2001 Leko - Adams on Geocities

As long as I'm on the subject of chess960 history, seen in last week's Bobby Fischer in 1996 (May 2022), here's another blast from the past that I discovered recently. These links are all from Archive.org, returning material originally found on a Geocities.com site, 'The Realm of the Citadel':-

• The Birth of Fischer Random Chess - Peter Leko Chamber
• Peter Leko vs Michael Adams; 'Interviews with GMs Peter Leko and Michael Adams about their unique match'
• GM Peter Leko: First Fischer Random Chess World Champion

The pages aren't dated, so I've organized them by page name: Fischerandom1/-2/-6. The missing page numbers (-3/-4/-5) are about pairs of games from the match. The third pâge on my list of links (no.6) has a photo from the match, reproduced here.

I've already posted a few times on the Leko - Adams match:-

• 2010-09-26: Shall We Play Chess960?
• 2012-10-13: 2001 Leko - Adams on Chessgames.com

Those references date the match to June 2001, meaning the Geocities pages were written some time after that. The last page in the series (no.6) has a good summary of the situation at the time of the match.

Peter Leko and Michael Adams were chosen as the most logical choices to play for the first Fischer Random title. Both players are in the top five in the January 2001 world rankings joining former and current world champions Kasparov, Anand and Kramnik.

Today, nobody injects more new super novelties to the known theories than Peter Leko. Leko has actually played some Fischer Random games with the inventor of the game himself, Bobby Fischer, who as everyone knows happens to be his friend although he says he prefers to keep the memories to himself.

There's more to explore here, but I ran out of time.

Presenting the Fischeramdon

Spotted on Twitter: Las revelaciones de Miguel Ángel Quinteros, el ajedrecista argentino que convivió 25 años con Bobby Fischer (infobae.com). Google translates the headline as 'The revelations of Miguel Ángel Quinteros, the Argentine chess player who lived with Bobby Fischer for 25 years'. What sort of 'revelations' are we talking about?

It was Quinteros who assisted him in 1971 to beat Petrosian; in 1972 he was in preparation and then assisted him in the World [Championship] in Iceland. He was also the one who accompanied him to most of the Open, to Las Vegas and three months to Taxco (Mexico) in 1982; to Paris in 1995 to draw up the Fischerandom contract that was launched with singular success on 16 June 1996 at the Pasaje Dardo Rocha in La Plata at the request of the then governor Eduardo Duhalde.

I don't understand the references to the Open, Las Vegas and Taxco, so I'll leave that to the Fischer experts. I do understand the reference to June 1996, which I discussed years ago in Fischer Announces Fischerandom (October 2009). I don't understand the reference to Paris 1995, but I'll leave that for another time.

Even more important to the history of Fischer's invention, the article included a photo. It's reproduced below along with its translated caption.

'Fischer with Quinteros in La Plata, in 1996. He had come to present the Fischeramdon [sic], a chess variant where the pieces (except the pawns) could be placed in the opening in a random way to demand the creativity of the players.'

GM Quinteros has appeared briefly on this blog before, the last time in the post Fischer and 'Wild Variant 22' (December 2013). That post is currently no.1 on 'Popular Posts (All time)' at the bottom of every page on this blog and often appears at the top of every page in 'Popular Posts (Last 7 Days)'. At some time in the past I discovered that it was not for its relevance to chess960, but rather for its discussion of the Fischer - Short ICC controversy in the early 2000s.

I never realized that GM Quinteros played a role in the early history of chess960/FRC. Perhaps that knowledge will lead to further historical discoveries.

***

Later: Re '[Quinteros] was also the one who accompanied [Fischer; ...] to Paris in 1995 to draw up the Fischerandom contract that was launched with singular success on 16 June 1996', I wrote, 'I don't understand the reference to Paris 1995'. I found three references in previous posts:-

• Brady on Fischer Random (January 2011) • 'While in Budapest, Fischer also made the acquaintance of Andrei [Andor, Andre] Lilienthal, who arranged a meeting with FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. [...] 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.'
  
  
• An Aborted Announcement (February 2012) • 'From The Week in Chess 51, 1 October 1995: "Bobby Fischer to present new chess rules' By Roberto Alvarez"'; I asked, 'What happened to that 1995 announcement? [...] Whatever finally became of the November 1995 plans'
  
  
• Foraging the 'News Groups' (August 2013) • '1996-04-14: Bobby Fischer Announces New Rules of Chess [rgc]; April 1996 was after the first (tentative) formal mention by Fischer in November 1995, as I recorded in An Aborted Announcement, and the formal announcement in June 1996, Fischer Announces Fischerandom.'

I imagine that 'Paris in 1995' meant the meeting with Ilyumzhinov in December 1995. Fischer had one objective for the meeting: Fischerandom; Ilyumzhinov had another: getting Fischer to return to chess.

GM Hort and Chess960

This post is a carryover from my main blog -- A Chess Board Is a Stage -- first, because a heat wave has reduced my capacity for any sort of real effort, and second, because it builds on a small ongoing project:-

Last month, in 'An NN for Chess Images' (June 2018), I started to analyze my archive of chess images. One of the by-products of that analysis was to catalog series of related images.

I found the following image in a series of Russian post cards. It shows GM Vlastimil Hort playing RQKNBNRB (SP699).

The timestamp on the image file is January 2004, which means the game must have been played in 2003 or earlier. The badge on GM Hort's jacket is not clear enough to read, but it might have been issued for one of the Mainz tournaments. My post on the demise of the Mainz tournaments, No Place for Chess960 (February 2011), mentions,

Chess960 Senior Rapid Chess World Championship: 2006 Vlastimil Hort

I found on file 13 games by GM Hort, the first of which was played in the 2003 Chess Classic Mainz (CCM) Chess960 Open. That game, against Igor Glek, is the only game on file for Hort in 2003; the other games are from CCMs 2005, 2006, and 2008. Hort appears to have been a keen chess960 player.

Earlier this year, in Vlastimil Hort: Memories of Bobby Fischer - Part 3 (chessbase.com; April 2018), the one time candidate for the World Championship in traditional chess (1977) recalled meeting Fischer in 1993.

I believe I am one of the first to whom Bobby showed his invention -- the new form of chess he had created! On the first rank, the pieces were placed randomly -- but with identical set-ups for Black and White. The pawns on the second or seventh rank stayed as they are -- just as in traditional chess.

This would have been the same time that Fischer was working out his castling rules. The last time I touched on this topic was Early Chess960 in Hungary (April 2018). It's ironic that more people seem to have played this early form of random chess with Fischer than to have played with the chess960 rules announced in 1996.

Chess960 Showdown

If I had been maintaining this blog for the 18 months between July 2015 and December 2016, one of the events I certainly would have covered was the 2015 Showdown in St.Louis: Day 1: Nakamura - Caruana, Hou Yifan - Negi (chess-news.ru). It took place exactly two years ago:-

Two friendly matches started in St. Louis today. Hikaru Nakamura is competing against Fabiano Caruana, while Hou Yifan's rival is Parimarjan Negi. The GMs will play four different types of chess:

November 12 - Basque system (two games simultaneously, time control 90'+30");
November 13 - Fischer chess (four games, 20'+10");
November 14 - Rapid (four games, 15'+10");
November 15 - Blitz (eight games, 3'+2").

I once discussed a possible aspect of the Basque system (Day 1) on this blog in The More the Better (March 2012), 'seems like a natural way to conduct a chess960 tournament'. Regarding 'Fischer Chess' (Day 2), it's fitting that the word 'Random' was dropped from the Chess-news.ru report.

Kasparov Chooses Chess Positions for Showdown in Saint Louis (5:13) • 'Published on Nov 12, 2015'

The description for the clip said,

The Chess Club is running a poll on Twitter where followers may vote for the starting positions, selected by Garry Kasparov, of all four games of Fischer Random Chess during Showdown in St. Louis. These games will be played on Friday, November 13 at 1pm.

As for the chess960 games themselves, the Saint Louis Chess Club has an album on Flickr.com. Here is a composite image showing six of the photos:-

2015 Showdown in Saint Louis: Day 2

Chess.com's Mike Klein wrote a report about day 2 of the event in Big Swings As Nakamura, Hou Yifan Channel Inner Fischer (chess.com).

After day one's Basque Chess, the players shifted to four games of Fischer Random, also known as Chess960, played at the rapid time control of G/20+10. Nakamura dropped game one but took 2.5 of the next three against GM Fabiano Caruana, while the former women's world champion won three straight against GM Parimarjan Negi and missed a chance to possibly make it clean sweep, drawing game four.

Unfortunately, a technical glitch prevented automatic recording of the game scores: 'There are no PGNs for Fischer Random, due to the fact that the notation system cannot understand the castling rules.' That explanation doesn't make sense, but a comment to the post does: 'From what I understand about DGT, they can easily detect that a piece is on a square, but it would be much more difficult to detect which piece it is. So you'd have to enter the initial 960 formation somehow else.' Can DGT chessboards not track random start positions for chess960 games or were the boards not prepared properly? The blog Chess960 Jungle managed to record at least two of the games:-

• Showdown in St. Louis - Fischer Random Style
• Transcript of Showdown in Saint Louis 2015 - SP112 Nakamura v Caruana
• Transcript of Showdown in Saint Louis 2015 - SP112 Negi v Yifan

The Basque and chess960 experiments were only used in the 2015 Showdown. The 2016 and 2017 editions of the event reverted to traditional rapid and blitz formats using SP518 (RNBQKBNR).

Whispering a Fond Adieu!

They say, 'a watched pot never boils'. It seems the chess960 pot is in a constant simmer, but its boiling point remains as elusive as ever. My first blog post on the subject was Shall We Play Fischerandom Chess? (August 2008), and this post will be my last, at least for the foreseeable future. It's time to turn my attention elsewhere.

Google image search on 'chess960'

Heartfelt thanks to the many visitors to this blog for taking an interest in chess960. Special thanks to the two serial commentators -- GeneM and HarryO (in alphabetical order) -- who kept me honest because I knew each new blog post would get at least two hits.

A few months ago I received an email from GeneM, aka Gene Milener, aka the author of 'Play Stronger Chess by Examining Chess960'. He wrote,

In January 2006 I published a book about chess960. This year I will publish another chess book. Even though this new book is not about chess960, I am adding a section in its appendix to discuss or update the state of chess960 now that a decade has passed. Inasmuch as you have become the preeminent voice about chess960, I wondered whether you might be interested in contributing an essay for your own attributed subsection -- on your thoughts about the current state of chess960?

I first thought of this appendix chapter as an 'Epilogue' about chess960, but that sounded too final, like chess960 did not make it and died. I rather think that changes on this scale take time as measured by generations. So instead the chapter will be presented as something like the 'Current State of Chess960 in 2015'.

For years in your blog you have put spotlight and microscope on a broad variety of specific topics within the chess960 realm. Having read your chess960 blog every weekend now for years, I am curious to see what your assessment will be when you step back to consider how the overall picture has evolved, where it stands in 2015, and where it might be headed a generation or two from now.

My essay can be found at Fischer Chess in the Year 2015. I also told Gene,

If I were writing this for the web, I would link to my post debunking certain myths: Top 10 Myths About Chess960. I consider it my top contribution to understanding chess960.

When Gene's book eventually hits the web, I'll mention it on my main blog 'Chess for All Ages' (see the link in the right navigation bar), the same place where I'll post any new reports related to chess960. I agree with Gene that the acceptance of chess960 will 'take time as measured by generations' and I will continue to play for as long as there are opponents interested in Fischer's greatest invention.

Bye for now! - Mark

No Place for Chess960

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?

Dog-Tired from Memorizing Openings

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).

Have a Merry Chess960 Christmas!

Christmas Cats Play Chess960 (in 1902!)

Banska Stiavnica 2010

A couple of weeks ago, in Chess960 Tournaments Are Rare Birds, I mentioned a Nakamura - Movsesian chess960 exhibition match in Slovakia. TWIC had more info in no.820:

18) Nakamura vs Movsesian Blitz, Chess960 and Living Chess • Hikaru Nakamura was in Banska Stiavnica on the 16th July 2010 to play a one day series of games against Sergei Movsesian which took place alongside the International Championship of Slovakia covered last week. Nakamura won both Chess960 games and a Blitz game before drawing a game of Living Chess where both sides were playing blindfold which was drawn. • Official site: www.livechess.sk/en/

Here's a photo from the official site taken just before the start of the first game.

Movsesian (playing Black) & Nakamura

And here are PGN game scores that I transcribed from the moves of the 'live games' on the same site.

[Event "Chess960 Blitz (10')"]
[Site "Banska Stiavnica SVK"]
[Date "2010.07.16"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Nakamura, Hikaru"]
[Black "Movsesian, Sergej"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Annotator "SP066"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "bnnrkbqr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/BNNRKBQR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.g3 b6 2.Bg2 Bxg2 3.Qxg2 Nc6 4.d4 e6 5.O-O h5 6.c4 Qh7 7.Nc3 Nd6 8. b3 h4 9.d5 Ne5 10.Nd3 Nxd3 11.Rxd3 hxg3 12.hxg3 Be7 13.e4 Bf6 14.Re1 e5 15.Bb2 a6 16.Bc1 g5 17.g4 Ke7 18.Ba3 Qg6 19.Ne2 Rh7 20.Ng3 Rdh8 21.Bxd6+ cxd6 22.Nf5+ Kf8 23.b4 Bd8 24.a4 Qf6 25.Ree3 Qg6 26.Rh3 Be7 27.Rb3 Ke8 28.Kf1 Kd8 29.Ke2 Bf8 30.Rxh7 Qxh7 31.a5 Kc7 32.Qf3 Qh1 33.Qe3 Kc8 34.axb6 Qa1 35.Qc3 Qa2+ 36.Rb2 Qa4 37.c5 dxc5 38.Qxe5 Qb5+ 39.Kd2 Qxb6 40.bxc5 Qa5+ 41.Ke2 1-0

[Event "Chess960 Blitz (10')"]
[Site "Banska Stiavnica SVK"]
[Date "2010.07.16"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Movsesian, Sergej"]
[Black "Nakamura, Hikaru"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Annotator "SP954"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rkrnbbnq/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RKRNBBNQ w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.g4 e5 2.Nc3 c6 3.Nf3 g6 4.h4 d5 5.d3 Bd6 6.h5 Qg7 7.e4 d4 8.Ne2 c5 9.g5 Bd7 10.c3 Ne6 11.cxd4 cxd4 12.Rxc8+ Bxc8 13.Bh3 Ne7 14.O-O-O Bd7 15.Kb1 O-O-O 16.Bd2 Kb8 17.Qe1 Nc5 18.Ba5 Rc8 19.Bxd7 Nxd7 20.Bb4 Bxb4 21.Qxb4 Rc5 22.Rc1 Nc6 23.Qb3 Rxc1+ 24.Nxc1 gxh5 25.Qd5 Kc7 26. Ne2 f6 27.Ng3 fxg5 28.Nf5 Qf6 29.Qg8 h6 30.Qh7 Nb4 31.Ne1 h4 32.a3 h3 33.Nf3 Nxd3 34.Nh2 Qb6 35.b4 Qe6 36.Kc2 Qc4+ 37.Kd2 Qc3+ 38.Ke2 Nf4+ 39.Kd1 Qd3+ 40.Kc1 Ne2+ 41.Kb2 Qc3+ 42.Ka2 Qc2+ 43.Ka1 Nc3 0-1

After I take a closer look at the games, I'll examine one in a future post.

Pictures of a Fischer Random Precursor

On her blog, Susan Polgar has published a number of photos from a 'Fischer Random' game she once played against Bobby Fischer. The following image is a composite of those photos, in chronological sequence, showing the first few moves of the game (1.g3 e5 2.Nb3 b6 3.f4 exf4).

The photos in the top row can both be found on Never been published FR games. The photos in the bottom row can be found on The Original Bobby Fischer Clock and World Champions.

It's worth noting that the position in the photos is not a legal chess960 start position. The best shot of the position is the photo in the lower left, which shows the pieces set up as either NKNBRRBQ or NQNBRRBK. Although it's not completely clear which piece is the King and which the Queen, in neither case is the King located between the Rooks, as required in chess960. Gligoric's Shall We Play Fischerandom Chess? allows us to date the photos to 1993 (p.36-39).

During Fischer's stay in Saint Stefan in 1992 [the second Fischer - Spassky match], he recommended shuffling all the pieces at random on the back row before the beginning of each game. [...] It turned out that Fischer's first plan would make 2400 different commencing positions. Immediately after his sensational return to the chess scene in 1992, he began experimenting privately with this kind of chess against colleagues and chance visitors.

Although Fischer was pleased that the mathematical sum of starting positions was very large, he soon discovered that eventually having two Bishops of the same color made an unpleasant impression, producing one-sided and limited opportunities on the chessboard. It was also clear that obstructing the right to castle would mean a step backward toward the primitive distant chess past and if the intermingling of pieces on the back row made castling impossible for both sides, this would inflict irreparable damage on playing strategy as well.

The result of Fischer's constant meditation on how to give alternative life to the game of chess, threatened by the exhaustion of its creative resources, was the formulation, in September 1993, of the rules of "Fischerandom Chess".

For more about Fischer's original rules, see Fischer's Rules of Fischerandom.

No Preparation Required

A recent article in TechRepublic.com, The role of computers in planning chess strategy by Debra Littlejohn Shinder, received a fair share of attention from the chess blogosphere. That wasn't at all surprising, since it was about top-level tournament preparation.

Electronic assistance isn’t allowed during a conventional match, but that doesn’t mean chess champs can’t use digital devices when assessing the opponents they may encounter in a tournament and when plotting their strategies. Many chess players at the international tournament level now utilize the processing power of today’s powerful -- but much less costly -- computers to help them prepare for matches.

And specifically the preparation practiced by GM Hikaru Nakamura, one of the USA's top players. While informative and accurate overall, the piece contained at least one subtle blunder, shown in the following photo.

The caption says, 'Plenty of behind-the-scenes preparation goes into U.S. Chess Champion Hikaru Nakamura’s winning moves', but the board shows a chess960 position (SP190: NRNKRBBQ). You can bet your last dollar that Nakamura's only preparation was adjusting his pieces before the start of the game.

That game was the first in the Chess960 Rapid World Championship match between Nakamura and GM Levon Aronian (the other player in the photo) at last year's Chess Classic Mainz, a match won decisively by Nakamura. For more about the event, see my previous posts CCM9: Nakamura, Grischuk, and Rybka and More from Mainz 2009. Here is the PGN of the same game, courtesy Chess Tigers.

[Event "CCM9 - Chess960 Rapid WCh"]
[Site "Mainz"]
[Date "2009.07.30"]
[Round "7.1"]
[White "Nakamura, Hikaru"]
[Black "Aronian, Levon"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Variant "chess 960"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "nrnkrbbq/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/NRNKRBBQ w EBeb - 0 1"]

1.f4 f5 2.Bd4 d6 3.Qg1 c5 4.Bc3 Nc7 5.g4 e6 6.d3 Bf7 7.e4 Ne7 8.Ne2 Qg8 9.Nb3 b6 10.O-O-O g6 11.Nd2 O-O-O 12.Bh3 fxe4 13.Nxe4 Ned5 14.Bf6 Rd7 15. c4 Nb4 16.a3 Nc6 17.Bc3 Be7 18.g5 d5 19.Nf6 Bxf6 20.Bxf6 Qf8 21.Nc3 Qd6 22.Qf2 Kb7 23.Kb1 Rf8 24.cxd5 Nxd5 25.Nxd5 Qxd5 26.d4 e5 27.Bxd7 Nxd4 28. Rxd4 cxd4 29.Rxe5 Qa2+ 30.Kc1 Qa1+ 31.Kc2 d3+ 32.Kxd3 Qd1+ 33.Qd2 Bc4+ 34. Ke3 Qg1+ 35.Kf3 h5 36.Re1 Qc5 37.Be7 Bd5+ 38.Kg3 h4+ 39.Kh3 1-0

HT: Comment to The Role of Computers in Planning Chess Strategy (TheChessMind.net).

'Fischer Random Chess', the Music

If you follow chess just a little bit you've undoubtedly heard of Chess (the musical) [from Wikipedia.org], but even if you're very keen on Fischer's last great creation, chess960, you've maybe never heard of Fischer Random Chess by Voda ('our new EP, self-produced'). The band's bio says, 'Voda’s only been on the Boston scene since 2007, but you wouldn’t know it to see them live. In the summer of 2008, Voda released Fischer Random Chess. It features the hard-charging live favorites "Come On" and "Bobby Fischer" as well as slow-burner "Rule 21", and "Cartoon Hero", a well-crafted piece of radio-ready pop.'

The track named after the 11th World Champion starts,

I can put a name on things that never change
And play the game like Bobby Fischer, Bobby Fischer, Bobby Fischer
If I had the time, I'd call you up tonight
And say that I've moved, it's your move, it's your move

There's no sign that Voda really knows anything about chess960, but who cares? It's the music that counts.

Chess960 in Andorra

After posting the photo of Mr. Chess Classic Mainz, I started to wonder if there were any photos relevant to chess960. I found a few from a tournament in Andorra ('Uploaded on June 27, 2009').

Fischer Random © Flickr user Federació d'Escacs Valls d'Andorra (FEVA) under Creative Commons.

The large display shows the start position (SP879: QRKRNNBB). On the board in the foreground White has just played 1.g3, while the players on the next board are still setting up the pieces.

Mr. Chess Classic Mainz

While working on the latest biweekly chess photo for my main blog (see Posts with label Photos++), I found a nice shot of the man behind Chess Classic Mainz (CCM).

Hans-Walter Schmitt © Flickr user Georgios Souleidis under Creative Commons.

Follow that Flickr link for a set of CCM 2009 photos, although none are for chess960. There is a photo of the winner of the 2009 CCM Chess960 Open at GM Grischuk, 'thinking on the starting position of chess960', but I can't copy it because it's marked 'All rights reserved'.

Christmas @ Schemingmind.com

I don't normally comment on my games while they are in progress, but this is worth an exception. Note the King on c1.

Don't try to give me advice on the game (SP732: RBKNQNBR), because we are well past the position shown in the diagram. I played 4.d4.

Fischerandom's Inauspicious Start

The press release issued for Fischer's press conference in June 1996 -- see Fischer Announces Fischerandom for the full text of the announcement -- contained two mentions of a forthcoming match.

The object of the conference was to publicize the launch of Fischer's new game, Fischerandom Chess, and to announce the match of Fischerandom Chess between Philippine Grandmaster Eugene Torre and two-time Argentine champion International Master Pablo Ricardi which begins July 12.

and

Now the world awaits the first Fischerandom Chess match which will commence at Pasaje Dardo Rocha in the Argentine city of La Plata on July 12. The match between Torre and Ricardi will be played until one player accumulates four victories, draws not counting.

What was the result of that match? The only mention I could find was in TWIC 91 (14 July 1996).

8) Fischerrandom Match between Torre and Ricardi. Eric van der Schilden is there for the match and will cover it on the TASC www page. It has been postponed for a few days due to the continuing illness of Ricardi see: http://www.tasc.nl/frandom

The tasc.nl link is long defunct, but the page lives on in Archive.org: web.archive.org/web/*/www.tasc.nl/frandom/. Here's a screen shot of that page, titled 'FischeRandom Match : Torre-Ricardi'.

After informing us that

On July 11 the final press conference saw the presentation of the clock and shuffler, two electronic devices essential for the new chess: [Fischer's clock and shuffler]. From July 12 onward, Eugenio Torre and Pablo Ricardi should have played the first ever FischeRandom-event: [Rules for the Torre-Ricardi match].

the page ends abruptly with (sic)

Torre-Ricardi match cancelled. Finally the true reason of the delays in starting with the Torre-Ricardi match has surfaced. It appears that the Argentinean organisers couln't show their part of the prize fund upon arrival of the players as was stipulated in their contracts. Thereupon Fischer, who was to donate the other part of the prize money, refused to let the match start. Last-minute attempts to solve this impasse remained invain. The money could not be provided. Fischer set an ultimatum to the morning of July 17. Nothing happened and he and Torre packed their bags and left La Plata that same day.

Over three weeks passed between Fischer's press conference and the cancellation of the kickoff match.

A Simple Chess960 Database for Tracking SPs

As outlined in Blog Posts Cross Referenced to Start Positions, I initialized a database of chess960 start positions (SPs) by creating an anchor for the first SP of each month. The posts are accessible from the 'Blog Archive' in the sidebar. The image shows what the database currently looks like for the last three months of 2001, where 1 December 2001 corresponds to SP699, etc.

Not much to write home about, is it? Here's the same table from the previous post pegged to specific dates. It lists SPs about which I've already written plus a mention of why I used it.

• 2000-01-03: SP002 - BQNNRBKR • An Exercise in Chess960 Positional Thinking • considerations on the first few moves
  
  
• 2000-01-25: SP024 - NBQNBRKR • A Followup, an Error, and an Insight • a position which might be much better for White
  
  
• 2000-02-04: SP034 - BNNQRBKR • How Top Players Treat the Same Chess960 Position • also SP919 RKBRQNNB: (like SP034, but with pieces in reverse order); 10 different sequences of opening moves from the same SP
  
  
• 2000-03-01: SP059 - NNRQBKRB • Undefended Pawns in Chess960 Start Positions • three undefended Pawns
  
  
• 2000-12-28: SP361 - NRKBBRQN • Pyramids and Dropouts • initial moves explained
  
  
• 2001-02-21: SP416 - BBRNQNKR • Chess Engines Don't Always Get It • making a plan for the initial development
  
  
• 2001-03-25: SP448 - BBRNNKQR • Chess960 Twins • also SP703, its twin; making a plan for the initial development
  
  
• 2001-06-19: SP534 - RNBKQBNR • A Database of Chess960 Start Positions • symmetrical SPs w/ K & Q in the center
  
  
• 2001-06-19: SP534 - RNBKQBNR • Chess960 Opening Theory • also SP518; initial moves for the tradtional SP as determined by chess engines
  
  
• 2002-02-27: SP787 - BRQKNRNB • Chess960? I'm Hooked! • initial observations on chess960
  
  
• 2002-06-20: SP900 - RBBKQRNN • Lesson in Chess960 Opening Patterns • watch out for early blunders

One issue is how to treat posts that discuss twin SPs: link them once or twice? Another is how much material to reference for SP518 (the traditional start position), which comes up frequently for the purpose of comparison.

Note that this structure offers two ways to use posts tied to a specific day. A single day can have an unlimited number of posts (although there might be a practical limit that I'm not aware of) -or- a day can have one running post with separators for different topics related to that day. Also possible is a mix of the two structures.