some positions where the odds are stacked against Black at the beginning of the game and present this as a reason for not considering Fischer's greatest invention. Since these critics never give examples with analysis, unwitting readers might assume that they are right. Is SP941 such a position? I decided to take a closer look, subjecting it to engine analysis.

I'm not a big fan of using engines to analyze the early opening, where the best moves are often based on positional ideas like development and the center, rather than tactics. Engines also know nothing about piece harmony and coordination, a central concern in chess960 where the pieces are usually not as well coordinated as in the traditional start position, SP518 RNBQKBNR. In the case of SP941, where strong tactical motifs are present at the beginning of the game, an engine can help to cut through the tangle.

The first diagram shows the Aronian - Bacrot game after Aronian's first move. The most striking feature of the position is the RKR sitting in the corner. Castling is not going to be easy in this game and castling O-O is highly unlikely. The second feature is the weakness of the b- & d-Pawns. This was the problem that Bacrot underestimated.

To analyze the position, I used a normal engine that has no specific knowledge of chess960, i.e. without knowledge of the castling rules. Since castling does not play a role in the early moves, this is not a big disadvantage. The engine is the strongest I have, analyzing the early opening to >20-ply in only a few minutes, a feat that my chess960 engines can't do. After running the engine against the position with 1.e4, I looked at the top four moves it suggested: 1...f5, 1...f6, 1...e5, and 1...c5.

The first candidate move, 1...f5 leads to the early development of the Black Queen after 2.exf5 Qxf5. Now White can attack the Queen immediately with 3.Ng3, when 3...Qa5 calls to mind the Scandinavian Defense in SP518. Not all players are comfortable with an early deployment of the Queen and, while it looks safe on a5, its exposed position will certainly become a factor sooner or later.

Like 1...f5, the second candidate, 1...f6, opens the diagonal for the Bg8, but does little for the center. White can play an immediate 2.Bg4, hitting the weak d-Pawn, when Black responds 2...e6. This line of play looks passive and might not appeal to players who are looking for more than solidity in the opening.

The third candidate, 1...e5, was Bacrot's choice. It certainly looks natural. It uses a strategy of symmetry, which is often a good strategy for Black in the early moves of a chess960 game, and it opens diagonals for a Bishop and the Queen. The engine favors Aronian's move 2.Nd3 over all others, then suggests 2...f6 and 2...Ng6 for Black. Bacrot chose 2...Ng6, when Aronian answered 3.f4, also the heavy favorite for the engine. The two-fisted threat is 4.Nc5 & 5.Qb5, winning immediately. Instead of Bacrot's 3...Bf6, which overlooked the threat, the engine suggests 3...c5.

After the similar 2...f6 3.f4 c5, shown in the second diagram above, Black's position looks chaotic. The three Black Pawn moves aren't harmonized into any obvious plan and the e-Pawn is hanging. Although Black can recover it, the variations I looked at were all equally chaotic. It would take more analysis to determine if there is anything more to Black's game than parrying White's threats, but I stopped there.

The fourth candidate move, 1...c5 (the SP941 Sicilian?), also leads to chaotic looking positions. Its first merit is to interfere with White's Nc5, and by opening the file for a lift of the c-Rook and a diagonal for the dark squared Bishop, it heads for a fast ...O-O-O. HarryO advises to forget about it, but I think it's worth a try.

If I were faced with the position after 1.e4, I would probably play 1...e5, because I like advancing in the center. Would I see the idea with 4.Nc5 & 5.Qb5? If one of the world's top grandmasters missed it, what are the chances for us grandpatzers?

Chess960 Waits for No One

2011-07-02T17:03:00.006+02:00

Two weeks of vacation means three weekends without chess960 blogging which means four weeks since my last post, Alas for GM Grischuk and for Chess960. It took me a few days to catch up with chess news (what in the world was Ilyumzhinov thinking when he travelled to Libya?) and I was happy to see some good, new ideas on chess960.

Continuing with the 'Alas!' post, I noted two more chess960 references on ChessInTranslation.com. The first was another interview with GM Grischuk, It’s the end of classical chess as we know it (and I feel fine):-

A: For now we can discuss and debate about whether we’ve come to [the death of traditional chess] yet or not. But it’s clear that the situation will get worse and worse, by the year, by the month. How is it all going to end? For me that’s obvious. For now it’s still possible to argue about whether we’ve come to that stage. • Q: And how can we escape? • A: The escape is either reducing the time control, or chess960, which I consider the ideal solution – simply ideal in all regards. That also allows you to play with a long time control.

Moreover, at the moment we’ve got a situation where the control is quite artificially extended, because it was always two hours for forty moves (well, or two and a half), but that was for forty moves! Or for thirty. While now you often end up with two hours for fifteen moves. What on earth is two hours for fifteen moves? It’s idiotic. In chess960, however, it really will be two hours for forty moves, without any forced draws… I simply don’t entirely understand why chess will lose anything from that. Well, it’ll be impossible to tell children that the king is the king, the queen is his wife, and they should stand together, holding hands. And then that to the side of them are the pontiffs, the horses and in the corners there are castles. I really don’t think that’s such an enormous part of chess.

The second was an interview with the President of the Russian Chess Federation, who is also a FIDE Vice President, Ilya Levitov: "For me, classical chess is opera":-

Fischer Random Chess tournaments should be run – only not using all 960 possible positions that the computer can randomly choose, but excluding those which lead to overly absurd and disharmonious starting positions. Vladimir Kramnik says, "That’s a different game". I agree with him. But just look who becomes World Champion in that "different game": Svidler, Aronian, Nakamura. Well-known faces! Those who play well in normal chess don’t feel so uncomfortable in Fischer Random Chess either!

On the same theme is an opinion piece from Technorati.com,
Chess Is Dying?:-

Chess is fast approaching a dead end one can say. That does not mean that every chess game has been played or chess is "solved". But top grandmasters with the help of chess engines have figured out most of the positions in today's chess openings and have concluded them as either winning for one side or a draw. [...] A radical solution would be to play Fischer Random Chess - a variant of chess in which both the sides have their first rank pieces in a random order. There are 960 starting positions in Fischer Random Chess and none of them have been studied even with a fraction of the resources as the traditional chess starting position. All the opening analysis and home-cooked novelties are meaningless in this chess variant (and there are enough of them to last a few centuries!) and you play the man over the board.

On Chess.com I encountered an idea to generate start positions that I hadn't seen before, Chess 960 Pieces:-

A good method for setting it up, is to write the numbers 1-8 on the bottom of the white Pawns, let the black player put the white Pawns on the board to make sure the white player does not know what is on their bottom, and let the white player put the Pawns on the second rank. Then, look on the bottom of each Pawn, and put behind them on the same file in the following order: Behind 1, put a Bishop. [...]

Chess960 Jungle hasn't been sitting still either. HarryO has started collecting puzzles that arise from the opening moves of a chess960 start position. The first one is at Chess960: Opening puzzles no.1. This is a great idea if you're tired of seeing puzzles that start with, e.g., a Bishop sac on h7. I'm sure that one day we'll see entire chess960 books, ebooks most likely, on this topic.

Alas for GM Grischuk and for Chess960

2011-06-04T16:37:00.005+02:00

After GM Grischuk clawed his way into the final match of the 2011 Kazan Candidates Event, beating GMs Aronian and Kramnik, both among the favorites in the preliminary rounds, I was looking forward to his winning the event and to my writing another post about his chess960 exploits at Chess Classic Mainz (CCM). Alas for Grischuk and chess960, but fortunately for his final opponent, GM Gelfand, it was not to be.

After the match ended, I received a couple of messages from other chess960 fans -- a comment to The Clock Is/Isn't Ticking, for example (thanks to all for the heads-up) -- informing me that the Russian GM had made a positive remark on chess960 in Grischuk: I was worried I'd forgotten how to play chess (ChessInTranslation.com):-

[Boris Gelfand] thinks my statement about "the burial of classical chess" is complete nonsense, while I still think that classical chess doesn't have long to go. Why did I mention it while I was still winning matches? Because when someone's losing people put it down to that – the man lost so that's why he's talking like that. But I said it when I'd won a match, and then another. And now I still don't see any prospects for classical chess.

Fischer Chess is very promising. It's also named chess960, after all, as there are 960 starting position. Well, some of those positions are a little absurd i.e. the pieces stand in absurd positions… Perhaps you don't need to use all the 960 starting positions but, let's say, 200 or 300? I don't know the exact number. I think that really would get rid of all the forced draws, because it's impossible to analyse 100 starting positions, never mind 900. I think the most promising option is Fischer Chess.

While I don't agree with the idea of limiting the number of chess960 start positions, it's a suggestion that any circle of chess960 players can decide for themselves. There is nothing to stop anyone from limiting competition to a single, specific start position, just as there is nothing to stop someone else from allowing all 960 positions including the traditional position.

I've mentioned Grischuk a number of times on this blog, starting with a post on my main blog, Comments on Chess960 Opening Theory. I was planning to point visitors to the search box on the right to find other chess960 posts about Grischuk, but the widget is out-of-order for the moment, so I'll list them specifically.

CCM9: Nakamura, Grischuk, and Rybka • 'Grischuk wins FiNet Chess960 Open'
More from Mainz 2009 • 'Insights from the interview with Grischuk included the following...'
Grischuk - Mamedyarov, Mainz 2009 • 'During the interview Grischuk mentioned his game against Mamedyarov.'
Attention to the Chess960 Center • 'I was playing like g4/b4, but in order to play like this successfully you have to be either Aronian or Nakamura.'
Oversight or Intentional? • 2009 Internet Chess960 Championship: GM Alexander Grischuk

When Grischuk won the 2009 FiNet Open, he earned a place in the next CCM World Championship, where he would have faced reigning World Champion Nakamura. Alas for Grischuk and chess960 -- see No Place for Chess960 -- it was not to be.

Watch out for ****KRBN

2011-05-28T17:40:00.001+02:00

As I pointed out in A Chess960 Catastrophe, 2700+ GMs can get caught by chess960 tactical surprises, so it's no wonder that lesser players get caught as well. The diagram is one move into a game that started with SP301 QNRBKRBN. The players might not have been super GMs, but they were both top-15 chess960 players at Schemingmind.com. I imagine that after White's 1.Ng3, Black reacted somewhat automatically with 1...Ng6. Symmetric opening play is, after all, a standard strategy for Black in many chess960 start positions.

Black must have been very surprised when his opponent replied 2.Nh5, attacking the Pawn on g7, a Pawn which cannot be defended. Even worse, the Knight move threatens smothered mate. Black answered 2...f6, along with the comment, 'Ugly starting position and I bungled it.' It's like giving odds of Pawn and move.

SP301 QNRBKRBN

What should Black have played in response to 1.Ng3? One idea is 1...f6, opening the diagonal for the Bg8. If then 2.Nh5, Black has 2...g6, and if White continues 3.Ng7+, the Knight is trapped after 3...Kf7. Another idea is 1...b6, with a counterattack on White's g2. The obvious move is 1...g6, preventing the White Knight from going to either f5 or h5, but I don't like this move because it does nothing for Black's development and takes the natural square from the Knight on h8.

A little thought convinced me that any position starting ****KRBN is susceptible to the same tactic. How many such positions are there? Since the remaining White Bishop must be placed on one of the two light squares, when the other three pieces can then be placed on any empty square, there are 2 x 3 x 2 = 12 positions. The same tactic is possible for any twin of those 12 positions, i.e. the positions starting NBRK****, although these have the additional possibility of castling 1...O-O-O.

How do the CCRL engines (see the right sidebar for a link) handle SP301? Of the 82 games currently archived there, White opened 1.Ng3 in 63 of them. The following table shows how many times Black responded with various moves:-

1...f6 x 34
1...f5 x 16

1...g6 x 5
1...b6 x 3
1...e6 x 3
1...e5 x 2

The move 1...f6 is the overwhelming favorite, followed by the surprising 1...f5. It's no surprise, however, that the unfortunate 1...Ng6 was not selected by any of the engines.

The Clock Is/Isn't Ticking

2011-05-21T17:45:00.004+02:00

In last week's post on Naming Things, I issued a rain check because I was too busy researching the Sicilian Defense for a gaggle of correspondence games. This weekend I have to issue another rain check for the same reason. The games have all advanced to the range of 8-10 moves played and are all still in theory. That means the variations have been played many times before, even if it happens to be the first time I'm playing one in a correspondence game.

I use Chesslab.com as a database for opening research. It's well maintained and reliable, and serves my purposes very well. I know many players like to maintain their own databases of master level games, but I've never had much interest in doing so. It's not that I can't -- my professional background is in database management -- it's that I know how much effort database maintenance requires and I have other ways I like to spend my time.

As for my ongoing Sicilians, the game with the least theory on the current position has about 40 examples on Chesslab. The games with the most theory still have many thousands of examples, including hundreds of games played at the super grandmaster level (>2700). I'll probably reach move 15-20 in those games before I have to start relying on my own chess sense.

In contrast to those Sicilian games, I started two new chess960 correspondence games this past week. Neither game has reached the third move and both are already demanding deep analysis of candidate moves and their consequences. The event is the fifth round of a knockout tournament, so my opponents are both experienced chess960 players. One slip at an early stage will likely mean a lost game.

A few years ago I wrote a post about Differences Between Chess and Chess960, where everything I said still rings true. I might add that traditional chess covers only a tiny portion of the universe of interesting chess positions. The difference between chess and chess960 is like the difference between a small hobbyist telescope in your back yard and the Hubble space telescope.

I'll close this post with another plug for Chess960 Jungle. HarryO wrote this week about The chess clock - when it should start ticking. It's an important subject that's given short shrift in the implementation of online chess960. I imagine that most chess960 software developers are building on an existing implementation of traditional chess and reuse the same clock specifications that have been developed for the traditional game. The considerations for chess and chess960 are, however, a world apart in the opening phase.

In traditional chess you're basically on autopilot for the first few moves because you've seen the start position thousands of times. In chess960, you're on your own from the very first move. It is fundamentally unfair to let White consider the first move without using clock time, then start the clock for Black as soon as White has moved. You could say that the unfairness applies to all players 50% of the time, but if you're playing a chess960 game for an important prize and you happen to have Black, that 50% argument doesn't help you. I could say a lot more about this last topic, but the Sicilians beckon. Maybe next week...

Naming Things

2011-05-14T17:45:00.004+02:00

No time for a real post this weekend. I started a dozen new correspondence games during the past week, most of them in traditional chess (SP518 RNBQKBNR), and am wading in opening database research. All of the SP518 games are for the third (semifinal) stage of a multi-stage event, so my opponents are good players.

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.

CCM 2003

2011-05-07T18:39:00.001+02:00

After writing the post on Svidler - Leko, Mainz 2003, I took another look at the links for the year 2003 on Chess960 @ Chess Classic Mainz (CCM). That was the year when the CCM organizers introduced the basic format that was kept until the end of the annual series in 2011 (as reported in No Place for Chess960) -- the winner of a 'World Championship' match played the winner of an open tournament in another match held the following year.

Before the 2003 match, GM Svidler gave an interview where he discussed winning the CCM Chess960 Open in 2002, Thanks to Twins I am back in the Top-10.

Q: Can you benefit from chess960 in a normal chess game? A: So far I haven’t played enough chess960 to draw any definite conclusions, but it can certainly help develop intuition and tactical alertness, since you can’t rely on knowledge any more and have to improvise in every game.

After the first two games of the match, both draws, he said,

We could not entertain the people that much today, but there were some funny moments in the first game, because we were not sure how to castle in a certain position. We asked the arbiter after the game and he showed us how to do it. But I will promise you: we will learn!

I can't imagine that happening in a high level chess960 match today. After winning the match +2-1=5, Svidler said somewhat modestly,

I was outplayed in the opening in all games, but as soon as I started getting the pieces off the back rank, I played good chess.

The games were played at a time control of 25 minutes per game plus 10 seconds per move (G/25+10), while 'Starting positions will be known only about five minutes prior to the start of the games.' Here are some quotes from the report on the open (G/20+5), won by Aronian (2. Chess960 Open):

Zvjaginsev: "I have never played Chess960 before. It is quite unusual to think from move one on, because you have to play basic chess. Some positions were quite difficult today, e.g. in the third round in which I played a very sharp game. My opponent could have drawn but I was lucky. But don't ask me to recall the initial positions because I have no idea!"

I.Sokolov: "If I would have to play 100 rated games a year in this chess variant, I would go completely mad! It is so different, but I have to admit that I like playing chess960 occasionally. It will not replace classical chess, but it is good alternative. I am very tired now, because you have to start thinking on move one! More time would be better for the quality of the games. I would probably think about the initial position for at least 20 minutes. I don't know yet what is more important: developing the pieces or trying to occupy the centre quickly."

Aronian (after the last game): "I don't really like playing chess960, because I have to think too much in the initial position. I am not used to use my head in the opening. I have to admit that I was very lucky in the last round, the position was probably losing. There were some odd positions in this tournament, some of them were very hard to play with black. But in normal chess it is not always fun to play with the black pieces as well. I think it is important to open lines for the Bishops, but you know, every position is different and difficult."

Along with the two main events, both Svidler and Leko gave 20 game simuls, with 20 different start positions each. A real novelty was a game Chess Tigers against the Rest of the World, featuring SP017 BNQBNRKR and one pair of moves per day. I haven't tried to replay the game from the many comments in that last link, but it might be possible.

The most remarkable document to emerge from CCM 2003 was written by Mr.CCM himself, Hans-Walter Schmitt: A pleading for Fischer’s ideas - say "Yes" to Chess960. It starts,

"Experts are playing for experts": With breakneck speed, the two world champions Ponomariov and Anand are playing the 21 opening moves of the Najdorf variation in the Sicilian Defense. The time used so far is 16 seconds on one side, 21 seconds on the other side – one observer in the tournament hall sighs protestingly "The organiser should make them play slower in the opening – there's no chance of enjoying the game". Despite grandmasters Yussupov's and Lobron's commentary via headphone, despite a video screen 4 times 5 meters in size as in a cinema, despite the directly visible players on stage, the ordinary chessplayer sitting comfortably in his chair understands nothing at all.

And later,

What happens to chessplayers who have to subdivide their time differently after having set up a family or having started a time-consuming job? They stop playing chess because with abandoning only one thing, they gain an enormous amount of time which they can spend on other, more important aspects of life. Furthermore, it is not beneficial for their image or even psychologically unacceptable not to present themselves successful in their favorite hobby. Most often, they are defeated easily by people with enough spare time, just because they have the time to continue studying more and more theory. Thus, they are not found in the club-structure of today anymore. The organised chess, especially chess played in clubs, generally has nothing to offer for socially successful people with not enough leisure time.

There are many other chess960 discussion topics in this visionary document and I would like to return to it in a future post.

Svidler - Leko, Mainz 2003

2011-04-30T18:02:00.000+02:00

In my previous post, The Path of Bliss?, I mentioned a game by GM Peter Svidler from the recent 2011 European Championship where Svidler opened with 1.g3. The blog Chess960 Jungle expanded on this with Chess960-SP080: The Buckingham Palace Defense, where HarryO wrote, 'This amazing 1.g3 game looks like the players grew up playing chess960'. I don't know about the player of the Black pieces who, after seeing the move 1.g3, 'sat there, trying hard to think, and simply wasn't able to find a decent reply', but Svidler was a multiple winner at Chess Classic Mainz (CCM).

According to my page Chess960 @ Chess Classic Mainz, the super-strong Russian GM won the 1st Chess960 Open in 2002, where he earned the right to a match against the reigning chess960 World Champion Peter Leko in 2003. He won that match, followed up with match wins against Aronian in 2004 and Almasi in 2005, then lost to Aronian in 2006. After the lost match, he appears to have hung up his chess960 spurs and did not compete in CCM again.

The first match against GM Leko was a close affair. Svidler had White in the first game and the first three games were drawn. In the fourth game, Leko won with Black; there was another draw; Svidler won with Black to level the score; and there was another draw. The last game saw Svidler playing with White in a game with start position BNNRQKRB (SP051).

The players started 1.d4 d5 2.g3 g6 3.O-O O-O 4.b3 Nc6 5.e3 b6, leading to the first diagram, where the start position is still discernible. Among the special characterisitics of the position are the four Bishops placed in the corners, and the right to castle O-O on the first move. In the first five moves, both players have released their Bishops and castled O-O. The game continued 6.c4 dxc4 7.bxc4 Nd6 8.Nd2 Na5 9.Bxa8 Rxa8, as shown in the second diagram. One pair of Bishops has already been swapped off, a frequent occurrence in start positions where the Bishops are in the corners.

In the second diagram, White appears to be in trouble. The c-Pawn is attacked twice and defended only once. If 10.Qe2 to defend the Pawn, then 10...Qa4 attacks it again, when there are no more pieces to aid in the defense.

Svidler solved the problem with 10.Ncb3, sacrificing the Pawn. After 10...Naxc4 11.Nxc4 Nxc4, he continued 12.Rc1 Qa4 13.Qe2 b5 14.Nc5 Qa5 15.Bc3 Qa3, developing his forces on every move while Black was obliged to play defensively. Now there came 16.Rc2, threatening the terrible 17.Rb1 with a Queen trap. Leko played 16...b4, letting White recover the Pawn. White's position was better than Black's and Svidler won in 63 moves to become the second chess960 World Champion after Leko.

The Path of Bliss?

2011-04-23T17:26:00.004+02:00

The site ChessInTranslation.com appeared in the first half of last year and immediately became a big hit with fans of top level chess. I mentioned it on my main blog in July 2010 (see ChessInTranslation.com) and have been following it ever since. A recent post translating GM Shipov's comments on a game from the 2011 European Championship at Aix-les-Bains, France, sounded like a promotion for chess960: The massacre of the innocents.

Kids and Hulking Brutes: To catch your opponent out in an opening line, to arrive for a game and, without making even a single move of your own at the board, to get a won position – that's the dream of any chess player. And if, in former times, such victories were won through the blood, sweat and tears of long home analysis – moreover, without complete confidence in the quality of the analysis, and knowing that your opponent would sometimes find strong refutations at the board – the situation has now changed.

Nowadays you need to choose the sharpest of lines, where you've looked at the complications with a computer, while your opponent hasn't. And the game's in the bag!

It's as if there's a fight between young school pupils, but from behind the back of one of the kids an older hulking brute towers up and lands crushing blows against his defenceless young opponent.

According to the Shipov's notes, Black(!) unleashed a novelty on move 9, followed preparation for a few moves ('14…Be6!; This was the first move in the game on which [Black] spent even a little time thinking'), and accepted his opponent's resignation on the 19th move. I could comment on the notion that 'the dream of any chess player' is 'to get a won position without making even a single move of your own at the board', but I'll leave that to scholastic chess coaches and other proponents of chess in the schools. Instead, I'll just point out that when Shipov asks,

What is there for us, kids, to do in the current traumatic situation? There are only two options.
1. Prepare hard with a computer around the whole perimeter of the opening repertoire.
2. Avoid topical and sharp lines, taking Svidler's approach.

then answers,

There's also a third, purely hypothetical, possibility: to reach the level of Kasparov and Kramnik, i.e. to become a hulking brute yourself! To learn to play an unfamiliar position at the same strength as a decent computer program.

he is overlooking another possibility that isn't hypothetical and doesn't require becoming a 'hulking brute'. Readers of this blog will know exactly what I mean.

A reference at the bottom of that post points to another Chess In Translation post that had appeared a few days earlier and that I had also selected for mention on this chess960 blog: The future belongs to 1.g3!. Here's Shipov, again on a game from Aix-les-Bains:-

I've just returned to the hotel after watching the start of the fourth round. I'm in a state of shock. At the tables I said hello to the five-time Russian Champion Peter Svidler, then I had a look at his game – and was dumbfounded. The move 1.g3 had been made on the board, and his opponent – the Greek grandmaster Mastrovasilis – was spending a long time studying the position and, it seems, couldn't believe his own eyes. No doubt he'd been preparing from yesterday evening to lunch today for the normal 1.e4, had unearthed a couple of deep saving resources – and then he gets an incredible surprise like that at the board. He sat there, trying hard to think, and simply wasn't able to find a decent reply.

Here's the game on Chessgames.com: Peter Svidler vs Athanasios Mastrovasilis; 12th European Individual Championship 2011. Later Shipov added,

[Svidler] had the urge to simply play chess – to leave the beaten paths and recall his youth. After all, in our childhood all of us, out of ignorance, played mischievous setups in which you had to start thinking from the very first move. And everyone will confirm that was the happiest period of their life. So why not try to recover at least a fraction of that carefree past?

That truly is happiness – not to have to cram up on a ton of variations in the morning before the next round, not to have to study new games, not to have to sit at the computer expecting miracles from chess engines.

If that 'truly is happiness', then chess960 is bliss.

Parallel Games II

2011-04-16T16:50:00.005+02:00

In my previous post, Parallel Games, I used a pair of games from Schemingmind.com's Chess960 League - Season One, so it's natural that I follow up with two games from Season Two. The opponents are again both top-10 players on the site and, as luck would have it, I've already had the opportunity to play both of them, finishing 0-2.

The players were assigned start position SP287 NRKNRQBB, which reminded me of the position discussed in NR****Q* & *Q****RN. The difference is that in the current games we have NR****B* instead of NR****Q*, where the Bishop instead of the Queen is positioned to attack the undefended a-Pawn on the diagonal. The top diagram shows the position after 1.f4 f5 2.Bxa7 Bxa2 3.g3 g6 4.Nb3 Bxb1 5.Kxb1 Nb6 6.Bxb8 Kxb8 in the first game; the bottom diagram shows the position after 1.f4 Nb6 2.g3 f5 3.Nb3 g6 4.e4 fxe4 5.Bxe4 e5 in the second. I show one extra move pair in the first game to close the sequence of tactical recaptures.

Both players chose to open 1.f4, a move which attacks the a-Pawn with the Bishop on g1. In the game with NR****Q*, Black had the option of sacrificing the a-Pawn in return for a gain of time by encircling the Queen. In the present position, Black doesn't have this option, because the Bishop on a7 attacks the Rook on b8, threatening to win the exchange. In place of the Pawn sacrifice, Black has the possibility of copying White's tactic with 1...f5. Now the Bishop on g8 attacks the Pawn on a2, threatening to win the Rook on b1.

It's instructive that in one game, Black copied the tactic to win the exchange, while in the other Black declined by blocking the diagonal with ...Nb6. This apparently forced White to do the same. In the first game both players forfeited the castling option by capturing the Bishop with the King. In the second game you might guess that the players would castle O-O-O; in fact, only White castled and, in the other direction, by O-O. Here are the PGN scores of both games, again courtesy of SchemingMind.com.

[Event "Chess960: Chess960 League"]
[Site "SchemingMind.com"]
[Date "2006.05.10"]
[Round "-"]
[White "Tyler"]
[Black "dmichael"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "nrknrqbb/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/NRKNRQBB w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.f4 f5 2.Bxa7 Bxa2 3.g3 g6 4.Nb3 Bxb1 5.Kxb1 Nb6 6.Bxb8 Kxb8 7.d4 e6 8.c3 d5 9.e3 Nf7 10.Nf2 Nd6 11.Kc2 Qh6 12.h4 Kc8 13.Nc5 Kd8 14. Bf3 Ke7 15.Qh1 Nbc4 16.b3 Na3+ 17.Kd3 Qf8 18.Ra1 Ra8 19.h5 Bg7 20. hxg6 hxg6 21.g4 c6 22.Kd2 b6 23.Na4 Ndc4+ 24.Ke2 fxg4 25.Nxg4 Qf5 26. Ra2 g5 27.Qc1 Qb1 28.Qxb1 Nxb1 29.Kd3 b5 30.bxc4 Rxa4 31.Rxa4 bxa4 32. Bd1 dxc4+ 33.Kc2 Na3+ 34.Kb2 Nb5 35.Bxa4 gxf4 36.exf4 1/2-1/2

[Event "Chess960: Chess960 League"]
[Site "SchemingMind.com"]
[Date "2006.04.29"]
[Round "-"]
[White "dmichael"]
[Black "Tyler"]
[Result "0-1"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "nrknrqbb/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/NRKNRQBB w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.f4 Nb6 2.g3 f5 3.Nb3 g6 4.e4 fxe4 5.Bxe4 e5 6.Bc5 d6 7.Bxb6 axb6 8.Qh3+ Ne6 9.fxe5 Bg7 10.Nd4 c6 11.Nxe6 Rxe6 12.exd6 Qxd6 13.Bd3 Qd7 14.Ne3 b5 15.a3 Kc7 16.Qg4 Qe7 17.Qf4+ Be5 18.Qg4 Rd8 19.O-O h5 20. Qf3 h4 21.g4 Bd4 22.Qf4+ Kc8 23.Rfe1 Bc5 24.Qf3 Qg5 25.b4 Rf8 26.Qh3 Bb6 27.Bf1 Rd8 28.Kh1 Rxd2 0-1

Since the games ended with different results, it's natural to look for the reason in the early moves. Is it a coincidence that the draw resulted from the game where two pieces -- a Rook and a Bishop -- disappeared from the board in the first few moves?

Parallel Games

2011-04-02T16:57:00.001+02:00

In my post Chess960 Short Cuts, I introduced chess960 leagues and team play on Schemingmind.com.

The matches feature two concurrent games between each pair of players, both games using the same start position with colors switched. This should allow some useful comparisons and contrasts about how good players tackle start positions. The current season marks the fifth year for the league.

The first games I looked at were from Chess960 League - Season One (the link only works if you are a member and signed-in, but it's free to a point, like most online play sites these days), between a couple of top-10 players assigned start position SP779 QRKNBRNB. The position after five moves in both games is shown in the diagram. The first game started 1.f4 g6 2.g3 d6 3.e4 Nc6 4.Nf3 e5 5.fxe5 Nxe5, the second 1.d3 g6 2.Bc3 Bxc3 3.Nxc3 d6 4.g3 Bc6 5.e4 e5.

Although the two games have followed different paths, there are a number of similarities. Both players in both games have quickly activated the Bishop in the corner by pushing the g-Pawn to the third rank, and both have taken a stake in the center by pushing the e-Pawn two squares. It also looks probable that both White and Black will castle O-O-O in both games, which is what happened.

The problem piece is the Queen. There is no obvious way for it to get into the game, so I looked a little further to see how the players developed it. In both games, Black played ...a6 and brought the Queen into play via a7. White did similar in the second game, although a2-a4 was played instead of pushing the Pawn a single square. In the first game, White followed a different plan: d2-d3, Be1-c3, and b2-b3.

White won both games, but it would take a more detailed analysis to determine why. Here are the PGN scores of both games, courtesy of SchemingMind.com.

[Event "Chess960: Chess960 League"]
[Site "SchemingMind.com"]
[Date "2005.07.31"]
[Round "-"]
[White "dmichael"]
[Black "Chess Tiger"]
[Result "1-0"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "qrknbrnb/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/QRKNBRNB w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.f4 g6 2.g3 d6 3.e4 Nc6 4.Nf3 e5 5.fxe5 Nxe5 6.d3 Bd7 7.Nxe5 Bxe5 8.Bg2 O-O-O 9.Bc3 a6 10.b3 Bxc3 11.Qxc3 Qa7 12.Nb2 Qe3+ 13.Qd2 Qc5 14.O-O-O f5 15.d4 Qa7 16.exf5 Bxf5 17.Nc4 Nf6 18.Ne3 Be6 19.Qa5 h6 20.Qc3 Rf7 21.Qd3 Rg8 22.Rf2 Nd7 23.Rxf7 Bxf7 24.Bh3 1-0

[Event "Chess960: Chess960 League"]
[Site "SchemingMind.com"]
[Date "2005.08.01"]
[Round "-"]
[White "Chess Tiger"]
[Black "dmichael"]
[Result "1-0"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "qrknbrnb/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/QRKNBRNB w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.d3 g6 2.Bc3 Bxc3 3.Nxc3 d6 4.g3 Bc6 5.e4 e5 6.O-O-O Ne6 7.f4 O-O-O 8.Nge2 Nh6 9.h3 a6 10.f5 gxf5 11.exf5 Nd4 12.Bxc6 Nxc6 13.Nd5 f6 14. a4 Ng8 15.Qa2 Qa7 16.Qc4 Nge7 17.Nec3 Nxd5 18.Nxd5 Qd4 19.Rf4 Qxc4 20. Rxc4 h5 21.Rg1 Rf7 22.c3 Rh8 23.Kd2 Kd7 24.a5 Rc8 25.Rh4 Nxa5 26.Rxh5 Rcf8 27.h4 Nc6 28.g4 Ne7 29.Nxe7 Kxe7 30.Rh6 Rg7 31.Ke3 Rff7 32.Rg6 Rh7 33.h5 Rf8 34.Kf3 1-0

For each game, was the seed of victory in the diagrammed position or was it introduced later?

NR****Q* & *Q****RN

2011-03-26T12:05:00.003+01:00

One of my first games on Chesscube (see How I Spent My Free Day) began with the setup shown in the diagram (SP362 NRKRBBQN). I had the Black pieces and my opponent opened 1.f4, attacking the Pawn on a7 with the Queen.

It's not obvious how to defend the a-Pawn. The move 1...Nb6 cedes the center after 2.e4. This might be playable, but the rapid time control left no time to work out the nuances. The move 1...a6 has the same defect as the move 1...Nb6, without doing anything for Black's development. Ditto for 1...b6 with the additional disadvantage of blocking the best square for the Knight on a8.

SP362 NRKRBBQN

After 1.f2-f4

I decided to sacrifice the a-Pawn with 1...d5. It's not an important Pawn and if White captures it, Black gets some initiative with 2.Qxa7 Nb6 3.Qa3 Ra8, which is what happened in the game. After 4.Qb3, we continued 4...e6 5.a3 Bd6 6.Bf2 Nc4 7.e3 Na5 8.Qc3 Ng6 9.Nb3 Nxb3+ 10.Qxb3 Ba4 11.Qc3 f6 12.d3 Qf7. Although Black hasn't recovered the Pawn, the initiative and better development still offer some compensation. Now White made a mistake with 13.Rd2, giving up the option of castling O-O. After 13...O-O, I was happy with my game and eventually won.

Getting back to the sacrifice of the a-Pawn, I had already seen the tactical trick involving the Queen vs. the Rook & Knight in another game, but couldn't remember where. I wondered how many such positions there are in chess960, queried my database of start positions to find out, and discovered that there are 18 positions with the N, R, and Q on the a-, b-, and g-files. Since each of those positions has a corresponding twin (N, R, and Q on the h-, g-, and b-files), there are exactly 36 positions with a similar tactic, or 3.75% of all positions.

An analysis like I did in Introduction to Chess960 Geometry, would tell me why there are 18 positions of the type NR****Q*, but I'll leave that for another time. Right now I'd rather know the best way for White to play after the sacrifice of the a-Pawn in the game, and I'd like to know if 1...Nb6 is playable.

***

Later: In fact, it's not difficult to derive that there are 18 positions of type NR****Q*. Of the five unassigned squares, one Bishop can be placed on three of them and the other Bishop on two. That leaves three squares to place the second Knight. The King and second Rook must then be placed according to the rules of chess960: King between the Rooks. The arithmetic is then 3 x 2 x 3 =18.

Chess960 Short Cuts

2011-03-19T16:35:00.004+01:00

Posting only once a week on chess960 means a lot of good topics fall through the sieve. Here are a few points that are worth mentioning and that might provide useful material for future posts.

LSS: The Lechenicher SchachServer, Lss.chess-server.net, listed to the right under 'Correspondence (Turnbased)' online play sites and better known as LSS, has offered chess960 since June 2009. I've played traditional chess there for several years, but haven't tried the chess960 play because the unusual c960 time controls aren't compatible with a busy schedule. I'm sure I'll try it one of these days. The site recently released its first PGN archive of chess960 game scores. Since the file includes the players' ratings they should be a good source of games between strong players.

Scheming Mind: Another 'Correspondence' online play site is Schemingmind.com, where I've been playing chess960 since I first took it up. Thanks to an invitation from one of the team captains, I just found out that they have leagues and team play. This in itself wouldn't be worth mentioning, except that the matches feature two concurrent games between each pair of players, both games using the same start position with colors switched. This should allow some useful comparisons and contrasts about how good players tackle start positions. The current season marks the fifth year for the league.

Chess960 Jungle: HarryO, who has been commenting on this blog since last summer, has started his own blog called Chess960 Jungle, also linked on the right sidebar. He has a different angle on things than I do, so I'm sure our two blogs will be complementary.

The Google Lottery: As the following image attests, both this blog and my main blog, Chess for All Ages (CFAA), appeared in the top-5 links on a chess960 search. Appearing at 3rd & 5th on the list probably says more about the lack of good chess960 sites than it does about my skills as a blogger, but I was still pleased to see it.

Since then, this blog has fallen back to its usual place around 9th-10th, and CFAA has disappeared off the radar. Oh, well! Glad I took the snapshot of the screen for my scrapbook.

Chess960 Online Play Sites

2011-03-12T11:53:00.000+01:00

To keep track of chess960 online play sites, I added two new widgets to the right sidebar:-

Crossboard (Live) Chess960
Correspondence (Turnbased) Chess960

I haven't played on all of the sites and I'm not sure whether the list is complete, but it's a start. If you know of another chess960 online play site, add a comment to this post or send me an email using the address listed in my profile.

How I Spent My Free Day

2011-03-05T14:17:00.004+01:00

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, in No Place for Chess960, 'I've been posting about chess960 twice a week since end-August 2009, which makes exactly a year and a half. I'm going to ease off the pedal a bit and return to posting once a week.' Since I post once a day on one of my three blogs, following a fixed weekly schedule, the upshot of that decision was that I had a few hours to do something else. Here's what I considered doing:-

(A) Repairing & painting the kitchen wall where we removed a radiator
(B) Cleaning the back patio
(C) Posting on one of my other blogs
(D) Playing live chess960 on Chesscube.com
(E) Nothing at all

After a little thought, I eliminated three options: Choice (B) is best done when winter is officially over; (C) just shifts the burden of writing elsewhere, something I can always do in the future; and (E) doesn't really appeal to me. That left (A) and (D). My wife would have been happy with (A) -- and that's what I should have done -- but I finally settled on (D). It's been over two years since I first considered playing on Chesscube (see Chess960 on Chesscube.com) making it the oldest open action on my 'Chess960 TODO' list.

After developing an interest in chess960, I've played close to 50 games on Schemingmind.com and Chess.com, two sites that offer only correspondence chess960. My experience from those game is that, before making the first move, it takes some time to understand the peculiarities of whatever start position has been dictated by the server. I typically spend at least 30 minutes, sometimes double that, studying the position before I make my first move in a chess960 game. How to reconcile that with the fast time controls used in live chess?

After poking around Chesscube for a while, getting a feel for its layout and offerings, I decided to play at the relatively slow control of 15 minutes per player per game with no increment per move. The site assigned me an initial rating of 1500, and I accepted the default range offering opponents rated within 300 points of my own rating.

I've played traditional chess on a lot of different online sites and my experience is that established players don't like playing unrated players. Among other issues, the provisional rating is too inaccurate. Tagged as a newbie and wanting a slow game, would I be able to find opponents on Chesscube? As it happened, there was absolutely nothing to worry about. Within 30 seconds of creating my SEEK, I was playing White in my first live game of chess960. I played 1.f4, my opponent answered 1...g5, and we were off. It was, in a word, exhilarating. Already on the third move I was faced with tactical and strategical problems that I had never seen before, unlike a traditional chess game where these challenges usually start about ten moves later. I won the first game, played two more which I also won, and ended up with a rating around 1600.

Although I started to work out the contours of a routine to evaluate a new start position quickly, it's too soon to share it. Before playing live chess960 the next time, I'll warm up with the Random Position Generator on Chessgames.com, deciding what my first move would be as White in a half-dozen or so random positions. It would be nice to have the same sort of facility from Black's point of view -- seeing a random position with White's first move already made -- but that would require some software development.

It would also be useful to have the possibility of playing an online chess960 game against a computer. I wouldn't want to play a complete game, just the first few moves to practice coordinated development and to exercise the tactical eye. Unlike human opponents, computers never complain when you hit the RESET button to start a new game. Maybe I should just dig out the engines I've collected that understand chess960. I haven't used them in ages, but they should be somewhere on my hard drive.

Rowson's 'Three Types of Theory'

2011-02-26T16:45:00.005+01:00

A while back I started a series on opening principles in chess960 by drawing on known principles from traditional chess. The first two posts in the series were

Lately I've been reading 'Chess for Zebras' by Jonathon Rowson, an excellent book in the genre 'How can we know what we know about chess?' Divided into three parts, the book's third part is titled 'Thinking Colorfully about Black and White'. A little thought should convince you that the color difference applies specifically to the opening.

The first chapter of part three is 'Ch.11 - Three Types of Theory and What They Mean in Practice'. I've isolated a single paragraph by Rowson in each of his discussions of 'Three Types of Theory' that I think explains the gist of that particular discussion. This categorization of theory leads to the question, 'How does chess960 relate to that particular view of chess theory?'.

Hypertheory: [Is chess a win for White, a draw, or a win for Black?] Hypertheory is the omniscient view of chess, the view of chess 'under the aspect of eternity'. [...] No person could ever grasp chess from a hypertheoretical perspective, but in principle it should be possible for a machine to reach this fundamental perspective and develop 32-piece tablebases. This may take decades or even centuries, but [...] I think it will eventually happen.

Since the idea of a 32-piece tablebase might bump into some fundamental limit of material nature, I'll leave that to the mathematicians and physicists to debate. Current technology allows for a 6-piece tablebase and I have no idea when we can expect a 7-piece monster to be available. (*)

If a 32-piece tablebase is available some day, it will solve all starting positions in chess960 as easily as it solves traditional chess. The last chapter for chess960 will then be to determine for each specific start position whether it is a win for one side or a draw. This is an extension of the frequently asked question whether there exist any chess960 start positions that are too drawish or too lopsided for one side or the other. So far, no one has been able to give any specific examples although it is a frequently used argument against chess960.

Elite Theory: [Rowson says 2670+ players represent the elite, but doesn't explain why he picked this unusual number.] The main reason openings matter so much more at the elite level is that during the game the margin for error is so much smaller, and the level of concentration and technique is so much higher. This means if you gain a serious advantage out of the opening there is a very real chance you will win the game. Moreover, if you get nothing out of the opening it is much harder to outplay your opponent because they will normally know how to play rather well!

Since there is no opening theory in chess960, despite the fruitless efforts of countless converts to catalog 'best moves' in each of the 960 positions, there is no notion of 'elite theory'. Some critics go as far as saying that chess960 levels the playing field for all players, whether grandmaster or club amateur, but I'm convinced this is a serious underestimation of how much grandmasters know about the game. It might be a leveller across all grandmasters, e.g. between a super GM and a weak GM (a chess oxymoron if there ever was one), but the results from Mainz don't bear this out. The super grandmasters still manage to win.

Our Theory: [Below 2670?] In addition to the desire to copy the superstars, another reason we spend a disproportionate amount of time learning opening theory is that unlike other kinds of chess work, the fruits of the labor are very tangible. If we learn a new opening idea we can usually imagine putting it into practice much more readily than if we learn any other kind of chess idea. However, this is a limitation of our imaginations rather than a true reflection of the kinds of work that will help us improve.

Another frequent argument against chess960 is that it is primarily for elite players, because that is the group who searches for opening novelties at move 20 and beyond. I submit that this argument is also 'a limitation of our imaginations'. What better way to force improving players to think for themselves than by forcing them to solve new problems starting from the very first move?

In part three of Rowson's book -- highly recommended, if I need to say so in Black and White -- are chapters on 'White's Advantage' (think 'initiative') and 'Black's Advantage' (think Adorjan). No matter what we might think of it as an alternative to traditional chess, chess960 forces us to consider in greater depth the many subtleties of the chess opening.

***

(*) On my main blog I've collected examples where tablebases have shown famous players to be wrong in their evaluation of certain endgames: see Posts with label Endgame TB. The 7-piece version will provide many more examples.

Castling Nomenclature

2011-02-20T08:08:00.002+01:00

A few weeks ago, I received this email, with a couple of good points about castling in chess960.

Subject: A castle question
Date: Friday, January 28, 2011, 4:51 PM

My question is about castling. It seems to me that the rules of castling would be easier explained if they were referred to as simply "c" or "g" castling. Of course, terms such as "Queenside", "Kingside" "long" or "short" don't apply. But 960 promoters such as yourself often refer to it as "a-side" or "h-side" which I think is often just as confusing to a new comer to the game. Why not just explain the castling rules by simply saying the King can go to the "c file" or "g-file"and the outside Rook goes to the inside, "d" or "f" respectively, if all other castling conditions are met, such as pieces in the way or not passing through check.

Why does 960 use the old traditional notation system of "0-0" or "0-0-0" when these terms seem arbitrary in 960? Just as archaic as terms like "Queenside" or "Kingside". Why not simply record a castle as "KcRd" or simply "cd" and "KgRf" or simply "gf"?

R.L.

I answered as follows.

You ask a good question and I'm afraid my answer won't be as good. The castling nomenclature, like the name of the game itself (chess960, FRC, etc.) is a topic that distracts attention from the main issue, promoting chess960 as a valid alternative to traditional chess. Since most players are coming to chess960 from chess, I feel that it's useful to explain the differences in terms they already understand, like 'Queenside' and 'O-O-O'. I appreciate that purists think otherwise and that they also have a valid point. I touched on this subject in my latest post...

Getting Organized
http://chess960frc.blogspot.com/2011/01/getting-organized.html

...under the heading 'Jargon'. It comes down to what you think the priorities are for promoting chess960.

And received further explanation.

My questions about the castling nomenclature just came from my experiences trying to teach kids how to play chess whether it was orthodox chess or 960. They seem to get confused. I used to say the King can move 2 squares to the right or left and the outside Rook goes to the inside. But after experimenting with 960 I now simply say the King can go to c or g and the outside Rook to d or f, if of course all other qualifying conditions are met.

Bravo, R.L., for teaching chess960 to kids who are just learning chess! If that castling explanation works for you, then there is no reason to explain it any other way. I came to chess960 from chess and have always taken it for granted that most chess960 players follow the same path. There is really no reason to assume that, is there?

No Place for Chess960

2011-02-19T14:45:00.006+01:00

Although I've already reported about the demise of Chess Classic Mainz (CCM) on my main blog -- No More Mainz, What About Linares? -- the spectacular support for chess960 by the Chess Tigers deserves special mention on this blog. The Tigers' good-bye press release said,

A decade full of dedication and passion for international rapid chess has come to an end in Mainz. A splendid decade from 2001 to 2010 with ground-breaking innovations in tournament organization for world class players and amateurs alike and the "Mainz System" Chess960, based on the ideas of the American World Champion Robert James "Bobby" Fischer, made the distinction between the Chess Classic and other classical tournaments. Speed and entertainment, service and amenities for the spectators and participants were the ingredients of a unique merger that took place once a year between the 2000-year old royal game and the ancient city of Mainz.

At the end of the post I've included a list of the chess960 winners as indicated by Chess Tigers in that final press release. For more details of those events, as well as the full text of the press release, see Chess Classic Mainz – End of an Era on Chessbase.com.

'The Chess Tigers team would like to say "thank you" for a decade of full of exciting and entertaining chess. The picture was taken during the last Chess Classic Mainz in 2010.'

And I would like to say "Thank you!" to the Chess Tigers team for doing such a splendid job over the last decade.

***

A year ago, at the same time that chess960 was put on a reduced regimen at CCM -- (Almost) No Chess960 @ CCM10 -- it also lost its place at Australia's Doeberl Cup -- No Chess960 @ Doeberl. The double whammy hit again this year. The schedule for the 49th Doeberl Cup - Canberra has no trace of Fischer's last invention.

***

Chess960 Classic Mainz

Chess960 Rapid Chess World Championship (Year & Winner)
2001 Peter Leko
2003 Peter Svidler
2004 Peter Svidler
2005 Peter Svidler
2006 Levon Aronian
2007 Levon Aronian
2009 Hikaru Nakamura

Chess960 Rapid Chess World Championship Women
2006 Alexandra Kosteniuk
2008 Alexandra Kosteniuk

Chess960 Senior Rapid Chess World Championship
2006 Vlastimil Hort

Chess960 Junior Rapid Chess World Championship
2006 Pentala Harikrishna

Open Chess960
2002 Peter Svidler
2003 Levon Aronian
2004 Zoltan Almasi
2005 Levon Aronian
2006 Etienne Bacrot
2007 Victor Bologan
2008 Hikaru Nakamura
2009 Alexander Grischuk

Chess960 Simuls (20 Players)
2003 Peter Leko
2003 Peter Svidler
2004 Peter Svidler
2006 Levon Aronian
2010 Alexandra Kosteniuk

Chess960 Matches Man vs. Machine
2000 Fritz on Primergy - Artur Jussupow [Yusupov] 2 : 0
2004 Levon Aronian - The Baron 1 : 1
2005 Shredder - Zoltan Almasi 2 : 0
2005 Peter Svidler - The Baron 1½ : ½
2006 Spike - Peter Svidler 1½ : ½
2006 Shredder - Teimour Radjabov 2 : 0

Chess960 Computer World Championship
2005 Spike / Böhm/Schäfer
2006 Shredder / Mayer-Kahlen
2007 Rybka / Rajlich
2008 Rybka / Rajlich
2009 Rybka / Rajlich

***

I've been posting about chess960 twice a week since end-August 2009, which makes exactly a year and a half. I'm going to ease off the pedal a bit and return to posting once a week. I still have lots of ideas for posts, but I lack a source of games between top-notch players. Is there really no place for chess960?

Oversight or Intentional?

2011-02-13T11:33:00.005+01:00

In my previous post, Nakamura Sac Attack, I covered GM Hikaru Nakamura's qualification from the 2008 Chess Classic Mainz (CCM8) Chess960 FiNet Open to the 2009 (CCM9) Chess960 Rapid World Championship, where he beat GM Levon Aronian for chess960's most prestigious title. A few months before the FiNet event Nakamura won entry and expenses to the open by finishing first in the Internet Chess Club's (ICC) 2008 Chess960 Championship.

The ICC Chess960 Championship was held from 2007 to 2009, and in each year the winner won entry and expenses to Mainz (links to Chessclub.com):-

2007 Internet Chess960 Championship: GM Tigran L. Petrosyan
2008 Internet Chess960 Championship: GM Hikaru Nakamura
2009 Internet Chess960 Championship: GM Alexander Grischuk

In 2009, just like Nakamura had done the previous year, Grischuk went on to win the FiNet Open, qualifying for the 2010 Chess960 Rapid World Championship, an event which was subsequently cancelled due to lack of sponsors. The games from the 2008 and 2009 ICC finals are available on the ICC site, but were played at a blitz tempo that renders many of them less interesting because of early blunders.

In the following game, the sixth and last game in Nakamura's final 2008 ICC match against GM Dmitry Andreikin (DSquared), I couldn't tell if the critical moves were an oversight or intentional. In start position NRBKNBQR (SP262), Andreikin opened 1.Nb3 and Nakamura (Smallville) replied 1...e5, arriving at the position shown in the first diagram.

Now White played 2.f4, with a double attack on the a- and e-Pawns. The a-Pawn is particularly sensitive, because Qxa7 attacks a Rook that can't be defended. Black played 2...Nb6, when 3.fxe5 left White a Pawn to the good. At this point Nakamura played for complications and open lines with 3...f6 4.Nf3 fxe5 5.Nxe5 d6 6.Nf3 Nf6. The game continued 7.d3 a5 8. c4 a4 9.Nbd4 d5, reaching the position shown in the second diagram.

Here White could have held the extra Pawn with several moves, where 10.cxd5 is one obvious choice, not necessarily the best. Instead he played for rapid development with 10.Bg5 dxc4 11.O-O-O, and the game continued with material equality. Was 1...e5 an oversight? What about 10.Bg5? Whatever the reasons for the two moves, Black went on to win the game for the fifth consecutive full point by the Black pieces. Here is the game's PGN, courtesy the ICC.

[Event "ICC tourney 865 (w22 3 1)"]
[Site "Internet Chess Club"]
[Date "2008.06.22"]
[Round "21"]
[White "DSquared"]
[Black "Smallville"]
[Result "0-1"]
[TimeControl "180+1"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "nrbknbqr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/NRBKNBQR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.Nb3 e5 2.f4 Nb6 3.fxe5 f6 4.Nf3 fxe5 5.Nxe5 d6 6.Nf3 Nf6 7.d3 a5 8. c4 a4 9.Nbd4 d5 10.Bg5 dxc4 11.O-O-O c3 12.Nb5 cxb2+ 13.Kxb2 Qd5 14. Nc3 Qd6 15.Qd4 Qxd4 16.Nxd4 Be7 17.e4 Ng4 18.Bxe7+ Kxe7 19.Re1 Rd8 20. Nf5+ Bxf5 21.exf5+ Kf8 22.Nb5 Rd7 23.Be2 Nf2 24.Rhf1 Nxd3+ 25.Bxd3 Rxd3 26.f6 Rd2+ 27.Ka1 gxf6 28.Rxf6+ Kg7 29.Rf3 Rxg2 30.Nxc7 Kh8 31.Ne8 Nd5 32.Re5 Nb4 33.Rf7 a3 34.Re6 Rg1+ {White resigns} 0-1

Note that the PGN lacks a 'Variant' tag, a glitch which did not cause a problem with either program that I used to step through it.

A Nakamura Sac Attack

2011-02-12T17:20:00.005+01:00

In my recent post, I featured a game by GMs Hikaru Nakamura and Levon Aronian from the preliminary event at the 2009 Chess Classic Mainz (CCM9) Chess960 Rapid World Championship.

CCM9 P4: Switching Bishops and Knights

This wasn't the first game I've posted between these two chess960 superstars. I featured the first three games from their 2009 final match twice each.

CCM9 F1: No Preparation Required and Nakamura vs. Aronian at Mainz 2009
CCM9 F2: CCM9: Nakamura, Grischuk, and Rybka and Four Cornered Bishops
CCM9 F3: Castling: A Rook-only Example and Attention to the Chess960 Center

Nakamura qualified for CCM9 by winning the 2008 FiNet Open at CCM8. My overview of the first eight CCM events, Chess960 @ Chess Classic Mainz, points to a Chesstigers.de page giving details about that event: Hikaru Nakamura wins FiNet Open.

The American, who won the ICC qualifier for Mainz in June dominated the field from the word go. With only two rounds left he seemed to be cruising to the title, but in the penultimate round German ace Arkadij Naiditsch won the exciting encounter against the fastest player on earth. When Nakamura only scored a draw in his final round against Vladimir Potkin the audience thought that Naiditsch would win the event [...]

All of Nakamura's games are worth a look, but I especially liked his win from the fourth round against GM Rainer Buhmann. The game started with RQBKNBNR (SP694), shown in the first diagram. Five of the eight pieces are on their traditional start squares and the other three -- QN, Q, and K -- have all been rotated one square to the left within the three squares where they normally start.

On the fourth move, White played 4.Bc4, attacking Black's f-Pawn. Instead of defending the Pawn, Nakamura sacrificed it with 4...Nh6 5.Bxh6 Bxh6 6.Bxf7. After 6...Nf6 7.e5 Ne4 8.Nd3 Bg4 9.O-O, he ruined the castled King's Pawn structure with 9...Bxf3 10.gxf3. At this point he could have regained material with 10...Nd2, but played more speculatively with 10...Ng5, and prevailed with a sustained attack against the King. Once again, here is the PGN of the game, courtesy of Chess Tigers.

[Event "CCM8 - 7. FiNet Chess960 Open"]
[Site "Mainz"]
[Date "2008.07.31"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Buhmann, R."]
[Black "Nakamura, H."]
[Result "0-1"]
[Annotator "Chess Tigers"]
[Variant "chess 960"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rqbknbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RQBKNBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

{SP 694} 1.d4 g6 2.Ngf3 Bg7 3.e4 d6 4.Bc4 Nh6 5.Bxh6 Bxh6 6.Bxf7 Nf6 7. e5 Ne4 8.Nd3 Bg4 9.O-O Bxf3 10.gxf3 Ng5 11.Bd5 c6 12.f4 Nh3+ 13.Kg2 Nxf4+ 14.Nxf4 Bxf4 15.Be6 Kc7 16.c4 Qf8 17.Qe4 dxe5 18.d5 Qf6 19.b4 Rad8 20. Rad1 Rhf8 21.Rd3 h5 22.h3 g5 23.f3 Kb8 24.Rfd1 Rd6 25.c5 Rdd8 26.a4 cxd5 27.Rxd5 Rxd5 28.Qxd5 Qh8 29.Qd7 e4 30.Kh1 Bc7 31.Qxe7 Re8 32.Qf7 Rf8 33. Qe7 exf3 34.b5 Rd8 35.Rxd8+ Bxd8 36.Qd6+ Bc7 0-1

The quote from the Chesstigers.de page above mentions an 'ICC qualifier'. I'll look at that event in my next post.

Switching Bishops and Knights

2011-02-06T08:08:00.002+01:00

The story in Dog-Tired from Memorizing Openings was just me poking fun at someone who didn't know how to set up a chess board correctly, but the two positions I mentioned in the post are both legitimate chess960 positions. One of the positions even turned up in an important game at Mainz in 2009; in fact, it was played in two important games.

The flagship chess960 event at Mainz that year, billed as the Chess960 World Championship, was a double round robin featuring four world-class chess grandmasters. The two players with the best scores in the preliminary event then played a four game match to determine the Chess960 World Champion. Each round played at Mainz uses the same start position (SP) on all boards, and the fourth round of the preliminary event saw RBNKQNBR (SP540) in both games.

The pairings for that round were Aronian - Nakamura and Bologan - Movsesian. Aronian had finished the first three rounds with a perfect score of 3.0, while the other players were tied at 1.0 each. To stay in the running for the title match Nakamura needed at least a draw in this second game against Aronian.

The start position is shown in the following diagram, along with Aronian's first move, 1.Nb3. The position resembles the traditional start position RNBQKBNR (SP518), but the placement of the minor pieces makes a big difference. A Bishop starting the game on the b- or g-file is not particularly well placed and here both players have two such Bishops. What's the best way to develop them?

Nakamura solved the problem for his dark-squared Bishop with the bizarre 1...a5, planning to bring it out via a7. At the same time he made space for the Rook and prepared a possible ...a4, harrassing the Knight. The downside of the move is that it neglects the center and renounces castling O-O-O. It's worth noting that the other game, Bologan - Movsesian, saw the same idea a few moves later: 1.e4 e5 2.f3 f6 3.Nb3 a5.

The second diagram shows the position after ten moves by both players. Aronian has also decided to develop his Queenside (a-side) Bishop via the short diagonal, while both players have chosen to develop the other Bishop on its long diagonal. How to assess the position? Black has a Queenside majority, while White's Kingside (h-side) majority is crippled, giving Black a slight, long-term positional plus.

The game continued 11.Bf2 Qd6 12.Qg3 Qxg3 13.hxg3, swapping Queens, when Black went after the b-Pawn with 13...Na4 14.Bxa7 Rxa7. White could have defended the Pawn with 15.Kc1, or even 15.Rh4, but played speculatively with 15.Ba2, and never managed to recover the lost Pawn. Here is the PGN of that game, courtesy of Chess Tigers.

[Event "CCM9 - Chess960 Rapid WCh"]
[Site "Mainz"]
[Date "2009.07.29"]
[Round "4.1"]
[White "Aronian, Levon"]
[Black "Nakamura, Hikaru"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Variant "chess 960"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rbnkqnbr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RBNKQNBR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.Nb3 a5 2.e4 e5 3.d4 exd4 4.f3 Ne6 5.Nxd4 Nd6 6.Nf5 Qf8 7.Nd2 f6 8.a3 Nxf5 9.exf5 Nc5 10.Qh4 Ba7 11.Bf2 Qd6 12.Qg3 Qxg3 13.hxg3 Na4 14.Bxa7 Rxa7 15.Ba2 Nxb2+ 16.Kc1 Bxa2 17.Kxb2 Bf7 18.Rae1 h6 19.Re4 b5 20.Rg4 Rg8 21.Nb3 a4 22.Nc5 d6 23.Rd1 h5 24.Re4 Re8 25.Ne6+ Bxe6 26.fxe6 g6 27.g4 hxg4 28.fxg4 Ra6 29.g5 f5 30.Re2 Rc6 31.Rde1 Rc4 32.g3 Rg4 33.Re3 c6 34.e7+ Kd7 35.Re6 Rxg5 36.Rf6 Rxe7 37.Rd1 d5 38.Rh1 Rh5 39.Rxh5 gxh5 40.Rxf5 Rg7 41.Rxh5 Rxg3 42.Rh6 Kc7 43.Rh8 Kb6 44.Rh6 Kc5 45.Rf6 Re3 46.Rh6 d4 47.Rh5+ Kc4 48.Rh6 c5 49.Rh4 b4 50.axb4 Kxb4 51.Rh5 c4 52.Rh1 a3+ 53.Kb1 0-1

Nakamura won all three games in the second leg of the event, matched Aronian's final score, and the two players squared off the next day for the title. For an overview of the entire event, including links to external resources, see CCM9: Nakamura, Grischuk, and Rybka.

Dog-Tired from Memorizing Openings

2011-02-05T11:57:00.004+01:00

This hound is nobody's mutt. He read my post in the series on World Championship Opening Preparation, the one titled 'Did You Consider Just Playing Chess?', where Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam interviewed Garry Kasparov after the 13th World Champion lost his title in the 2000 Kramnik - Kasparov match...

Q: Did you consider forgetting about all opening preparation and just playing chess? • A: A good recommendation. At one point I wished we could change Bishop and Knight in the opening position, because then I had no doubts I would win the match.

...Our four-footed friend decided he couldn't go astray by heeling to Kasparov's advice. He closed his dog-eared copies of BCO, ECO, and MCO, not to mention DCO (the latest edition, authored by the old dog himself, Herman Shepherd), and told his human that from that moment on they would only play the chess960 positions RBNQKNBR (SP524) and its twin RBNKQNBR (SP540).

The photo shows him just before this year's house championship putting on the dog in his favorite blue harness. When asked if he would ever return to the traditional game, he sniffed, 'No, the old chess is for dogmatists'. • HT: lolchess (Streatham & Brixton Chess Blog), borrowing from ITZ B Ur MOVE (Loldogs, Dogs 'n' Puppy Dog Pictures).

Stats and More Stats

2011-01-30T12:24:00.003+01:00

Google's Blogger.com, the blog authoring service that stands behind the blogs hosted on Blogspot.com, recently released an interface to statistics about the blog. This includes details like most popular posts, traffic sources, and audience, all of which can be examined over various time frames like the last day, week, or month (*). The base data only goes back to July 2010, so the most interesting numbers are for 'All Time', meaning the last seven months.

Let there be no misunderstanding here. As I pointed out in a post titled Apples to Apples on my main blog, this chess960 blog is the least popular of the chess resources I maintain and I doubt that the situation has changed much since I wrote that post in April 2010. Keeping that in mind, let's peek at some of the info revealed by the stats. First, here's a graphical overview showing where this blog's visitors are located.

A darker green means more page views and, while I'm not surprised to see English speaking countries with darker shades, I am surprised to see south of Brazil the dark patch identifying Uruguay. Not too long ago I received an email from a correspondent in Uruguay who flagged an online play site that was new to me, so I'll take a closer look at that site in a future post.

As for past posts, what most interests the blog's visitors? Of the top-10 posts by page view, three posts received considerably more attention than the others:-

I'm at a loss to explain why those posts should be more popular than others. A more recent post that also shows higher than average interest is:-

A Highbrow Dismissal of Chess960

After that, most posts receive approximately the same number of visits. Moving on to traffic sources, i.e. sites that send visitors to this blog, the number one source is my main blog Chess for All Ages. Number two is listed as www.google.com/search?q=blogger, which must be a Google blog search on 'chess960'. I haven't looked at that resource in a long time and it's due another visit.

Also in the top-10 sources are a number of Chess.com forums, something called the Pingy Web Application ('some Blogs you might want to visit while waiting', where I spotted this chess960 blog), and Chess Quotes (aka Rotten Tomatoes). The tomatoes link has a Bobby Fischer audio clip where he says a lot of the same things found in the video clip that I recently covered in 'Me and Bobby Fischer' and Chess960.

The Blogger page on traffic sources also lists the top search keywords used to find this blog. It informs that the phrase 'chess 960' is used even more than the single word 'chess960'. The most unusual keyword is 'rkrnbbnq' -- if you try searching on it, Google first tries to show you results for 'krn bbq', which it interprets to be 'Korean barbecue'?! Rounding out the Blogger stats are the usual summaries of visitor profiles given by all log analyzers:-

Pageviews by Browsers:-
33% Firefox
26% Internet Explorer
22% Safari

and

Pageviews by Operating Systems:-
66% Windows
26% Macintosh

A long time ago I learned not to place too much importance on web stats. Their most practical use is as a source of ideas for future posts, just like here, where I came up with two.

***

(*) In case anyone is concerned about privacy (aren't we all?), there is no raw data log available to the blog owner, meaning no information about specific visitors.

Getting Organized

2011-01-29T11:33:00.002+01:00

Reading a blog isn't like reading a book. The posts often jump from subject to subject without any connecting thread and it's never easy to find related posts, especially if they were written long before or long after a post of interest. One of the tools to organize posts sensibly is the label (aka category or tag). Unfortunately, when you start a blog, it's difficult to see what labels will be useful afterwards. It's best done after you've been blogging for some time.

In a few months I'll reach the two year anniversary with this blog and, counting the time I blogged about chess960 on my main blog, next month I'll reach the two and a half year mark overall. That means I know where the main points of chess960 are. By adding a few more labels (also listed in the right column of every page), I can now attach at least one label to each of the 150 posts on the blog. Without further ado, here are four new labels and the posts on the predecessor blog that are relevant to those labels

Posts with label 'Jargon': This is an area I have to watch constantly. As I wrote in Who Says 'Chess960 Array'?, 'There are enough obstacles to promoting chess960 without introducing unnecessary jargon into the explanation.' On the other hand, there are certain concepts that don't exist in traditional chess and these need names.

Posts with label 'Pros and Cons': Some chess players like chess960, but many don't. This leads to recurring discussions about its advantages and disadvantages. Some of the arguments are valid, but many aren't.

Posts with label 'Resources': This is a vague area, but there are many subjects that could also be called 'Tools'.

Posts with label 'Theory': After learning the rules of chess960, this is the subject that interests most players. In chess960, the term 'theory' doesn't mean book moves as it does in traditional chess. It means something else, but what exactly?

Theoretical Advantage in Chess960 Start Positions, a botched concept, listed here for completeness; see instead the next two posts on this list.
A Followup, an Error, and an Insight
Advantage in Chess960 Start Positions Revisited
Undefended Pawns in Chess960 Start Positions
Chess960 Opening Theory
Chess960 Twins
How Top Players Treat the Same Chess960 Position
Lasker's Table of Opening Values
Comments on Chess960 Opening Theory
Introduction to Chess960 Geometry
A Framework for Chess960 Opening Theory
Extravagant Openings
What Makes an Opening Extravagant?

I'm sure I've overlooked relevant posts, both on this blog and on the predecessor blog. I'll add them to the appropriate labels as I discover them.

'Me and Bobby Fischer' and Chess960

2011-01-23T07:30:00.004+01:00

Before I continue with the dialog from Fischer Compares Chess960 to Puffed Wheat, let's set the scene. The video was taken during Fischer's trip from Japan to Iceland, just after his release from detention in Japan. Chessbase.com reported on the trip in a series of articles.

2005-03-23: Fischer released in Japan
2005-03-24: Fischer arrives in Iceland
2005-03-25: Tumultuous welcome for Fischer in Iceland

I've already covered the Fischer biography ENDGAME by Frank Brady in relation to chess960 (see Brady on Fischer Random). Brady also mentions the video 'Bobby Fischer and Me' (as it was called in the clip embedded in the 'Puffed Wheat' post).

Prior to Bobby's departure from Japan, [Saemi] Palsson was approached by an Icelandic filmmaker, Fridrik Gudmundsson, to do a documentary for Icelandic television about Fischer's incarceration. the fight to release him, and his escape to freedom. [...] Filming began the moment Bobby touched down in Copenhagen, with a camera in the sports vehicle that drove him, Miyoko, and Saemi to Sweden, en route to Iceland. [...] Continuing to shoot the film in Reykjavik over the next months, Gudmundsson kept trying to pin down Bobby for further interviews and increase his involvement in the project. 'What's the title of the film going to be?' Bobby asked. When he was told it was My Friend Bobby (it was eventually changed to Me and Bobby Fischer), he immediately began to question the whole endeavor. (p.310)

Now let's go back to Fischer's discussion of chess960. The dialog continues about a minute before the end of YouTube's Part 2...

I was just looking at a book Saemi gave me, a book about Capablanca. Capablanca had a very interesting game that he proposed, it was 10 by 10 or something. It had two Kings and extra pieces and you win the game by mating either of your opponent's Kings. It might be a very creative game and maybe much better than Fischer Random, but it looked very intimidating. Even for me, a top chess player, it looked very intimidating. All these extra pieces, a huge board, two Kings -- if it intimidates me I think it would intimidate the average person much more. So there are a lot of games you can come up with that have practical defects, not creative defects, but defects in terms of discouraging people to learn them.

...and flows into Part 3.

You can learn Fischer Random in five, ten seconds practically, so there is no impediment. You have the same pieces, the same board; all you have to do is get an electronic shuffler and in one second you have a position. Of course, you can create more creative games than Fischer Random: maybe an extra piece or a bigger board or all kinds of things. People think I'm anti-chess. No, I'm not anti-chess, I'm pro-chess. I'm trying to keep it alive. I'm not coming up with anything radical at all.

Asked if he was the best chess player ever,

'I want to get back to Fischer Random. [...] First you have to understand something about chess. Of course, I'm better than Morphy. Why am I better than Morphy? I don't say I have more talent than him. I just know much more theory, right? If he came back today, and he couldn't open a book (let's say), he wouldn't do badly even against masters maybe. That has nothing to do with his talent though. So when you say I'm better than someone, it doesn't mean anything, because of all this theory in chess. Now if you want to say 'am I the most talented player', that's something else.'

'Are you the most talented player?'

'I think so, but that's just my opinion. Morphy was fantastic, Capablanca was fantastic.'

'What about later World Champions? Kasparov?'

'As I say, I don't like to delve too much into the old chess, because I hate it so much. By delving into it, I'm promoting it in some way. I don't want to promote this [bleeping] game. I have only one interest in the old chess: to expose the pre-arrangement. People are living in a dream world.'

'Don't you think that's paradoxical coming from the best player that ever was?'

'Life is like that. It's not really paradoxical. Chess is basically a search for truth, right? So I'm searching for the truth. The truth is that chess is no good any more. Chess hasn't been a good game, objectively, for 150 years, since all this theory developed. It was a good game maybe 200 years ago, in the time of [Philidor].'

'So you're saying that already when you became World Champion, already by then, it was a bad game.'

'Yes, it was a bad game. On the other hand, it wasn't as bad as today. No comparison, but it was a bad game. At the time I was fired with ambition to win and I was willing to overcome all of these idiotic obstacles that block a talented person from winning. As you get older, if you don't get better, you have to get smarter. I'm much smarter now than I was then. Much, much smarter. Now I don't want to do things the hard way. Why do things the hard way when there's an easier, better way? The old chess is that you're banging your head against the wall with this theory. You're trying to find some little improvement on move 18, or 20. It's ridiculous. It gets harder and harder and harder. You need more and more computers, you need more and more people working for you.'

'And less and less talent?'

'Yes, less and less -- it's ridiculous. Why?'

'Did you gradually start to hate chess or did it come suddenly?'

'That's a good question. [Pauses] I think it came gradually, but then at a certain point I was hating it, but didn't know. I was still trying to make it work. Now I realize I was gradually hating it all along.'

The conversation turns to the 1975 match against Karpov, Fischer becomes agitated, and there is nothing more said about chess960.

Fischer Compares Chess960 to Puffed Wheat

2011-01-22T10:55:00.008+01:00

I've already referenced a number of audio clips where Fischer explained his new type of chess: Fischer Explains the Rules of Fischer Random and Fischer's Last Interview. Now here's a video clip.

Bobby Fischer travelling from Japan to Iceland (1/3) (8:00) • 'Excerpts from the DVD "Bobby Fischer and Me" by Gudmundsson.'

The YouTube description says,

Former world champion Bobby Fischer on his way from Japan to Iceland being interviewed during the ride and flight on chess, Fischer Random, pre-arranged matches, Karpov and Kasparov and more...

Here are direct links to YouTube for the three parts: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Part 1 has nothing about chess or about Fischer Random and I'm only including it here because it's first in the sequence. It's not until midway through Part 2 that Fischer starts on the subject when he says, 'I hate chess very much'. When asked why, he answers,

'Because I know what chess is all about. It's all about memorization, about pre-arrangement.'

'But creativity?'

'Creativity is lower down on the list', shaking his head.

'But you became World Champion on creativity.'

'First of all, it was a long time ago when I played with Spassky the first match. And even the second match is already some time ago, thirteen years ago. And chess just in the last few years has changed dramatically with all this computer stuff. But really, if you analyze chess objectively, very objectively, it's been a lousy game going back even to the time of Morphy. There was a lot of book.'

'But there still is a place for talent, for creativity. It isn't all pre-arrangement, all theory.'

'No, not all, of course, I agree. But why do you want to get involved with something that is mainly rote and pre-arrangement? Obviously it's not all that, but the creativity is maybe number three on the list. The first is pre-arrangement, then memorization, then comes creativity.'

'As opposed to Fischer Random, there you put creativity first.'

'Right! Let me explain something about Fischer Random. I've never made any claims that this is the greatest thing since puffed wheat or whatever, you know what I mean? I never made any claim saying this is perfect. What I say is that it's much better than the old chess. For example, let's say you could have a million chess-like games. Maybe a million of them (or ten million) are better than Fischer Random. The point about Fischer Random is that it's basically the same as the old chess, except you get rid of the theory and it's very easy to remember the rules. That's my point, you see?'

He then goes on to talk about Capablanca's chess variant. I'll continue the transcription in another post.

Rybka @ Mainz

2011-01-16T13:05:00.002+01:00

Following up More on Chess960 Engines, here are a few more posts from Rybkaforum.net related to the Livingston chess960 events at Mainz.

2007-06-17: Rybka in Chess Classic Mainz 2007, Chess 960
2007-08-18: Rybka @ Mainz 3rd Chess960 WCCC
2008-07-29: Rybka in Mainz
2008-07-30: First day Mainz
2008-08-01: Mainz Final
2009-07-28: Who will win in Mainz (Chess960)?
2009-08-03: Rybka @ 5th Livingston World Computer Chess960 Championship

There is more about engines and chess960 at TalkChess.com :: Search, but the search is awkward and produces too many irrelevant results. Maybe I just need to spend more time on it, if only I had more time to spend...

Label 'Engines'

2011-01-15T08:27:00.002+01:00

The previous post titled More on Chess960 Engines convinced me that I needed a new category -- Posts with label 'Engines' -- so there it is. Add to these relevant posts from my predecessor blog linked in the right navigation bar...

...and away we go. The new category overlaps Label 'CCRL', and some day I might consolidate the two.

More on Chess960 Engines

2011-01-09T11:59:00.004+01:00

The last link in my previous post, C960 & Fullchess (see 'Chessprogramming - Perola Valfridsson'), led me to a resource that I had never explored properly -- chessprogramming.wikispaces.com. Chess960 is only a small portion of the site, which probably explains why there is a major gaffe on its Chessprogramming - Chess page : 'Chess Variants -> Fisher Random Chess (FRC) or Chess 960'.

A search for mentions of chess960 pulls in a number of interesting pages, of which the most valuable is currently Livingston Chess960 Computer World Championship, a list of the Chess Classic Mainz (CCM) events involving chess960 engines. This consolidates in one place the same info I've covered in Chess960 @ Chess Classic Mainz and CCM9: Nakamura, Grischuk, and Rybka. Reference material is better maintained on a structured site like a wiki than on a blog.

This brief foray into the world of chess960 engines reminded me that I covered the topic of advanced chess (aka freestyle chess) in a recent post on my main blog: Chess of the Future -or- Chess of the Past? There I discovered that a couple of the best resources on chess engines are Rybkaforum.net and Computerschach.de. A search on Rybkaforum.net for chess960 pulls up material like Rybka @ 5th Livingston World Computer Chess960 Championship, written by Mr. Rybka himself, Vasik Rajlich.

The 5th Livingston World Computer Chess960 Championship [2009] was held this past week in Mainz and Rybka won ahead of Shredder, Deep Sjeng and Ikarus. A huge thanks to Hans-Walter Schmitt, Eric van Reem, Hans Secelle and the rest of the Chess Tigers staff for putting on a great event. They get everything right, from the big things down to the little things, and it's really fun to be there.

Don't miss the further link to Rybkachess.com which has another report and lots of photos. A search for chess960 on Computerschach.de is little more problematic, because all of the interesting pages are in German (not to mention undated). Since they are somewhat slow to load, Google Language Tools gives up on the URL with a message saying 'Sorry, we are unable to access the page you requested'. That means you have to copy / paste the German text into the Google tool. The results can be worth the effort, as in Stefan Meyer-Kahlen über Fischer-Schach ('Stefan Meyer-Kahlen [Mr. Shredder] on Fischer Chess'):

CSS Online: Why do you have installed in FRC Shredder? • SMK: The reason was that I would like to play with Shredder in the Chess960 World Championship in Mainz. • CSS Online: There were already proposals to FEN and PGN. Why did you not use? Where exactly are the differences between the two FRC FENs? • SMK: There were suggestions on how to expand FEN and PGN so that it works with Chess960. These extensions, however I have not really liked because it is very cumbersome and very error prone. Prone to errors both in programming as well as during subsequent reading PGN games.

I'll try to explore both resources in more depth for a future post.

C960 & Fullchess

2011-01-08T14:26:00.003+01:00

I added two more terms -- C960 and Fullchess -- to the 'What's in a name?' list displayed at the top of each page on this blog. Although both terms are in limited use, they can lead to chess960 resources which might not be found otherwise.

The abbreviation 'C960' is shorthand that I use in my own notes. A search pulled up a relevant page from the late, lamented ('It’s not dead, it’s sleeping!') Chessninja.com: Anand was First in Seconds. The anchoring Daily Dirt post was about last year's Anand - Topalov World Championship match and how Anand received assistance from Carlsen, Kasparov, and Kramnik. The comments to the post turned into a raging battle (is there any other kind on web forums?) on the value of computer preparation. The players' prep reached new heights -- some people might say 'new lows' -- during the match and is a recurring argument for the move from traditional chess to chess960. One 'observer' (that's his real handle) wrote,

A better way to see who has more chess skills - 48 games of Fischer Random as follows: In one day - 4 games are played. Each c960 position chosen at random and repeated with colors switched for the next game. Lunch recess and two more games. The time control could be closer to rapid chess -- classical chess time control is outdated.

In the same amount of days - 48 games complete - no computer/other GM assistance and the better player has won. 12 games of classical chess at this time control with GM seconds and computer assisted opening preparation is silly. I would rather see Anand vs Topalov with this format than what we saw.

While I would not go as far as supporting this scenario myself, it could very well come to pass some day although with more serious time controls. The term 'Fullchess' pulled in a page titled Ruffian interview, which included the following question by the interviewer:-

At the present time a lot of people talk about FullChess (Fischer Random Chess, Chess960, Shuffle Chess) which has gained a lot of popularity. In Mainz (Germany) a big GM-match was played this year using it. The freeware-GUI "Arena" supports the possibilities to play FullChess but at the moment no engine supports the special castling-rules at FullChess.

Do you plan to implement FullChess to Ruffian? Ben Bursik (DGT projects), Martin Blume (Arena), Reinhard Scharnagl (Smirf) and Eric van Reem (CSVN) work on FullChess for a longer time already. Do you think that FullChess will give new aspects to computer chess programming because of the new possibilities to test engines without the influence of an opening book etc.? We expect that there is a big interest in users as well for FullChess.

Google dates the page to 23 August 2003, but I found another reference -- Chessprogramming - Perola Valfridsson -- linking to it under the title 'Interview with Perola Valfridsson, October 2002'. Whatever the date of the original page, I suspect the term 'Fullchess' is no longer in common use, if it ever was.

Brady on Fischer Random

2011-01-02T12:52:00.002+01:00

As I mentioned in Blitzing Fischer, the forthcoming book on Fischer, ENDGAME by Frank Brady (Crown Publishers), has references to chess960, around a half-dozen, although Brady prefers to call it 'Fischer Random'. The first reference is in Ch.12 Fischer-Spassky Redux, in a section on Zita Rajcsanyi [Raiczanyi], who travelled to Los Angeles to meet Fischer and to persuade him to play a second match with Spassky.

Bobby and Zita played one game of chess: his new variation, called Fischer Random. She claims that she won and then became frightened. Perhaps he'd become violent toward her, she thought, because she was a woman and, also, not yet even a master. (p.237)

As far as I know, this is the earliest mention of Fischer Random, predating a passing reference by Fischer at the press conference opening the match with Spassky, September 1992. After the match Fischer stayed in 'Magyarkanizsa, in the northernmost reaches of Serbia, on the border of Hungary'. There he made the acquaintance of the Polgar family and, with their encouragement, later moved to Budapest.

All of the [Polgar] sisters played chess with him, but acceding to his preference, they played Fischer Random. Invented by Bobby, this was a variation on the standard game. [brief description of rules & reasons for playing] As it happened, 18-year-old Sofia, the middle of the Polgar daughters, beat Bobby three straight. Zsuzsa [Susan] played him "countless games" and never revealed the results other than to say she did "all right". (p.260)

For another account of this, see my post Pictures of a Fischer Random Precursor. Brady relates another anecdote involving the Polgars that was new to me.

[Fischer] became angry, when Laszlo [Polgar] showed him a book published in 1910 by the Croatian writer Izidor Gross. The book described a variation of chess that seemed to be the forerunner of Fischer Random, with the exact same rules. Muttering something about Gross being Jewish, Bobby went on to change the rules of his variation to make it different from Gross's. (p.261)

While in Budapest, Fischer also made the acquaintance of Andrei [Andor, Andre] Lilienthal, who arranged a meeting with FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.

Bobby showed Ilyumzhinov how Fischer Random was played. [...] Ilyumzhinov also offered to put up millions for another Fischer - Spassky match, but all Bobby would say was "I am only interested in Fischer Random". (p.264)

It's not clear from Brady's account when this meeting took place, but the February 1996 issue of Europe Echecs (p.22) gives a date of 15 December 1995. That would have been less than a month after Ilyumzhinov was first elected FIDE president in a special election. Fischer's official announcement of his variant only merits passing mention.

Bobby felt safe enough to travel and eventually went to many countries [...] to Argentina to promote his Fischer Random variation (p.268)

I posted about that June 1996 event in Fischer Announces Fischerandom. The last two references by Brady, from Fischer's final years in Iceland, are more difficult to date.

Bobby couldn't escape chess, although he desperately wanted to. "I hate the old chess and the old chess scene", he wrote to a friend, making reference to his invention of Fischer Random. Nevertheless, there were entrepreneurs flying to Iceland [...] who were trying to entice him to play -- any kind of chess was acceptable, just to encourage him and ease him back into the game. [...] Another match against Spassky was discussed (and Spassky was agreeable to playing Fischer Random), but these talks ended in a matter of days. (p.306)

and

Despite his promotion of Fischer Random and his rejection of and scorn for the "old chess", he still played over games, tempted by the action of contemporary tournaments and matches. [...] He never wavered from claiming that all of the games in the 1985 [Karpov - Kasparov] match were fixed and prearranged move-by-move. [...] Others held that his accusations were a ploy to promote his new Fischer Random chess. (p.309)

I'm a member of that 'others held' camp -- see Fischer: 'The *Old* Chess Is Dead' -- but I wouldn't call it a 'ploy'. He sincerely believed that his variant would save chess from 'very interesting, beautiful pre-arranged games being created by very intelligent players, working with computers'.

Happy 2011!

2011-01-01T06:47:00.001+01:00

http://cooltext.com/

What will the New Year bring for chess960?

Posts with Label 'History'

2010-12-26T13:37:00.005+01:00

As long as I'm creating new categories, as in last week's Posts with Label 'Castling', I might as well add a category covering Posts with label 'History' (also visible on the right sidebar of every post on this blog). Although the history category should include most of the posts referenced under

Posts with label Mainz

I don't think it's useful to categorize all of those posts twice for the purpose of consistency. It is worth mentioning, however, specific posts on my predecessor blog Chess for All Ages.

I'm sure I've overlooked a few posts and will add them as I discover them.

Have a Merry Chess960 Christmas!

2010-12-25T06:23:00.001+01:00

Christmas Cats Play Chess960 (in 1902!)

Let's Check the Rules

2010-12-19T08:37:00.002+01:00

While I'm on the subject of castling, as in Posts with Label 'Castling', there was a relevant question a few months ago on the Chessexpress blog: Fischer Random Fun. Although it dealt with a specific position (SP748 RBKNNQBR),

Assume that White does castle Queenside [...] If White then moves the Bishop on g1, the Queen on f1, the Knight on e1, and the 'castled Rook' on d1 off the back rank, can White now castle Kingside, as the King and Rook have not yet moved?

the same question applies to any start position (SP) with King on c1 and the h-side Rook on any square except d1. It can also apply to any SP with King on g1 and the a-side Rook on any square except f1.

I'm no expert on the rules of chess960 (not to mention the rules of traditional chess), so my first reaction to this sort of question is always, 'Let's see what the rules say'. In 2009, the rules of chess960 were incorporated into the FIDE Handbook, under Laws of Chess :: Appendices (section: 'F. Chess960 Rules'). There we find

F.3 Chess960 Castling Rules: a. Chess960 allows each player to castle once per game, a move by potentially both the king and rook in a single move. [...]

That's clear enough. Since a player can only 'castle once per game', it's not possible to castle Queenside, then Kingside, or vice versa. As they say, 'When all else fails, read the instructions!'

Posts with Label 'Castling'

2010-12-18T16:30:00.000+01:00

The difference between castling in chess960 and castling in traditional chess is so important that I created a new category: Posts with label 'Castling'. Since there are also posts in my predecessor blog that belong in this category, I'm listing them here.

I'll have a few more posts on castling over the next several weeks.

A Highbrow Dismissal of Chess960

2010-12-12T17:05:00.006+01:00

Continuing with Dvoretsky on Chess960, what does the world renowned trainer think of Fischer's last, and possibly greatest, idea?

I’ve never played this game myself, but many of my friends and students have taken part in the traditional Fischer-random tournaments in Mainz. Most of them liked the new game. They were very happy not to have to waste time preparing for the game, and it was interesting to test themselves and compete with their opponents in solving original tasks. That being the case, one can only welcome the continued hosting of such events, and hope there will eventually be more of them.

This and the following excerpts are from Part 2 of 'Polemic Thinking' (PDF). [Polemic - 'an aggressive attack on or refutation of the opinions or principles of another' (Merriam-Webster.com)] Note the curious phrase 'to waste time preparing for the game'.

But this can hardly mean that chess960 should be promoted as the designated successor to everyday chess. [...] The problems involved with such an enormous change in the rules should be examined from all sides and tested, with all aspects considered in order to find out whether there are drawbacks that might prove dangerous to the future of chess.

Agreed.

One of the main criteria of beauty (along with subtlety and originality) is the soundness, the correctness of the moves, of the individual ideas, or of entire games. And here is where I have some doubts about the future of chess960.

Doubts? What doubts?

In Fischer chess, where the majority of the pieces – if not all of them – are standing in unusual positions, we must deal with many new and unknown elements. As a result, a chessplayer has almost nothing to refer to in looking for a move; he’s playing “without line or compass.” I can assure you that even leading grandmasters play a weak game of chess960, full of both strategic and tactical errors. [...] So these games almost never show us any aesthetic value. If we remember how hard it can be to discover the secrets of a position even in traditional chess, where we can refer to many generations’ worth of experience, what I’m saying becomes logically obvious.

As proof that 'even leading grandmasters play a weak game of chess960', Dvoretsky gives two examples. The first is the same game I used in A Chess960 Catastrophe.

The level of play demonstrated here by grandmasters isn’t much different from (to take an example from traditional chess) the efforts, successful or unsuccessful, to exploit the weakness at f7 from the starting position, and deliver the "scholars mate". Of course we need to take into account the fact that in Mainz, the games were played in rapid chess; however, I suspect that, even under a classical time-control, the quality of play would not have risen very much. In the early days of chess, many such naïve games were played. As experience grew, so did the understanding of the principles of opening play; new schemes of battle appeared and were worked upon, and those that didn’t work out were tossed aside.

Naive games?

In chess960, there will be practically no accumulation of experience: there are too many opening positions, and too many differences between them. And thus, the concept of the opening phase will find itself frozen, for a long time, at a childhood level.

Childhood level?

Let me summarize, briefly: Playing Fischer-random is undoubtedly interesting (and probably even useful: overcoming routine, and developing an unfettered approach to the position). But studying played games is of no interest, because it’s almost impossible for anything creatively important to come from them (when measured against the level that both amateurs and experts in classical chess have grown accustomed to). So switching to this new game involves a serious risk that we may lose the aesthetic element of chess – and consequently, a great number of its adherents.

This argument is similar to the one I addressed in More Arguments Against Chess960, where I quoted Tim Krabbé writing, 'Any form of shuffle chess puts chess back 200 years.' This highbrow dismissal of chess960 because errors occur early ignores the reality of modern grandmaster chess. The start of a game is two players following a known path for 'X' number of moves, after which they follow computer based preparation for 'Y' number of moves, after which they are on their own. At this point there are three possible outcomes: either they agree to a draw, or one of them blunders, or they continue playing as best they can.

The example I used in that previous post was the first game from this year's Anand - Topalov match where Anand blundered on move 23. As we later learned, the blunder occurred because he forgot his preparation ('Y') and mixed up his ideas. As for agreeing to a draw as soon as move X+Y is reached, I could give lots of examples, starting with the 2004 Kramnik - Leko match, which saw a humiliating loss by Kramnik because his computer preparation was faulty.

The reason we see errors earlier in chess960 is not because the games are played at a 'childhood level' (Dvoretsky's phrase). It's because the players are on their own earlier. That they play chess better than they play chess960 is an illusion, a fiction, a fabrication due to conveniently overlooking the X+Y unoriginal moves that preceded real play. The truth is that GMs play chess960 very well.

As for Dvoretsky's remark that 'studying played [chess960] games is of no interest, because it’s almost impossible for anything creatively important to come from them', this implies that the only creative phase of a game is the opening. Is there really no creativity in the middlegame or endgame? If there isn't, I can throw away Dvoretsky's own books plus all the other books I've mistakenly acquired on those subjects.

As I wrote in the response to Krabbé, 'Playing over chess960 requires playing slowly from the very first move, just like playing a chess960 game requires real thinking from the very first move.' That last thought is worth repeating: chess960 requires real thinking from the very first move. Real thinking, creative thinking, has little to do with memorization. There is no 'X'; there is no 'Y'; there is only chess.

Dvoretsky on Chess960

2010-12-11T17:25:00.003+01:00

I'm getting a lot of mileage out of Dvoretsky this week. First I referenced an interview with the world renowned trainer by Chessvibes.com in a post on my main blog: Recently Spotted - Blog Carnival & Soviet School. Then I used excerpts from the interview on my World Championship blog: Dvoretsky on the World Championship. Now I am going to tackle a reference to chess960.

At the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008 on the ChessCafe site my big articles about the chess problems was published. It’s mainly about the very harmful influence of opening theory and some other aspects. Maybe somebody who wants to know my opinion about some important chess problems can read this article. I analyze the influence of opening theory, I analyze Fischerrandom/Chess960 and make another suggestion for how it’s possible to change the chess rules and so on. (From The big Dvoretsky interview, part 3).

Chessvibes also provided links to the ChessCafe articles, which were titled 'Polemic Thinking' -- Part 1 & Part 2 -- both PDFs. Here are the section headings from both parts.

1. The Components of Success; (à la Botvinnik) where the fourth component, 'Specialized chess preparation' is the springboard for the rest of the essay.

2. The Role of Opening Theory

3. The Principles of Working Effectively

4. Problems In Contemporary Chess; 'I could go on for a long time, making a list of the existing problems, but for now I would like to dwell on just one of them: the negative influence of opening theory on contemporary chess.'

5. Chess960

6. An Alternative Suggestion; (to chess960)

The flow of Dvoretsky's essay is evident from the headings. I'll look at the fifth section, on chess960, in another post. The sixth section, 'An Alternative Suggestion' is an attempt to decouple chess from the burden of opening preparation while keeping the familiar RNBQKBNR setup. I don't know if anyone has tried the idea in competition, but I'll leave the investigation to others who are more interested than I am.

Chess960 Position Generator Revisited

2010-12-05T10:36:00.002+01:00

After posting about Another Chess960 Position Generator, it occurred to me that the source I had corrected as the base for my own position generator contained a logical error. It was a small error, reducing the number of times that the first position (SP000 BBQNNRKR) would be randomly generated, but that was enough to render it unusable.

To test my concern, I wrote a driver to call the generator thousands of times and to count the number of times each position was generated. Sure enough, the count for SP000 was approximately half of the count for the other SPs (Start Positions). After fixing the logical error, and feeling more confident about my Javascript skills, I decided to take a closer look at another generator I identified for my post on Chess960 Position Generators on the Web, i.e. the generator at very.co.il/services from a company called Very Ltd.

This second generator, based on the same die-rolling technique used by people to generate a chess960 position, was more sophisticated than the generator I had studied for the first cut. I adapted it to my needs, used my driver to verify its accuracy, and updated my page of Chess960 [Fischer Random Chess] Start Positions to use the adaptation. At the same time I incorporated a comment made to Another Generator to improve the presentation of my generator.

While doing the above, I realized that the IF/THEN table technique used to convert between SPs and their corresponding numbers ('If ID=SP000 then SP=BBQNNRKR' or vice versa) could be replaced by the method described in Calculate SP Numbers in Your Head. I'll do that in another programming project.

Monstrous Opening Preparation

2010-12-04T17:41:00.001+01:00

While reading the book 'Smart Chip from St.Petersburg' by GM Genna Sosonko, I found a short passage related to chess960. I believe it's the first time I've encountered such a book reference outside specific sources on the subject. The following excerpt is from the chapter 'Grand Slam', an essay on Irina Levitina, who left professional chess and took up professional bridge. She was even more successful at bridge than she had been at chess.

You have written about [Genrikh] Chepukaitis. Chip wasn't only an incredible blitz player, he was a real chess player. He didn't care what, where, why or how much, the main thing was to play. Chess has gradually lost this quality. Real players want to play, not to laboriously study and analyze openings at home. They can't do this, or they don't want to do it, it's boring for them. Perhaps I understand them better than you do, as I'm one of those types myself.

[Blitz is] a real game, a game in the literal sense of the word, and you're playing against a specific opponent, trying to exploit more than just their chess weaknesses. That's why I really like the idea of random chess, as this could take chess back to its original purpose as a game and you wouldn't have this monstrous opening preparation.

According to my page on the World Chess Championship, Index of women players, Levitina participated in six Women's Candidate events, once qualifying for a title match which she lost to Maia Chiburdanidze in 1984. For more about her, see the Wikipedia page, Irina Levitina.

After the comment about 'monstrous opening preparation', she added, 'But even if people start playing this kind of chess, it's still difficult for me to imagine myself ever sitting at the chess board again.' The Sosonko book doesn't mention when the essay was first published, except to say that it was in 'New in Chess' magazine. The phrase 'Smart Chip' in the book's title is a reference to Chepukaitis.

Another Chess960 Position Generator

2010-11-28T11:37:00.004+01:00

Continuing with Chess960 Position Generators on the Web, I decided to adapt one of the existing chess960 position generators to do the job I had in mind. The only real candidate was the tool at Chess-960.org, because it incorporated the notion of a standard numbering system. Fortunately, it used Javascript, making it easy to adapt. On opening the Javascript file, I discovered that it was relatively straightforward, as the chess960 intelligence was coded in the form of IF/THEN tables: 'If position = BQNBNRKR, then ID = 001', or 'If ID = 959, then position = RKRNNQBB'. I could definitely work with that, even with my rusty programming skills.

The main task was to investigate the source of the problem mentioned in Impediments to Chess960 Acceptance. Did I just happen to stumble on the only error in the original code or were there more? I extracted the ID/position equivalences, compared them to my database of SPs, and found a dozen discrepancies. The most obvious error was the assignment of SP000 (BBQNNRKR) to no.960, because the standard numbering scheme starts at 000 and ends at 959. As for the other errors, they were all incorrect ID/position equivalences scattered at random in the IF/THEN tables.

I replaced all the original equivalences with my own, made a few other changes, and added the position generator to my page of Chess960 Start Positions. On top of a working chess960 generator, I have a foundation for any related ideas that might come along.

Chess960 Position Generators on the Web

2010-11-27T17:18:00.001+01:00

The low-tech method to generate a new chess960 start position is well documented on the web and I wrote about it when I set up my Database of Chess960 Start Positions. The low-tech method to determine the numeric value of a start position (SP) is less well known, so I described it in my recent post Calculate SP Numbers in Your Head.

While it's useful to know that you don't need technology to play chess960, it's also useful to rely on that technology when it's available. Generating a random chess960 start position is one obvious example where technology makes the process a lot easier; calculating the equivalent SP number is another. What tools are available on the web to accomplish these tasks? A search on 'chess960 position generator' appears to identify dozens.

The first on Google is the well known FISCHERANDOM CHESS: Random Position Generator at Chessgames.com. Along with a random start position, it returns a FEN string that can be used to create a PGN file to record the moves of a game starting from that position. Unfortunately, as I've mentioned several times, the 'position #' attached to the start position is nonstandard. This means you need a second tool to do the conversion.

A little further down the Google list is the Starting Position Generator at Chess-960.org. Once you discover its quirks (you have to click the 'generator' button before clicking the 'notation' button) it accomplishes the task it's billed to do. Unfortunately, as I pointed out in Impediments to Chess960 Acceptance, the tool has at least a couple of bugs, rendering it unreliable.

Another tool is the Chess 960: Starting Position Generator at Very.co.il. Unfortunately, like the Chessgames.com tool, it ignores the standard chess960 numbering scheme.

Along with these links, Google returns a variety of other tools for different platforms, including at least one calculator. It was hard to believe that nothing did the task I wanted, so I decided to adapt one of them to suit my needs. I'll cover that in another post.

Calculate SP Numbers in Your Head

2010-11-21T10:52:00.002+01:00

When I started writing Who Says 'Chess960 Array'?, my original objective was to show a simple method for determining the number of a chess960 start position (SP) from the arrangement of its pieces, or vice versa,

e.g. to determine that the traditional start position RNBQKBNR is no.518 in chess960 numbering, or that no.534 represents RNBKQBNR (the traditional start position with King and Queen switched),

without using a printed table. Then, as so often happens, I got sidetracked with another issue, this time it was the problem of jargon. In this post, I'll get back on track with the numbering.

1) Start with the KRN sequence

The first thing to notice about chess960 numbering is that the start positions are grouped according to the sequence of Kings, Rooks, and Knights (KRN). For example, the first 96 positions (SP000 through SP095) all have those pieces in the sequence NNRKR, the next group of 96 positions have the sequence NRNKR, and so on. This implies that there are 10 different sequences of KRN, as shown in the following table.

0 NNRKR 000
1 NRNKR 096
2 NRKNR 192
3 NRKRN 288
4 RNNKR 384
5 RNKNR 480
6 RNKRN 576
7 RKNNR 672
8 RKNRN 768
9 RKRNN 864

Although I've given the complete table, I could have derived it with the help of a description. The table starts with the Knights in the first two positions, NNRKR. Each subsequent entry shifts the rightmost Knight one more step to the right. When the right Knight reaches the end, the left Knight shifts one step to the right and the right Knight joins it on its right side. Right? Right!

It's also worth noting that with the left Knight in the first position, the other Knight has four possible positions. With the left Knight in the second position, the other Knight has three positions, and so on -- four, three, two, one. It adds up to ten just like the pins in a bowling alley.

The numbers in that table are for convenience. The left column is a sequence number, while the right column is that sequence number multiplied by 96, the start position of that particular KRN group. [If you have trouble calculating 96 times 5 in your head, remember that 96 is equal to 100 minus 4, so 96 * 5 = (100 - 4) * 5 = 500 - 20 = 480.]

2) Account for the Q

The second thing to notice is that within each group of 96 positions the Queen shifts through the KRN sequence from left to right, one step at a time. This is shown in the following table, where 'xxxxx' stands for one particular KRN sequence.

0 Qxxxxx 00
1 xQxxxx 16
2 xxQxxx 32
3 xxxQxx 48
4 xxxxQx 64
5 xxxxxQ 80

Since there are six possible positions for the Queen and 96 positions in a KRN group, there are 16 different positions with a specific sequence of KRN&Q. Putting this together means that the first 16 of the 960 positions (SP000-SP015) all have the sequence QNNRKR, the second 16 have the sequence NQNRKR (SP016-SP031), and so on.

3) Finish with the Bs

Now the only pieces missing from the start position are the Bishops. Since one Bishop starts on a light square and the other on a dark square, there is no duplication and we have 4 x 4 = 16 unique positions of the Bishops. The sequence is shown on the following table.

00 BBxxxxxx
01 BxxBxxxx
02 BxxxxBxx
03 BxxxxxxB
[...]
15 xxxxxxBB

The Bishop table could also be derived from a verbal description. The Bishops start on a1 and b1 (or a8 and b8 for Black). Then the light-squared Bishop shifts to d1, f1, and h1. When the light-squared Bishop reaches h1, the dark squared Bishop shifts to the next dark square on the right, while the light-squared Bishop jumps back to b1, then d1, etc. Combining the Bishop table with the 16 different positions having a specific sequence of KRN&Q gives 16 unique chess960 positions, all pieces present and accounted for.

4) Put it all together

Taking the first chess960 position (SP000) as an example, it is represented by the pieces BBQNNRKR. Its KRN sequence is 'NNRKR', placing it in the first group of 96 positions (SP000-SP095); the Queen is in the sequence 'Qxxxxx', placing it in the first group of 16 positions (SP000-SP015); and the Bishops are in the formation 'BBxxxxxx', placing it first overall (SP000). A similar analysis shows why the position RKRNNQBB is numbered as the last of the 960 positions, SP959.

We can also see why the traditional start position (SP518 RNBQKBNR) and its twin (SP534 RNBKQBNR) are exactly 16 numbers apart. They both share the same KRN sequence, 'RNKNR', and have the same formation of Bishops, xxBxxBxx. Only the start position of the Queen is different -- RNQKNR (xxQxxx) vs. RNKQNR (xxxQxx) -- placing them in adjacent groups of 16 positions.

***

Here's a practical test. I've noted in the past that the Random Position Generator on Chessgames.com doesn't use the standard chess960 numbering system. It uses instead some proprietary scheme concocted by its software developer. I just accessed the page and it gave me 'position #334' as RQBBKRNN. What would the standard equivalents be?

First, let's take RQBBKRNN. Its KRN sequence is RKRNN, placing it in the last group of 96 positions, starting at SP864. Its Queen position is xQxxxx, placing it in the second group of 16 positions after SP864 (relative positions 16-31). Its Bishops are in the formation xxBBxxxx, making it the sixth position in the group of 16 (relative position 5). Adding these numbers together gives 864 + 16 + 5 = 885, which is indeed the SP number for RQBBKRNN.

Second, let's take 'position #334'? What does that represent in the standard numbering scheme? Dividing 334 by 96 and discarding the remainder gives 3, which places it in the group of 96 positions starting 288, i.e. NRKRN. Subtracting 288 from 334 gives 46; dividing this by 16 and discarding gives 2, which works out to xxQxxx. Subtracting 32 from 46 gives 14, which is the second to last of the Bishop formations, or xxxxxBBx. Combining NRKRN with xxQxxx gives NRQKRN; combining that with xxxxxBBx gives NRQKRBBN. A table lookup confirms that SP334 is indeed the number for position NRQKRBBN.

***

The title of this post is 'Calculate SP Numbers in Your Head'. Whether or not you can really do this depends on how agile you are with mental arithmetic. I find it helps to jot down the intermediate results -- 864, 16, and 5, as in the first example -- before combining them. The upshot is that if some day you are stranded on a desert island, you will be able to calculate chess960 SP numbers without having a reference table. As helpful as that might be, I suspect that you will have more important things to do on that island than play chess960.

Who Says 'Chess960 Array'?

2010-11-20T10:02:00.004+01:00

A little thing that's always irked me about chess960 is that it takes a big table (*) to derive the start position number from the start position string, e.g. to determine that the traditional start position RNBQKBNR is no.518 in chess960 numbering, or that no.534 represents RNBKQBNR (the traditional start position with King and Queen switched).

I've already demonstrated that a chess960 start position (I'll call it 'SP' for the rest of this post) can be generated without any technology -- see Some Arguments Against Chess960 for the details -- so why should determining the SP number be more complicated? I had already worked out part of a promising method, but was stuck on one point when, as a followup to How *NOT* to Play Chess960, I checked the origin of the term 'array':-

'[Howcast.com video] 0:29 - Step 1: Learn Chess960 terms. "Array" is the initial arrangement of pieces on a board.' • Who says "array"?

There are enough obstacles to promoting chess960 without introducing unnecessary jargon into the explanation. The term 'start position' means the same as 'array' and is immediately understood without defining it.

A search on 'chess960 array' returned my 'How *NOT* to Play' post at position no.3 (proof that the term 'array' is not widely used), the Howcast.com video that was the object of scorn in that post at no.2, and (drum roll...) a Wikipedia page at no.1: Chess960 numbering scheme. This was the source I had expected to find. Wikipedians have done a terrific job of documenting the complete range of human experience, but sometimes they go too far.

The Wikipedia page gave two complicated algorithms to go from SPs to their numbers and vice versa, and it would be impossible to follow the algorithms without referring to the page. I was looking for a method that could be used on a desert island. While that page wasn't the answer, it did provide a helpful clue that solved the point I had missed in searching for a promising method. I'll give that method in another post.

At position no.4 in the search results was a post from Rybkaforum.net, Kasparov on Chess960, etc., which used the term 'array' in a different context:-

[Kasparov] suggests choosing a subset of Fischer Random that would include only natural positions. I have tried to promote a similar idea where, for instance, 25 positions can be selected from the chess960 array

This apparently uses 'array' to mean the complete set of all 960 legal SPs, as opposed to a single SP. Since there is no generally accepted term for this -- I just used the mathematical word 'set' to mean the same thing, but I could have used 'catalog' -- the word 'array' is as good as any.

The Rybkaforum.net post wades into the jargon swamp a bit later when it uses the term 'orthochess' to mean traditional chess. This is another concept that really needs a generally accepted term. I'm in the habit of writing 'SP518 RNBQKBNR' to keep the meaning precise, but I'm sure that very few chess players would understand that shorthand out of context, making it jargon at its worst.

***

(*) My own table is here: Chess960 [Fischer Random Chess] Start Positions.

How NOT to Play Chess960

2010-11-14T07:26:00.003+01:00

No.19 in my list of Top-25 Chess960 Resources (I should have ended that title with a '?') was this gem: How To Play Chess960 [howcast.com]; embedded here:-

How To Play Chess960 on Howcast

How many mistakes can you make in a video that runs less than two minutes?

0:15 - Shows White Bishops on the same color squares.
0:24 - 'You will need ... a computer with Internet access.' • No, you won't. Use the die mentioned at 0:26.
0:29 - 'Step 1: Learn Chess960 terms. "Array" is the initial arrangement of pieces on a board. A "starting piece" is a chess piece that’s part of the initial array.'• Who says "array"? Is that "starting piece" as opposed to "non-starting piece"? Those would be which pieces?
0:40 - 'The "960" in chess960 refers to the 960 possible starting moves in the game.' • No, it doesn't. It refers to the number of possible start positions.
0:47 - 'Step 2: Study a numbered chess board diagram in order to notate chess piece positions.' • Looking at a chess960 diagram is enough. The numbers are irrelevant for setup. What does 'to notate' mean?
1:00 - 'Step 3: Place the Pawns in their traditional board positions'. • Should be preceded by step 2+: Position the board correctly before placing Pawns. ('White on right')
1:05 - 'Step 4: Use online position generators to set up each player's back row.' • Shows the Chessgames.com forum, which uses a non-standard, proprietary system to number the start position. (Although I can't really expect Howcast.com to know that)
1:12 - 'A randomizer might display the Black Knight in the traditional Black Queen position'. • The position doesn't show that. And what holds for Black also holds for White.
1:26 - 'Bishops are on opposite colored squares'. • Shows the same position as at 0:15.
1:33 - 'Step 6: Learn how to castle in chess960'. • Shows White castling O-O while in check.

A few weeks ago I used another Howcast video in How To Use Rybka?!. How many mistakes are in that clip?

Top-25 Chess960 Resources

2010-11-13T15:37:00.005+01:00

I started a recent post, Chess960 Universität, with, 'After writing about chess960 for more than two years I don't know how I could have overlooked a major source of instruction, but so I have.' Have I overlooked anything else of importance? Let's look at the top-25 Google results for 'chess960'.

Chess960 [wikipedia.org] • A good choice for the no.1 slot, but as with many topics in Wikipedia, you can't see the forest for the trees. Is chess480 really worth four paragraphs?
Why Chess960? [chess960.net] • See also White to play and go insane?
Chess960@Home [chess960athome.org] • 'Project information: In this project we try to combine Chess960 and the idea of distributed computing. With the BOINC software framework from the University of Berkeley exists a platform we want to use in this project to perform these computing intensive tasks. With it we want to give this chess variant some basics in theory of this game.' • I doubt that this is the right approach to crack the secrets of chess960.
Fischer Random Chess / Chess960 / FullChess [dwheeler.com] • Looks dated; the most recent year mentioned is 2003.
Playchess960.com • A stub?!
Chess-960.org • This domain occupies both position 6 & 7 of the results; most recent updates dated 2006.
Rules of Chess960 [chesstigers.de] • A PDF.
Fischer Random Chess email Club / Chess960 [frcec.chess960.info] • Also looks dated; the most recent year mentioned is 2007.
Chess960 (FRC) • The blog you are now viewing.
Chess960 (Fischer Random) - Chess Encyclopedia - Caissa's Web [caissa.com] • 'Chess960 is integrated with every feature of the Caissa's Web online chess website'
DGT Chess960 [chess960.nl] • English -> 'As a tribute to Bobby Fischer, DGT invites chess clubs, schools, organizers and directors from all over the world to organize in 2008 a Chess960 tournament.'
Chess960 [chess.960.cz] • 'Play chess from the first move! Play chess960!'
Chess vs. Chess960: A PC's View [wired.com] • Dated July 2005.
Chess960@home [unitedboinc.com] • Related to the Chess960@Home resource above.
Aronian and Nakamura qualify for Chess960 Wch final [chessvibes.com] • Dated July 2009.
Swiss Chess960 Championship [bielchessfestival.ch] • I mentioned this in Chess960 Tournaments Are Rare Birds.
Chess 960 Live Blitz game #1 [youtube.com] • Dated March 2010.
How To Play Chess960 [howcast.com] • 'Step 1: Learn Chess960 terms: “Array” is the initial arrangement of pieces on a board. A “starting piece” is a chess piece that’s part of the initial array...'
www.myChess.de • 'Play Chess and Chess960 via internet! One of the most powerfull chess servers on the internet!'
Chess Classic: Aronian dominates in Chess960 [chessbase.com] • Dated July 2009.
Dark Chess 960 [silvertreerpg.org] • 'I thought it would be cool to try writing a computer player for a variation of the game where there is incomplete knowledge. Thus, a variant of chess called Dark Chess 960.'
Random Chess (Chess960) for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad on the iTunes App Store [itunes.apple.com]
Chess960 Start Positions [mark-weeks.com] • A support page for the blog you are now viewing.
ICC Help: chess960 [chessclub.com] • 'How to play Chess960 on the ICC'

Two of my own resources occupy two positions in a list of top-25 resources for chess960. Where are Chess.com and Schemingmind.com?

GM Yusupov : Lesson 1

2010-11-07T09:22:00.003+01:00

I ended my previous post, Chess960 Universität, with a promise to look more closely at one of the sample lessons offered by Chess Tigers. Any of the lessons would have been suitable, but I chose IPS 2100: Lektion 1 from 2005, because it is aimed at more expert players (Elo ~2100) and because it is signed by Artur Jussupow, better known to English speakers as GM Artur Yusupov, a candidate for the World Championship in the 1980s.

I used Yusupov's work in a recent post on opening theory -- Yusupov's 'General Principles of Opening Play' -- making it appropriate to examine his thinking about chess960. Lektion 1 (Lesson 1) is titled 'Unprotected Pawns / Weak Points' and starts with the same small table I gave in Undefended Pawns in Chess960 Start Positions, showing the number of start positions with specific counts of undefended Pawns. This is followed by an example game, Bacrot - Lanka, from the 2005 FiNet Open at Chess Classic Mainz (CCM5). The start position is shown in the following diagram.

SP829 RKNBQRBN

Here are Yusupov's comments on the first few moves. (I used Google Translate for a basic translation, then cleaned it up based on my own limited understanding of German. It's still a rough translation, but the meaning comes through.)

If we look closer at this start position, we see that the Pg2 and of course its counterpart on g7 are unprotected. These Pawns [Google: 'farmers' (!)] are currently considered weak. Of course, it is not necessary to defend them immediately, but you should not forget them!

1.e4 c5? - 1...e5 would have been better, but Lanka gladly plays the Sicilian defense in traditional chess, and can not resist to achieve this structure here. His reflex move leads to big difficulties.

2.f3! - White now attacks the Pawn on c5 with the Bg1 and at the same time opens the diagonal e1-h4 for his Queen.

2...Bb6? - Overlooks the second and far more serious threat. After the better 2...d6 follows also 3.Qg3 Ng6 4.Bxc5, and if 4...Qb5, White can protect both attacked pieces: 5.Nd3, and it is very questionable whether Black can demonstrate enough compensation for the Pawn.

3.Qg3+ - Wins neatly the Pg7.

Here GM Yusupov ends his analysis of the game. The second example in the lesson is an analysis of the complete game Shirov - Naiditsch from the same event. It starts with SP897 BRKBQRNN, one of four start positions with three undefended Pawns at the beginning.

The first lesson is followed by 39 more lessons. The complete course of 40 lessons is just one of eight courses, ranging from beginner to expert level. Is there a better exposition of chess960 available in any language?

Chess960 Universität

2010-11-06T14:07:00.001+01:00

After writing about chess960 for more than two years I don't know how I could have overlooked a major source of instruction, but so I have. The page Chess Tigers Universität (no translation required, I trust) has lots of links to chess960 instruction mixed in with instruction for Traditionelles Schach (ditto). The lessons are all in German, but with access to Google Language Tools and minimal understanding of the language (which is what I have) the material is there to be perused.

I've written about Chess Tigers before -- use the search box in the right sidebar to find specific posts -- and even if you've never heard about them, you've certainly heard about their annual event Chess Classic Mainz (CCM), where one of the regular participants is World Champion Anand. The lessons date from 2004, and using the explanation at the top of the page, 'Jeder der unten angegebenen Kurse besteht aus 40 Lektionen...' (Google Translate : 'Each of the following courses consists of 40 lessons ...'), we learn that the materials available here are just samples ('Inhalt, Lektion 1, Lektion 2' = 'Content, Lesson 1, Lesson 2').

Some of the lessons are classified by IPS (e.g. 'IPS 1800' for 2004), which is defined in the lessons as 'Individual Player Strength', and which undoubtedly corresponds to the Elo ratings of traditional chess. I poked around the sample lessons, liked what I saw, and will present a snippet in my next post.

Two Analogies

2010-10-31T07:03:00.001+01:00

Buried inside my most recent post -- Chess960 Point and Counterpoint -- is an analogy I call the 'house analogy'.

Chess960 is an evolution of traditional chess. To use an analogy, imagine I build a house on a lot that was previously empty. I call the road it is on 'Chess Street'. The house might be in use for centuries before someone (a certain Mr. Fischer) gets the idea to build more houses on the same lot. He builds 959 similar houses and, to make it easier to identify the houses, assigns them numbers. My original house turns out to be no.518 on Chess Street. Note that I haven't altered the function of the original house nor have I destroyed it. It is still available to everyone who used it before. But for those who are tired of the same house and want something a little different, they have many choices.

I could carry the analogy further, but I'm not sure it would help clarify the difference between traditional chess and chess960. People who want to continue living at no.518 on Chess St. can do so. They do, however, have choices that were not available 20 years ago.

In another forum on Chess.com, I used an anology -- Chess Island -- that I call the 'beach analogy'.

Chess960 is like a tropic island having 960 gorgeous beaches all with white sand and blue water. For some obscure reason, probably to do with herd mentality, everyone who vacations on the island chooses the same beach, no.518 in the numbering scheme assigned by the pioneer who first charted the island. There are so many people on that particular beach that there is no place to throw your towel down or pitch your beach umbrella, unless you cling to the rocky, dangerous cliffs that line both sides of the beach. If you want to go swimming or snorkeling you have to go out hundreds of meters to get away from the crowds. Of course, you can always rent one of those robot boats that ferry the thrill seekers as far out as possible, but the real insiders say that the increasing use of those boats is rapidly destroying the beauty of the beach.

Meanwhile the other 959 beaches remain just as they were when first discovered. A few intrepid vacationers prefer those beaches to no.518, although they have a hard time explaining why. Maybe they don't like crowds and just want to get away from it all. Whatever the reason, on every vacation they choose a different beach at random and enjoy themselves so much that they are reminded why they came to the island the first time. Once in a while they go back to the crowds at no.518 to renew old friendships and revisit old haunts, but it is never the same as it was before.

I'm sure there are other analogies.

Chess960 Point and Counterpoint

2010-10-30T17:39:00.000+02:00

Advocates of traditional chess love to invent arguments against chess960. I mentioned several in Some Arguments Against Chess960 and More Arguments Against Chess960. While following the pros and cons about Advanced Chess960 @ Chess.com, I had the opportunity to encounter a few more arguments. For the benefit of others who are active in promoting chess960, here is a record of the discussions.

From: Could we please stop calling Chess960 a variant?.

heinzie: '[Re SP518] the "one position within it" happens to be the only perfectly logical one, symmetrical and blessed with an even distribution of force'
SP534 (RNBKQBNR) has the same characteristics as SP518 (RNBQKBNR). Only the castling considerations are different, but that's enough to make it theoretically separate. - Mark [2nd October 2010, 12:07am]
EnterTheDragon: 'Subsequently for the following FIVE HUNDRED YEARS the game's name [chess], piece placement, piece movements stood the test of time.'
Until computers came along, when good old chess, weakened at the knees, started to stumble under the burden. I agree with the person who called chess960 a mutation. It's fortified chess, made to withstand the onslaught of the chess playing engines. It's an evolution of modern chess which was itself an evolution of medieval chess 500 years ago. Times change and things change with the times. - Mark [2nd October 2010, 11:10pm]
[Fischer didn't invent chess960] • rigamagician: 'Bronstein ... Bisguier ... Benko ... This was probably one of the first publicized matches of a Chess960-like variant.' • Atos: '"Pre-Chess: Time for a Change"'
The history of shuffle chess goes back hundreds of years. Gligoric, in his book on chess960/FRC, dates the idea to 1792 and gives games from 1842 and 1851. The 1851 game has the Bishops for each side starting on the same color squares, which is not done in the better evolutions of shuffle chess.
Fischer added two important concepts to the earlier forms of shuffle chess. First, he specified that the King must start between the Rooks. Second, he defined castling to have the King & Rook end up on the same squares as in traditional chess (RNBQKBNR), for both O-O-O and O-O. That's what makes traditional chess a subset of chess960 and what gives the other 959 chess960 start positions the same feel (and appeal) of traditional chess.
Comparing chess960 to earlier forms of shuffle chess is like comparing the Wright brothers' invention to hot air balloons. They are not the same thing. - Mark [5th October 2010, 01:06am]
Atos: 'that seems rather like saying that traditional chess was invented by the people who introduced the rules for castling and en passant'
Without the two rules that you mention, traditional chess (aka modern chess) would not be the game that we play today. It would be some other game. So, yes, traditional chess *was* invented by the people who introduced the rules for castling and en passant. That's not to say that they invented the precursors of traditional chess, like medieval chess or like the versions without castling and en passant. The evolutionary sequence is clear and undisputable.
My point is that chess960 incorporates traditional chess 100%. When you play traditional chess, you are in fact playing chess960, restricted to one of the 960 different start positions (RNBQKBNR). I could say that the just-finished Olympiad was really a chess960 tournament restricted to RNBQKBNR, and I would not be wrong. (I would raise a storm of controversy, but I would not be wrong).
Chess960 is an evolution of traditional chess. To use an analogy, imagine I build a house on a lot that was previously empty. I call the road it is on 'Chess Street'. The house might be in use for centuries before someone (a certain Mr. Fischer) gets the idea to build more houses on the same lot. He builds 959 similar houses and, to make it easier to identify the houses, assigns them numbers. My original house turns out to be no.518 on Chess Street. Note that I haven't altered the function of the original house nor have I destroyed it. It is still available to everyone who used it before. But for those who are tired of the same house and want something a little different, they have many choices.
I could carry the analogy further, but I'm not sure it would help clarify the difference between traditional chess and chess960. People who want to continue living at no.518 on Chess St. can do so. They do, however, have choices that were not available 20 years ago. - Mark [5th October 2010, 11:43pm]
chessroboto: 'What good does it do to disassociate Chess960 from Chess?'
For one thing, chess is de facto a simpler game than chess960. The fixed start position in chess means that players can prepare by compiling databases, studying books, running engines on positions they will encounter in real play, and memorizing opening variations. In chess960, those crutches are no longer available.
Traditional chess also limits the number of recurring patterns that can arise early in the game. This makes it easier to master certain Pawn structures, like IQPs or Pawn chains anchored on e5. In chess960 you have to work out unfamiliar patterns while the clock is ticking. Of course, once you reach the endgame, you are back on familiar territory. This gives an advantage to good endgame players, who are a rare breed.
Some players report a light feeling of nausea when they start to play chess960 and are confronted with a new start position. I'm convinced this is because they actually have to think starting from the first move, and this unfamiliar feeling literally sets their thoughts spinning. It's like the panic you feel in traditional chess when your opponent makes a move you didn't expect.
One day, traditional chess might even be considered the equivalent of training wheels for chess960. After you have mastered the basics of RNBQKBNR and are ready for a fight starting from the first move, you move to random start positions. - Mark [7th October 2010, 02:26am]
CapAnson: 'it also has different rules for castling.'
The chess960 castling rules are based on traditional chess rules. It is exactly those rules (1) that make traditional chess a subset of chess960 and, (2) that drive the other 959 chess960 start positions toward middlegame positions that look like they arose from traditional chess. It is another example of Fischer's genius for all things concerning chess. - Mark [9th October 2010, 11:52pm]
onetwentysix: 'There are actually 480 positions in Chess960, because half of the positions are reflections of the other half.'
You're right that 'half of the positions are reflections of the other half', but, as glider pointed out, they don't play the same because of the castling rules. Let's look at an example.
In traditional chess (SP518 RNBQKBNR) there are variations that allow castling O-O in four moves, which is the minimum. One example is the Ruy Lopez, Berlin Defense: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.O-O. After castling, the castled pieces are on f1 and g1. This can lead to the Berlin Wall variation that helped Kramnik win the World Championship from Kasparov in 2000.
Now let's take the reflection, which has the King and Queen switched (SP534 RNBKQBNR). The equivalent variation is 1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bg5 Nc6 4.O-O-O. This time the castled pieces are on d1 and c1. It's not at all the same thing. Now the Berlin Wall doesn't work, because the d-Pawn is protected. The theory is completely new.
Two positions that are reflections of each other I call 'twins'. I've also seen them called 'mirrors'. Whatever you call them, they are different positions that lead to different variations. - Mark [11th October 2010, 01:07am]

From: Please, can we make white have to think for once?

chessroboto: 'When you introduce randomness in the game of chess such as Chess960's piece placement, it changes the nature of the all-information game. Such games belong to a different category that include card games and board games that use dice or jumbled tiles.'
So if I play a game of traditional chess, it's an 'all-information game'. If I then play a game of chess960 with start position RNBQKBNR (SP518), which uses *exactly* the same rules as traditional chess, it's not an 'all-information game'. It appears that you've confused information available before the game with information available during the game. - Mark [11th October 2010, 10:41pm]
chessroboto: 'Can you please name one or more all-information-type games where two or more people can play and the starting positions or conditions are randomized?'
Random conditions? Before a casual game you don't know what color you will play. Haven't you ever hidden a White Pawn in one hand and a Black Pawn in the other and asked your opponent to choose? That selection is a random process. Before a tournament game, you don't know who your opponent will be until the pairings are announced. The pairings are determined by a third party and there are always random factors involved.
There is more hidden information in a traditional chess game than there is in chess960. In traditional chess you often have no idea how much your opponent knows about the particular opening you are playing. He might have played it dozens of times and analyzed it into the endgame. In chess960 you know that both players are playing without preparation. - Mark [14th October 2010, 01:12am]
CapAnson: 'That is in fact the problem with chess 960... It's by and large a game only for 20 or 30 people in the world, for everyone else it's a novelty.'
The idea is so new that it's a novelty for everyone, but I accept your point. I also wonder whether it's more interesting for experienced players than for beginning chess players. Time will tell.
As for how experienced you need to be to appreciate it, I think most class A players (rating 1800+) know that opening preparation goes a long way to getting a good game. It would be interesting to conduct a poll asking 'When you study chess, what percent of your time do you spend on A) the opening, B) the middlegame, C) the endgame, D) Other [history, for example]', then correlate the responses according to rating. I wouldn't be surprised to find average club players and below (<1500) spending a lot of time on openings.
What got me hooked on chess960 was being forced to think about the game starting with the first move. It's not at all the same as reeling off the first 10 moves of a Closed Lopez (or Poison Pawn Najdorf, or King's Indian Bayonet Attack, or ..., or ..., or ...) from force of habit, then relying on preparation for the next few moves, then really starting to think creatively somewhere around move 15. With chess960, the creative thinking starts when you see the initial position. You don't have to be a GM to enjoy that. Isn't the intellectual challenge one of the reasons we play chess? - Mark [14th October 2010, 01:44am]

To summarize these arguments against chess960: traditional chess uses the only logical start position; it has survived 500 years without change; Fischer didn't invent chess960; it's really a different game; the rules of castling are different; it should be called chess480; it introduces uncertainty; only top GMs will be interested in it. I'm sure there are more...

More on Computer Assistance

2010-10-24T10:47:00.002+02:00

While I'm on the subject of computer assistance in chess960 (see my previous post, Advanced Chess960 @ Chess.com) here are a few more points of view. In Fischer Announces Fischerandom, a portion of the press release announcing Fischer's version touched on computer analysis.

With many people wondering about the future of chess after the IBM computer Big Blue beat Garry Kasparov earlier this year, Fischer's statement that computers would be at a considerable disadvantage in Fischerandom Chess received a great deal of attention. He stated that without access to databases of the millions of opening variations in traditional chess, computers do not really play chess all that well.

As an aside, don't read too much into the sentence that 'IBM computer Big Blue beat Garry Kasparov earlier this year'. The press conference took place in June 1996, so the Kasparov - IBM match would have been the first, played in February 1996. Kasparov suffered his only loss in the first game, but won the match by winning the last two games. It wasn't until the following year that Deep Blue beat Kasparov in a match (see a page on my World Championship site, Kasparov vs. IBM's Deep Blue, for a few details about the two matches).

Fischer's thoughts on computers drew attention from the experts. In The birth of Fischer Random Chess by Eric van Reem, which first appeared in 2001, the well known chess journalist wrote,

Fischer stated, that without access to databases of the millions of opening variations in traditional chess, computers do not really play chess all that well. However, Matthias Wüllenweber, one of the founders of ChessBase, has a completely dífferent opinion on that subject. Last year, when "Fritz on Primergy" played two Shuffle Chess games against German number 1 Artur Jusupov [Yusupov], the software specialist said: "When playing F.R Chess unusual patterns come up on the board. Knowledge of these patterns, however, is one of the main weapons for humans in their battle against computers.

Wüllenweber refers to a test his partner Frederic Friedel did with Hungarian Grandmaster Andras Adorjan. Friedel showed Adorjan several positions for a period of ten seconds. The Hungarian could recall those "normal" postions far better than amateur players did. Humans remember so-called "chunks" e.g. they do not remember pawn on f2, g2 and h2, King on g1 and Rook on f1, they remember the chunk "Castling Kingside".

If you build up a position without those patterns, but try to put up a position that really doesn´t make sense, with pawns on the first and eigth rank for example, there is hardly any difference in memorization between amateurs and grandmasters. According to Wüllenweber this 'thinking in chunks' is the main difference between humans and computers and the difference in ELO is some hundreds of points. A computer can play with 3 knights or 5 rooks, no problem.

This last point is in accordance with a sentiment I reported in A Few Novel Ideas (with links to the ICCF.com forum for the context of the discussion).

"For serious correspondence chess, as opposed to casual correspondence chess, playing chess960 games is a step in the WRONG direction. The reason is simple : the human knowledge effect in the games will be further reduced since the engines that are already affecting classic correspondence chess have zero problems adapting to chess960."

So who is right, Fischer or his critics? Since Fischer's heyday occurred when computer chess was still in its infancy (the first World Championship for Computer Chess took place in 1974), it's easy to conclude that the experts who came later were far more knowledgeable. Fischer, however, surprised us many times in the past and he might well surprise us in the future, long after his death.

Advanced Chess960 @ Chess.com

2010-10-23T16:07:00.002+02:00

One of my five Questions of Chess960 Theory is 'How useful are computers in evaluating the different start positions?' A few months back I wrote about Chess960 Groups @ Chess.com, where one of the members took the question about computers to another level. In Advanced Chess960 - a Debate, glider1001 suggested,

The area of interest I have is in Advanced Chess960 (computer assisted). I want Chess.com to recognize this way of playing by allocating it a rating's category. If you want to read up on Advanced Chess, type it into Wiki. If you type in Advanced Chess960 however, you only get a couple of links. It is early days. [...]

Why would I want to have computer assisted Chess960 play accepted at Chess.com? That question is actually quite simply answered with an analogy. The computer is like a telescope that can help to peer deeper into the Chess960 galaxy than can be seen with the naked eye of our own intellect. Why not use a computer then?

Responses to the question, 'Why not use a computer?', came quickly.

Kacparov: 'Advanced chess is cheating here, if you want to play it you need to go somewhere else, sorry.' • Atos: 'It's not allowed to use assistance in rated games, even if both sides agree.'

Right question, wrong forum. Chess.com members have the same tolerance for accused computer cheaters that the Holy Office of the Inquisition had for those poor souls suspected to have strayed from Catholic orthodoxy. A recent case involving IM (and WGM) Yelena Dembo was discussed on The chess games of Yelena Dembo at Chessgames.com. In the online world, tongues will wag and you're guilty until proven innocent. Good luck with that.

Not one to give up easily, glider1001 set up his own group on Chess.com: Advanced Chess960 Community, complete with its own forum, Advanced Chess960 Community - Forums. While member numbers are low, and likely to remain so, there are already a screenful of interesting chess960 topics, penned by glider himself, on the forum. Many of these are more about chess960 opening theory than about computer assistance. I hope glider doesn't mind if I rely on some of his ideas, duly attributed, for future posts on this blog.

Strategical vs. Tactical Openings

2010-10-17T16:06:00.000+02:00

In The Seeds of Victory?, I analyzed the opening of a game between the co-winners of the SchemingMind 2009 Chess960 Dropout Tournament. In this next post I'll look at a win by the loser of that previous game.

I discussed the format of the SchemingMind dropout tournaments in Pyramids and Dropouts. The current game was played in the last round of the 2009 event, where all four surviving players were on the verge of elimination. A loss in either of the two last round games would be curtains for that player. In this current game a draw for White would also mean instant elimination, while Black needed a win here and a draw in the other game, or vice versa. The bottom line was that both players were in a situation to play for a win.

The following diagram shows the game with Black to play his fourth move. The start position (SP880 BBRQKRNN), still visible in the diagram, has a curious symmetry. The royalty, located on the same center squares as in traditional chess, is flanked by the Rooks on the c- and f-files. The Bishops are on adjacent files, meaning also adjacent diagonals, on the Queenside, while the Knights are on adjacent files on the Kingside. The g- and h-Pawns are unprotected and subject to immediate attack by the Bishops. Castling O-O-O, to keep the King out of range of the opponent's Bishops, looks better than O-O.

During the first few moves, both players have been preoccupied with the safety of the Kingside Pawns, at the same time following a policy of development coupled with attention to the center. White has just played 4.Nhg3. Black could have continued similarly with 4...Ng6, but instead went into complications with 4...h5, threatening the enemy Knight. Unlike the game in the 'Seeds of Victory' post, which opened with strategical maneuvering by both players, the current game veered into tactical calculations, based on mutual shots against the Knights.

After a few more moves the game reached the position shown in the second diagram, where White has just castled O-O-O. It's hard to say who stands better. The swap of a center Pawn for the h-Pawn probably favors Black, but this sort of positional reckoning takes a back seat when tactical complications abound. The attacks on the Knights continued with 11...f5 12.f4, and Black eventually prevailed. Here again is the complete game score, courtesy of SchemingMind.

[Event "2009 Chess960 Dropout Tournament"]
[Site "SchemingMind.com"]
[Date "2010.07.29"]
[Round "6"]
[White "thebirdolux"]
[Black "wilfried"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Variant "fischerandom"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "bbrqkrnn/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/BBRQKRNN w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.c4 Nf6 2.e4 c5 3.Ne2 e6 4.Nhg3 h5 5.b3 h4 6.e5 Ng4 7.Ne4 h3 8.Nf4 Nxe5 9.Nxh3 Qh4 10.Qe2 b6 11.O-O-O f5 12.f4 Qg4 13.Rfe1 Qxe2 14.Rxe2 Nc6 15.Bxg7 fxe4 16.Bxf8 Nd4 17.Re3 Kxf8 18.Bxe4 Bxe4 19.Rxe4 Ke7 20.Rh1 Nf7 21.g3 b5 22.d3 Rh8 23.Nf2 Bc7 24.Ree1 Ba5 25.Ref1 Nd6 26.cxb5 N6xb5 27.Ne4 d5 28.Ng5 Ne2+ 0-1

Once again, it's not immediately clear why White resigned in the final position. White has a Rook and two Pawns for a Bishop and a Knight, but Black's minor pieces are swarming around White's King. I imagine that a detailed analysis would show imminent material loss for White.

The Seeds of Victory?

2010-10-16T15:34:00.002+02:00

Earlier this year I reported on the SchemingMind 2008 Chess960 Dropout Tournament (see Tartakower and Chess960 and Strange Moves, Strange Game), and now I can report on the site's 2009 Chess960 Dropout Tournament (you have to be a member to see the crosstable behind that link, but membership is free). The co-winners were the same players who knocked me out of the event in the penultimate round, in games I covered in two posts: Castling Misjudged and Symmetry Misjudged. Those players met in round 3 of the event, contesting the position shown in the next diagram (SP783 QRKNRNBB).

SP783 presents a couple of awkward challenges. First, the Queens are in a corner facing a Bishop at the other end of the long diagonal. On top of that, castling O-O-O looks to be more likely than O-O, but the King on the a-side will be under pressure from the enemy Bishops sitting on adjacent diagonals. How did the game proceed?

The second diagram shows the position after ten moves have been played by each side. Using the techniques that I introduced in Count the Developing Moves and Move Order in the Opening, let's summarize the development thus far.

White has made four Pawn moves, Black six (the a-Pawn has moved twice). Both players have castled O-O-O as expected. Of his remaining five moves, White has made three with the Knights to take control of d5, and two with the Queen to transfer it to c2. Of his remaining three moves, Black has taken two to get the Knights off the back rank and one to move the King to b8.
Neither player has moved a Bishop, but all four are already playing an active role in the game; moving the f- and g-Pawns was sufficient to activate them. Except for castling, neither player has moved a Rook, but all four are developed on central files, waiting for lines to open.

All things considered, White's position makes a better impression. The Queen and Knights are more active, while the d2-d4 break is a bigger threat than Black's pushing the a-Pawn. Although White went on to win, it would take a more profound analysis to determine if the seeds of victory were already present in the diagrammed position. Here is the complete game score, courtesy of SchemingMind.

[Event "2009 Chess960 Dropout Tournament"]
[Site "SchemingMind.com"]
[Date "2009.07.02"]
[Round "3"]
[White "Tyler"]
[Black "wilfried"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Variant "fischerandom"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "qrknrnbb/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/QRKNRNBB w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.f4 g6 2.e4 Nc6 3.Nde3 O-O-O 4.O-O-O d6 5.g3 Kb8 6.c3 e5 7.Nd5 f6 8.Nfe3 Nd7 9.Qb1 a5 10.Qc2 a4 11. Kb1 Ne7 12.Nxe7 Rxe7 13.d4 Qa5 14.fxe5 fxe5 15.d5 Nb6 16.b4 axb3 17.axb3 c6 18.c4 Bg7 19.Re2 Kc7 20.Qa2 Qxa2+ 21.Rxa2 Nc8 22.Kc2 h5 23.b4 Red7 24. Bg2 Bh6 25.Bh3 Rh7 26.Ra8 h4 27.Bg4 hxg3 28.hxg3 Nb6 29.Rxd8 Kxd8 30.c5 1-0

I'm not sure why Black resigned, but he must have been looking at material loss and had too much respect for his opponent's endgame skill to continue.

Fine's 'General Principles' of Opening Theory

2010-10-10T11:04:00.004+02:00

In my previous post, Yusupov's 'General Principles of Opening Play', I repeated some chess guidelines given by GM Yusupov, who was a World Champion candidate two decades ago. A set of similar guidelines from a World Champion candidate of the more distant past can be found in 'Ideas Behind the Chess Opening' by Reuben Fine. His first chapter on 'General Principles' includes the following, which are important enough to be called Fundamental Principles. Fine said,

It is perhaps not generally realized that opening theory in chess proceeds on certain definite assumptions. They are simple enough and once learned will never be forgotten. They are:
In the initial position White, because of the extra move, has a slight advantage. Consequently:
White's problem in the opening is to secure the better position, while
Black's problem is to secure equality.
The elaboration of these questions in each individual case is what is meant by 'the theory of the openings'.

Although we don't know for sure, it is highly likely that those three 'definite assumptions' apply to the other 959 chess960 start positions. A few paragraphs later Fine continues,

There are two fundamental concepts in the opening : development and the center. Development is getting the pieces out. The center consists of the four squares in the geometrical center of the board. The basic principle is that it is essential in the opening to develop all the pieces harmoniously and in such a way as to secure the most favorable position possible in the center.

More elaborately, there are ten practical rules which are usually worth sticking to, though the expert player will be aware of the many exceptions. These rules are:
Open with either the e- or the d-Pawn.
Wherever possible, make a good developing move which threatens something.
Develop Knights before Bishops.
Pick the most suitable square for a piece and develop it there once and for all.
Make one or two Pawn moves in the opening, not more.
Do not bring your Queen out too early.
Castle as soon as possible, preferably on the King's side.
Play to get control of the center.
Always try to maintain at least one pawn in the center.
Do not sacrifice without a clear and adequate reason.
[Followed by four reasons for a Pawn sacrifice]

Note the mention of harmonious development in the first paragraph of the quote. A frequent criticism of chess960 is that many of the start positions lack the harmony found in the traditional position (SP518 RNBQKBNR). While this is certainly true, it is also true that an unskilled player will often ruin the natural harmony of SP518 by developing the pieces unharmoniously, thereby turning gold into rubbish. In contrast, the skilled chess960 player is often faced with the challenge of turning rubbish (speaking figuratively; I've never met a chess960 start position I didn't like) into gold. Since both players are faced with the same start position, the skilled player will achieve harmony of the pieces faster than the unskilled opponent.

As for the 'ten practical rules', there is some overlap with Yusupov's principles plus many new ones. Again there are guidelines particular to the RNBQKBNR setup mixed with more general guidelines. Specifically, the cautions on the minor pieces and on the Queen sortie apply to SP518; the cautions on the center Pawns and on castling Kingside probably apply to many start positions, although not all; while the other cautions undoubtedly apply to all chess960 start positions.

I'm starting to assemble a good collection of opening principles and, in future posts, will look at what other GM-level writers have to say on the subject. Then I'll return to the distinction between general chess960 principles and those that apply to SP518.

Yusupov's 'General Principles of Opening Play'

2010-10-09T17:15:00.003+02:00

In Questions of Chess960 Theory, I asked,

Do the opening principles in traditional chess (SP518 RNBQKBNR) apply to the other 959 positions?

An answer to this question requires some agreement on what is meant by 'the opening principles in traditional chess'. In Dvoretsky & Yusupov's book 'Opening Preparation', the first chapter 'General Principles of Opening Play' was written by GM Yusupov, a world class player who has dabbled in chess960. He opens the chapter with a question -- 'Let us ask what constitutes the strategy of the opening struggle in chess' -- then hones in on the following points.

'Fast development is the basis of opening play.'
'Endeavour either to seize the center with Pawns or put pressure on it with pieces.'
'A great deal may depend on whether you obtain a good Pawn structure or a bad one.'
'From the very first moves, a struggle for the initiative is under way, and this perhaps is the very essence of opening play.'

These points are easily applied to all of the chess960 start positions. I would have liked to see a point about King safety, but maybe GMs assume this is obvious. Yusupov then adds a further point on 'opening structure'. The first time I read this I thought he was talking about Pawn structure, but I now think his meaning is broader.

'Modern opening structures are firmly linked to a middlegame plan of action (and sometimes you have to take the eventual endgame structure into account).'

He then refines the foregoing points, all of them very general, with 'Some simple rules'. (That is Yusupov's term; I would prefer to call them 'guidelines', since the 'rules of chess' are usually used to specify how the pieces move, the definition of checkmate, and that sort of thing.) His rules are:-

'Don't move the same piece twice (without serious justification).'
'Don't waste time on prophylactic moves with the Rook's Pawns; developing the pieces faster is more important.'
'Don't bring the Queen out too early; choosing the right place for it is a crucial task, since the nature of the subsequent struggle is in many ways dependent on where the Queen is placed.'
'Don't be rushed into a premature, unprepared attack.'
'Don't go in for Pawn hunting, especially in open positions where a lead in development makes an immense difference. Remember that a tempo in the opening is sometimes more important than a Pawn.'

Here the general application to chess960 becomes less obvious. The point about Rook Pawns (a- & h-Pawns) is specific to the SP518 setup, where the Bishops often attack (and pin) the enemy Knights. The early development of the Queen might also be more important to SP518 than to other start positions. There are some chess960 positions where an early sortie of the Queen is needed to prepare the smooth development of the minor pieces, which in turn prepares castling.

These differences raises another question: Can the 'rules' that are specific to SP518 be generalized to apply to all start positions? I'll come back to that after examining 'opening principles' formulated by other top players.

Questions of Chess960 Theory

2010-10-03T11:12:00.001+02:00

The different points that I emphasized in Questions of Theory can be summarized as following:-

How fair are the 960 start positions with regard to the chances for both White and Black?
Do the opening principles in traditional chess (SP518 RNBQKBNR) apply to the other 959 positions?
Are there guidelines for developing the pieces that start from unfamiliar squares (e.g. other than c1/f1 for the Bishops)?
How useful are computers in evaluating the different start positions?
In the absence of compilations of standard variations, what does 'theory' mean?

The first point will remain open until someone discovers an example which is not fair to both players; to date, there are no known examples. The second point requres a survey of opening principles in traditional chess. I'll start that in the next post.

Questions of Theory

2010-10-02T16:33:00.001+02:00

The 800-pound gorilla in chess960 is the question of opening theory: is there or isn't there? I've noticed that many newcomers to chess960 often start by assembling a database of games, gathering every game to be found on the web. Since they are not likely to play the same start position more than once or twice, what's the point? Another common approach is to try and limit the number of different start positions 'authorized' for competition. This is usually stated with an unproven conviction that it will somehow improve the understanding of chess960, thereby accelerating its acceptance.

Other than these flawed approaches, what factors can guide the player who is facing a brand new chess960 start position? Are there hidden principles of chess960 openings waiting to be discovered by some future genius, the Steinitz of chess960? We may never know, but I thought it would be a good idea to collect a few ideas that I've introduced in previous posts on this blog and to take them to the next level.

Chess960 Opening Theory • 'A key question for the acceptance of chess960 is knowing whether all chess960 positions are equally fair, and, if not, are they reasonably fair.'
Comments on Chess960 Opening Theory • 'Since the only difference between chess960 and traditional chess is the starting position of the pieces, it's natural that discussions on chess960 tend to focus on the opening phase of the game.'
Lasker's Table of Opening Values • 'Since chess960 is only an expansion of the start position used in traditional chess, can we consider how Lasker's values -- or any other system that tries to weigh opening variations objectively -- apply to the 959 other start positions?'
A Framework for Chess960 Opening Theory • 'Although there are 960 different start positions, there are many similarities across those positions. For example, any start position with a Bishop on the a-file has certain characteristics in common with all other positions having a Bishop on the a-file, and those positions have the same general characteristics as positions with a Bishop starting on the h-file.'
First Move Advantage in Chess960 • 'I haven't seen this problem of start positions where "some give White a huge advantage, some are too drawish". Are there any positions that are known to be problematic?'
Differences Between Chess and Chess960 [Opening Theory] • 'Chess: Under development since mid-19th century; Chess960: Almost none'
A Few Novel Ideas • '"Where's the fun in playing an opponent who spent the last month analyzing some opening sidelines with Fritz/Rybka? Is chess just about rewarding hard work?"'
More Arguments Against Chess960 • 'An often noted disconnect in chess terminology is that when chess players talk about 'opening theory', they mean opening variations which are thought to be best play for both sides, i.e. what is known. This is only compatible with a standard definition of 'theory' in the sense that we think these moves are best, because no one has found better.'
The Rampant Expansion of Theory • '"[Fischer] was panicking about how theory had developed during his twenty-year absence from chess. That was why he came up with his own version of chess, where the starting position would be determined by the drawing of lots"'

In future posts I'll combine those ideas with known general principles in opening a traditional chess game.

Shall We Play Chess960?

2010-09-26T09:20:00.002+02:00

My post on The Rampant Expansion of Theory quoted GM Gligoric on the inspiration for his chess960 book. It reminded me that ever since using Gligoric's title on my first post on the subject -- Shall We Play Fischerandom Chess? (*) -- I've wanted to devote one full post to the book. Having read it cover to cover twice and flipped through its pages many times, it has been my primary source of written inspiration on chess960.

A list of the book's contents on the Schachversand Niggemann page, Shall we play Fischerandom Chess?, tells us that the book is divided into three sections: a brief history of chess, the development of Fischer's idea, and sample GM games. Despite having been written and published in 2002, when there was little practical experience with the game that would later be called chess960 (when was it so named?), Gligoric's work still offers the best material on the subject.

Why did Gligoric write the book? He explains in the 'Author's Note'.

It was my pleasure to witness part of the process of creation of the randomized chess game, invented and formulated by the world chess champion [Bobby Fischer], who, having probably liked my interpretation of his match versus Spassky in my earlier book on Reykjavik 1972, at the time suggested the idea that I try to write a book myself about the unknown subject of this new version of the game of chess.

Like chess960 itself, the book has been largely ignored by the mass of the chess playing public. There are, however, a few reviews available on the web. Amazon.com currently has three Customer Reviews. One of these, by Gene Milener, author of one of the few other books on chess960, is another list of the contents. A second is more of an opinion on chess960 ('Fischerandom chess is unlikely to replace "classical" chess for much the same reason that the aluminum bats have not entered professional baseball: it would take a beautifully crafted game with a long tradition ... and throw it all out the window.') than on Gligoric's book. The third is unintelligible ('very useful for those who think clasical chess in diing into uncatchible theory+computer combo').

Of the reviews found on chess sites, the first chronologically is on Chessville.com (2002): Reviewed By David Surratt; 'If you are interested in FRC, or even just in chess history - buy this book.' The next is on Jeremysilman.com (2004; 'Shall We Play Fisher Random Chess?'): Reviewed by John Donaldson; 'If you have any interest in random chess you will want to get Gligoric's book.' The most recent is a discussion on a Chess.com forum (2010): Interesting Chess960 FRC books; Milener surfaces again and presents his real opinion, 'I ask you honestly whether anything in Gligoric's Fischerandom book says anything at all about Fischerandom?', followed by a few concepts from his own book.

My favorite section of the book is a postscript to the eight games played between GMs Leko and Adams at Mainz 2001. There are comments on Fischer's version by Leko, Adams, Yusupov, Bronstein, Kasparov, and Kramnik. Here's Kramnik:

I tried many different starting positions and all these were somehow very unharmonious. And this is not surprising as in many of these positions there is immediate forced play: the pieces are placed so badly at the start that there is a need to to improve their positions in one way only, which decreases the number of choices.

It's a good point and would provide an interesting kickoff for another post.

The Rampant Expansion of Theory

2010-09-25T10:51:00.001+02:00

In Who Is the 'Father of Chess960'?, I related an account of the creation of 'Fischerandom' as given by GM Svetozar Gligoric in his book on the subject. Gligoric had more to say about the subject in a recent post on ChessInTranslation.com: Analysing by the riverside with Bobby Fischer.

[In preparation for his 1992 match with Spassky], Bobby asked if I could play a training match with him. At first I didn’t want to, but I had to give in to his wishes. He was panicking about how theory had developed during his twenty-year absence from chess. That was why he came up with his own version of chess, where the starting position would be determined by the drawing of lots. And he began to torment me with persistent requests to write a book about it.

I told Bobby that I had very little information, but he wouldn’t let it go: "Write that book! You have to do it!" In the end I started to gather a few crumbs of material, and a few years ago a book on "Fischer Random Chess" was published in London.

There I wrote that "Fischer Random Chess" would never replace classical chess, but could exist in parallel with it. And I turned out to be right: there are now tournaments in Fischer Random Chess, and moreover great success has been achieved in it by the same players who play well in classical chess.

I don’t think that classical chess will ever die out. Capablanca feared the spectre of the "draw death" of chess, while Fischer feared the rampant expansion of theory. Perhaps a time will come when grandmasters can’t think up anything new in the opening, but then the struggle’s centre of gravity will shift to the middlegame, and the endgame. To a degree we can already observe a situation like that now.

Before seeing this, I hadn't known that Fischer had any connection with Gligoric's book. I should have guessed.

When Castling Undevelops a Rook

2010-09-19T10:50:00.001+02:00

In Castling Patterns Visualized, I used a simple technique to show the different ways that R, K, & R can be distributed across chess960 start positions. The technique can be used to count how many positions exist where castling O-O-O or O-O is possible on the first move. Many newcomers to chess960 are impressed by this contrast to traditional chess (SP518 RNBQKBNR), where castling O-O is only possible after at least four moves, and castling O-O-O takes even longer.

Another curious pattern is where the rightmost Rook starts on the e-file. There are 102 such positions, shown in the following table (the second column is the count of chess960 positions that share that pattern).

R**KR*** 18
*R*KR*** 18
**RKR*** 18
R*K*R*** 12
*RK*R*** 18
RK**R*** 18

These patterns are special because castling O-O displaces the Rook from the central e-file to the off-center f-file, at the risk of undeveloping it. From the f-file, it might have to be moved back to its start square by Rf1-e1 (or Rf8-e8). When this happens, castling O-O actually loses a tempo. In cases where the Rook is already performing an important duty, the move O-O might even be too dangerous to consider.

This quirk doesn't happen with castling O-O-O. When the Rook starts on the d-file, as in the following patterns, the O-O-O move leaves the Rook in place, where it is often already active.

***RKR** 18
***RK*R* 18
***RK**R 18

Considerations like these make the castling move so important to chess960. That's why I always consider the castling options when evaluating a new start position.

Castling Patterns Visualized

2010-09-18T17:39:00.001+02:00

Some time ago, in a post titled Introduction to Chess960 Geometry, I worked out the number of unique castling patterns in chess960. By 'unique', I mean a type of position where the King and two Rooks start on different files. It happens that there are 56 such patterns. Listing them in logical sequence gives the following picture.

RKR***** 18
RK*R**** 18
RK**R*** 18
RK***R** 18
RK****R* 18
RK*****R 18
R*KR**** 18
R*K*R*** 12
R*K**R** 18
R*K***R* 12
[...]
***R**KR 18
****RKR* 18
****RK*R 18
****R*KR 18
*****RKR 18

The number in the second column is the count of different chess960 positions that share that unique castling pattern. For example, there are 18 positions that have the 'RKR*****' pattern and 12 that have 'R*K*R***'. In the previous post I worked out why some castling patterns encompass 18 positions (there are 48 such patterns) and others only 12 positions (8 patterns). It has to do with positions where the R, K, & R all start on squares of the same color.

The same type of visual table can be used to show the number of positions where castling is possible on the first move. There are 72 positions where castling O-O-O is immediately possible:-

**RKR*** 18
**RK*R** 18
**RK**R* 18
**RK***R 18

And there are 90 positions where O-O is immediately possible:-

R****KR* 18
*R***KR* 18
**R**KR* 18
***R*KR* 18
****RKR* 18

Some day it might be interesting to examine patterns from real games and determine how many times the players castled O-O-O vs. O-O. For now, though, there are too few recorded games to make this worthwhile.

Top GMs and Traditional Development Patterns

2010-09-12T16:31:00.003+02:00

After writing the post on Traditional Development Patterns, I searched for other examples on the same theme: start positions with 'RNBQK***' or '***QKBNR'. My collection of games from the Chess Classic Mainz series (CCM) yielded only a few examples, most of them from machine vs. machine games, but searching on the twins ('RNBKQ***' or '***KQBNR') yielded many examples.

The first batch of examples consisted of ten games played in CCM9 during the first round of the 8th FiNet Open. Because the event used the Swiss system for pairings, the highest rated players, all GMs, were paired against the top players from the bottom half of the rankings. This was similar to the situation I discussed in GMs vs. 2100-2200 (I) and GMs vs. 2100-2200 (II).

The second batch of games came from the eighth round of the same event, where the GMs played against each other. This reminded me of the post How Top Players Treat the Same Chess960 Position. The games played in the second batch used the start position shown in the following diagram. I featured one of these games in the post Grischuk - Mamedyarov, Mainz 2009.

SP535 RNBKQNRB

The initial moves show considerable variety, but are drawn from the most popular moves used in the traditional start position.

( 1.g3 g6 2.e4
    ( 2.c4 e5 3.Nc3 Ne6 4.d3 c6 5.Bh6 g5 {Grischuk - Mamedyarov} )
    ( 2.d3 e5 3.c4 Ne6 4.Nc3 c6 5.b3 Qe7 {Navara - Moiseenko} )
2...e5
    ( 2...d6 3.Ne3 Nc6 4.f4 Bd4 5.c3 Bb6 {Bologan - Buhmann} )
3.d3 d6 4.Nc3 Ne6 5.Bd2 Nd4 {Kamsky - Grigoriants} )

( 1.Nc3 g6
    ( 1...g5 2.g3 d6 3.b3 Nc6 4.Bb2 f5 {5.O-O-O Bd7; Azarov - Akopian} )
2.g4 e5 3.b3 Nc6 4.Bb2 d6 {5.O-O-O Be6; Movsesian - Sargissian} )

( 1.e4 g6 2.Ne3 b6 3.Nc3 Bb7 4.g3 Nc6 5.b3 e6 {Landa - Malakhov} )

( 1.f4 g6 2.g4 c5 3.Nc3 Nc6 4.d3 b6 5.Bd2 Bb7 {Naiditsch - Stevic} )

( 1.d4 g6 2.Be3 e5 3.dxe5 Qxe5 4.Nc3 Ne6 {5.O-O-O O-O; Nielsen - Zvjaginsev} )

( 1.c4 e5 2.g3 d6 3.d3 Nc6 4.Nc3 Nd7 5.Bg5+ f6 {Gashimov - Sebag} )

Other than releasing the Bishop on h1, I don't see any reason why 1.g3 should have been such an overwhelming favorite. It was chosen by four of the world's best players.

Traditional Development Patterns

2010-09-11T18:16:00.000+02:00

An interesting class of chess960 start positions (SPs) has the first five pieces in the same order found in the traditional SP: 'RNBQK***'. Logic says that there should be four such positions. Since the White Bishop starts on a dark square, the other Bishop must be on one of the remaining light colored squares, f1 and h1. For each of these possibilities, the Rook and Knight can be switched on the remaining two squares. Searching the list of all 960 SPs identifies the following SPs as belonging to this class. (The twin of each SP is given in parentheses).

518 RNBQKBNR (534 RNBKQBNR)
519 RNBQKNRB (530 BRNKQBNR)
614 RNBQKBRN (246 NRBKQBNR)
615 RNBQKRNB (242 BNRKQBNR)

Using similar logic, there are four positions that fit the pattern '***QKBNR'. They are shown in the following table.

226 BNRQKBNR (631 RNBKQRNB)
230 NRBQKBNR (630 RNBKQBRN)
514 BRNQKBNR (535 RNBKQNRB)
518 RNBQKBNR (534 RNBKQBNR)

By definition, the well known SP518 RNBQKBNR appears in both tables. What makes these positions interesting is that a majority of the pieces can follow the development patterns known from SP518. Last year I had the opportunity to play one of these positions and the game evolved as shown in the following diagram.

SP514 BRNQKBNR
After 4...Bf8-e7

My opponent outrated me by several hundred points and I was surprised to see how he conducted the opening. While I followed classical opening principles, his moves fit into some other pattern of logic. It was one of the games that gave me the inspiration for two posts on this blog: Extravagant Openings in Chess960 and Extravagant Openings (cont.).

White's neglect of the center in the early moves -- 1.b4 d5 2.f4 Nf6 3.e3 e6 4.Nf3 Be7 (diagram) -- is striking. The game continued 5.Bb5+ c6 6.Bd3. I had already decided that the move ...c6 would be necessary before ...b6, in order to prevent the cramping b4-b5. When White forced this move by 5.Bb5+, I was convinced that I had won a tempo and was happy with the position. The game was eventually drawn after 66 moves.

Updated Database of SPs

2010-08-28T12:45:00.003+02:00

After a few months without updating my index to posts that discuss a specific start position, I finally brought them up to date. I discovered one position that had been discussed in an earlier post: SP535 - RNBKQNRB. For easier comparison, here are the specific positions I discussed in the two posts.

Mainz 2007, Final Match, Game 4
Aronian, Levon

Anand, Viswanathan
(After 2...d7-d5)

***

8th FiNet Open, Mainz 2009
Mamedyarov, S.

Grischuk, A.
(After 4...c7-c6)

While there are some similarities, the first game steers immediately after the diagram into troubled waters. How useful is my index? It's too early to tell.

Random Associations

2010-08-22T10:27:00.001+02:00

As long as I'm on the subject of random associations with chess960 (random associations with Fischer random?), as proposed in my post The Bernanke Positions, I might as well mention another topic inspired by the Chess.com forums. The source was The Position of the Beast, which now gives the error message 'Sorry - this has been removed'. In that post SP666 (RNKRBBNQ) was proposed as the position of the beast, a reference to a well known number from the Book of Revelation in the Bible's New Testament. Did someone find the idea offensive?

Ignoring the SP666 aspect, there are other candidates as familiar names for chess960 positions. For example, SP007 : The James Bond; SP286 : The Intel 6 MHz; SP320(++) : The Airbus Narrow Body; SP366 : The Leap Year; and SP747 : The Boeing Jumbo. Any other candidates? First come, first served...

The Bernanke Positions

2010-08-21T17:51:00.001+02:00

When a few of the chess960 fans at Chess.com were discussing how to convert the character representation of a random start position to its chess960 numeric identifier -- e.g. BRNQNKRB to no. 419 (see forum post Chess960 Starting Position ID) -- I pointed out that search engines can do this.

You can use Google to translate start positions into the corresponding ID. For example, if you search on 'BBQNNRKR' you'll see without even clicking through the results that it's position 0. On top of returning pages that are lists of all start positions, the search will turn up various odds and ends on chess960.

It's a useful tip, which is why I'm repeating it here. By 'odds and ends', I mean the two sites I mentioned at the end of my first post on the subject, Searching for BNRKNBRQ, where I left off with the time honored phrase 'I'll look at those sites in another post'.

One of those sites, 64squar.es, is currently returning the message 'Down for maintenence. Sorry the site's been getting too slow, we're working on a new version', so I may have waited too long. The other site, Wildchess.org, is currently saying 'Games in database: Fischer Random 11338' for its Fischer Random database, up from 9028 on the BNRKNBRQ post. I was wrong to pigeonhole it as 'a database site', because the FRC page also lists recent live games.

What other chess960 odds and ends are available on the web? I repeated the search on two start positions recently discussed on this blog. The first, BNNRKBRQ, returned about a half-dozen pages that list all 960 start positions, including my own SPs & Twins, linked in the sidebar. Following other links to their primary chess960 pages, I found MySchach.de, along with a handful of sites that I had already seen, most of which haven't been updated in years. The second, BRNQNKRB, led me to the usual lists of 960 positions plus MyChess.de, an alias for the MySchach.de domain.

More interesting on the BRNQNKRB search was Google's question, 'Did you mean: BERNANKE', the current Chairman of the United States Federal Reserve. My first response was, 'Huh? What's that got to do with chess960?'. My second was, 'Now I get it. Removing the vowels in BERNANKE gives BRNNK, which are five of the pieces in BRNQNKRB and in the correct order.' Google, you're trying too hard!

Given the first five letters BRNNK, the missing pieces are QRB. Since the missing Bishop must be on a light square, there are exactly four chess960 positions that start with BRNNK. I nominate these as the Bernanke Positions. What other English words match nontrivial sequences of legitimate chess960 positions?

Gambling Moves

2010-08-15T10:44:00.002+02:00

After looking at a game by Chess.com's highest rated chess960 player (see Mystery Moves), I turned my attention to the second highest: alfloran, currently rated 2233. His 'Best Win' was as Black against an opponent rated 2179: Steinar vs alfloran (SP717 RKQBNNBR). After the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 the players reached the following position.

I'm not sure what I would play here, but I doubt that I would think of playing Black's move, 4...c5, leaving a backward Pawn on the d-file. On top of attacking the Knight, this interesting move prepares to bring the Queen out on the c-file and opens a more promising diagonal for the Bishop on e8.

The Knight on d4 has a number of retreat squares, but White chose 5.Ne2. The point appears to be that after 5...Qc6, the Knight defends the e-Pawn by 6.Nc3. After the further attack on the Pawn by 6...Nd6, White switched to an indirect defense with 7.h3, taking advantage of the open diagonal to Black's King. Black achieved a satisfactory game in the ensuing complications, when White decided to sacrifice the e-Pawn for an attack. The attack eventually fizzled, leaving White a piece down. For the complete game, see the PGN from Chess.com.

[Event "Let's Play!"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2010.01.03"]
[White "Steinar"]
[Black "alfloran"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "2179"]
[BlackElo "2221"]
[TimeControl "1 in 7 days"]
[Termination "alfloran won by resignation"]
[Variant "Chess 960"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rkqbnnbr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RKQBNNBR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 c5 5.Ne2 Qc6 6.Nc3 Nd6 7.h3 Ng6 8.Bh2 Ba5 9.Nb5 Qxb5 10.Bxd6+ Bc7 11.Qd2 Qc6 12.Bxc7+ Kxc7 13.Ne3 Qxe4 14.Bf3 Qb4 15.c3 Qb6 16.O-O Rc8 17.b4 Ne5 18.Nd5+ Bxd5 19.Bxd5 Kb8 20.bxc5 Rxc5 21.Rfb1 Qd6 22.Rxb7+ Kc8 23.Qd4 Qxd5 24.Rxa7 Nc6 25.Ra8+ Nb8 0-1

How many players would think of a gambling move like 4...c5?