26 June 2021

People Also Ask About Chess960

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

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

And here is the same list using numbered bullets:-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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