'Bizarre Castling Rules'?

From 'Counterplay / Readers Respond', Chess Life (CL), July 2013:-

CASTLING IN CHESS960: ANOTHER APPEAL FOR SIMPLICITY

Chess960 is a noble, but flawed attempt to force players to start thinking from the very first move of the game. The biggest problem with Chess960 are the bizarre castling rules. For anyone not familiar with Chess960, consider the following, which is just one bizarre aspect of “castling.” Depending on the opening setup, when castling, the king can move anywhere from five squares to zero squares to minus one squares (yes, the king can actually move in the opposite direction than it normally would). It would be difficult to teach this maneuver to anyone not familiar with standard chess. A variant called Chess480 seeks to simplify these castling rules, but in doing so creates some of its own issues.

I propose a variant which achieves the goal of eliminating memorization of openings while avoiding the failings of both Chess960 and Chess480. This variant, which I have dubbed Chess18, has a randomized opening setup just like its “predecessors.” The difference is that the rooks and the king start on the same squares that they do now so that castling remains exactly the same as it is now— problem solved!

An additional benefit of Chess18 is that it avoids the situation in Chess960 where with some opening setups White can attack an undefended black pawn with her first move.

When Bobby Fischer met with former FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov to propose the switch to Chess960, Ilyumzhinov advocated “step-by-step” changes mindful of the heritage of chess. Well, here is such a step.

David Couture, via e-mail

CL also provided a response:-

Chess Life asked Damian Nash, a two-time Utah state champion who ran small Chess960 tournaments at the U.S. Opens in 2010 and 2011, and also conducted small break-out sessions on the topic, to reply:

David Couture hits the nail on the head. Bizarre castling rules are a serious problem with Chess960 (Fischer Random). His solution is novel: Leave the rooks and king on the same squares as classical chess, thereby keeping familiar rules intact. Chess18 is a logical first step toward the evolution of the world’s greatest game, expanding opening books by a factor of 18. Another interesting alternative is “Moab Random,” a form of pre-chess that replaces castling (already a bizarre move in classical chess) with the much simpler ‘evacuation’ of the king to any empty back-rank square.

Kudos to Mr. Couture and other game theorists who attempt to wrestle chess out of the grip of the brilliantly obsessive memorizers at the top, who hold Ph.D. equivalents in opening theory. Consistent with Bobby Fischer’s hope for the future of the game, Chess18 could help return chess to the vastly larger audience of brilliant tacticians and strategists worldwide; at least for a little while, until opening jargon catches up. In classical chess, opening experience usually trumps raw talent. But in ChessX, as X increases, natural ability and sound strategy will yield progressively better results.

What do you think? Are 'bizarre castling rules' the 'biggest problem with chess960'?

The KID Family Goes the Distance

After writing my previous post on The KID Family, I noticed that the start position (SP) featured in that post (SP599 RQBNKRNB) had another unusual property. It differs from the traditional start position (SP518) in that exactly two pairs of pieces have been switched. The Queen and Queen's Knight have been switched, while the King's Bishop and Rook have also been switched. The other four pieces are all standing on their traditional start squares.

Is this a trivial observation or something significant? I decided to compare all twelve members of the KID family to answer the question. I dragged my chess960 database out of storage -- last seen in the related posts Pieces, Start Squares, and Scores and Of Knights and Start Squares -- and constructed a query based on 'distance'.

I discussed the notion of distance in a couple of old posts: More on the Concept of Distance and A Chess960 Almanac. In brief, it's an attempt to measure the displacement of the pieces in a chess960 SP compared to SP518.

Here's a table showing the distance calculation for the twelve members of the KID family (****KRNB). The column 'zLR' shows the displacement of the 'left' Rook from the a-file, while 'zRR' shows a similar calculation for the 'right' Rook. The distance is the sum of the eight displacements divided by two.

What does this table show? Probably not much. The simplest KID position is SP615, where only the King's Bishop and Rook have been switched. This amounts to a distance of two. One SP has a distance of three, and three SPs (including SP599) have a distance of four. Since the maximum distance is ten, all of the KID positions are well under the max. This means that they don't stray too far from SP518, but we knew that already from the way the family was defined. If I get any other bright ideas from this table, I'll let you know.

The KID Family

Playing White against SchemingMind's top-ranked chess960 player at the time, I was dealt the position shown in the first diagram (SP599 RQBNKRNB). Notice anything special about it? No, I didn't either until I started considering my first move.

Now look at the second diagram, showing the position three moves into the game. Notice anything special now?

The bottom diagram, which arose from the first diagram after 1.c4 Nf6 2.g3 d6 3.Nc3 O-O, looks a lot like a King's Indian Defense (KID) in a traditional chess game (SP518 RNBQKBNR). I wanted to play 4.Nf3, preparing 5.O-O, but that leaves the Rf1 exposed to 4...Bh3. Instead I prepared the same idea with 4.Bg2, covering h3. The game is still in progress, so I can't comment on the subsequent moves, except to say that KID themes occurred on nearly all opening moves.

How many positions are in the chess960 KID family? If we freeze the four pieces on the Kingside (h-side for the purists; i.e. ****KRNB), the second Rook can be placed legally on any of the remaining squares. The dark squared Bishop has two possible squares, then the Queen has three squares and the Knight two squares (or vice versa). That makes 2x3x2, or 12 possible positions in the same family. The start position SP599 is one of the leading members of the family because the Queenside Knight can go directly to c3.

Other members of the family can be imagined by shifting the King one or two squares toward the Queenside. The twins of the KID family -- for example SP258 (BNRKNBQR), the twin of SP599 -- have a similar set of dynamics. One significant difference: in SP258, castling O-O-O is possible on the first move.

Organizer's Hat

I've reported on SchemingMind's chess960 league in several previous posts:-

• Parallel Games [Season One]
• Parallel Games II [Season Two]

The league format is a great way to meet other keen players and I joined a team for Season Five. I played eight games against good players and reported on two of the mini-matches without identifying the event:-

• Chess960 Needs Fresh Eyes [The US Marshalls (the eventual winners of the season) vs. New England (my team)]
• Opening Logic Sets the Course [Match for 3rd/4th places]

Season Six ran aground when the organizer disappeared just before the start of round one, so I volunteered to take over the job. He left big shoes to fill and I hope I'm up to the task. In any case, it might give me new perspectives on chess960 plus some good material for this blog.

SP518 Status

Since I'm still Wading in Opening Theory, I thought it would be appropriate to give a status report on how deep that theory is in practice. To be clear, I'm talking about correspondence games using the traditional start position (SP518 RNBQKBNR).

The seven games that started two weeks ago have all advanced to around moves 8-12. All of them are still in theory, meaning that I can find games on Chesslab.com with the same position I'm playing. Of the seven games, three are still in basic theory, where hundreds of games have already been played to the position in my game. In one of those three games, my opponent is taking a 'long think' to decide between two theoretical moves of equal importance that branch into completely different paths.

Of the other four games, three are in positions where I find 10-20 previously played games. In all three of those games, one variation has been played more than any other, and the effort required on my part is to understand why that variation is so popular and where it will eventually lead. Previous experience tells me that all of those games will eventually reach a position where several different moves have been tried, each move having a handful (less than five) of representative games. That's the point where I have to start thinking for myself.

The last of the seven games has already reached the 'handful' stage. That, of course, is where the chess starts to become interesting because I'm really on my own.

In contrast to those seven SP518 games, I just started two chess960 correspondence games, one with White and one with Black. Both games are on the first move and I'm already on my own. I know from experience that the CCRL database (see the link in the right sidebar) is unreliable for opening ideas, since engines just don't understand the opening. I also know that I won't find more than a few dozen games elsewhere using the same start position, many of those between players who have a different idea about opening objectives than I have.

I know that preparing for correspondence chess is not the same as preparing for crossboard chess. In fact, preparing openings for crossboard chess is even more time consuming and the work is never finished. In a world where time is a limited quantity for all of us, that pretty much sums up why I prefer playing chess960.

Chess960 Strategy

Since I'm still Wading in Opening Theory, desperately short of time, I took the lead from that post and decided to follow one of Google's search suggestions. The first suggestion, 'chess960 castling', is undoubtedly top-of-the-list because it's essential knowledge and looks mysterious for all chess960 newcomers who are already familiar with traditional chess. Once they've played a few games and have castled a few times, the mystery transmigrates into the second suggestion, 'chess960 strategy'.

Unfortunately, chess960 strategy is a topic too big for a post where the primary objective is to get it finished as quickly as possible. After looking at several pages of search results for 'chess960 strategy', the most I can offer is a summary. The phrase is subject to at least four different interpretations.

• Not too surprisingly, 'chess960 strategy' is often understood to mean the same as 'chess960 opening strategy'. This is partly because the main difference between traditional chess and chess960 is in the opening phase, and partly because 'opening strategy' is also a mystery for novice players of traditional chess. Here we find lists of well known opening objectives like piece development, attention to the center, and so on.
  
  
• After lists of the components of opening strategy, the next step is to treat each component as a separate topic. What does 'piece development' mean when the pieces start on different squares? How does 'attention to the center' apply to specific start positions? And so on.
  
  
• After considering 'chess960 strategy' applied only to the opening, the concept blossoms into principles that are valid into the middlegame and endgame. These can be extensions of the lists of opening objectives -- because they also apply throughout the game -- supplemented by lists of generic strategies that spring into action after the pieces have been developed. One example would be attacks against the castled King. Another would be maneuvers around a blocked center. And so on.
  
  
• After lists of typical, generic strategies, the next step is to examine specific strategies using concrete examples. Here we find detailed examples from real games showing 'attacks against the castled King' or 'maneuvers around a blocked center', and so on.

It looks like I've stumbled into the wrong topic for someone who is desperately short of time. It also looks like I have several ideas for future posts. Before I tackle those, I have to return to traditional chess and wade through more opening theory.

Wading in Opening Theory

Every once in a while I get overwhelmed when a new SP518 online tournament starts and I have little time for blogging. Two years ago I mentioned this for a post titled The Clock Is/Isn't Ticking, and now, for similar reasons, I plead Cup Play.

What to do? How about a quick post on the terms Google suggests for a chess960 search. I found a good explanation of the mechanism at How Google Instant’s Autocomplete Suggestions Work, written by Danny Sullivan, aka Dr. Search Engine. Here are the terms suggested when you start typing 'chess960':-

• chess960 castling
• chess960 strategy
• chess960 openings
• chess960 chess.com
• chess960 tips
• chess960 computer
• chess960 play online
• chess960 tournament
• chess960 games
• chess960 software

Ditto for 'fischer random':-

• fischer random chess
• fischer random chess online
• fischer random generator
• fischer random chess castling
• fischer random chess960
• fischer random castling

The term 'fischerrandom' (two 'r's) automatically corrects to 'fischer random', while 'fischerandom' (one 'r') returns only three suggestions:-

• fischerandom chess
• fischerandom chess computerized shuffler
• fischerandom wiki

There are some interesting terms in these lists and I might come back to them for my next post if I'm still wading in opening theory.