Chess960 Caveat Emptor

Not long ago I received the following message from a chess960 fan on Chess.com:-

I haven't seen any reviews yet of the book 'Chess960' by Jesse Russell and am wondering if you have read it or heard anything about it? Wondering if it is worth purchasing?

Like many queries I receive, it was new to me, so I started to investigate. My first search led to Chess960 [Paperback] Jesse Russell (Editor), Ronald Cohn (Editor) on Amazon.com, with 'Product Details; Paperback: 180 pages; Publisher: Book on Demand Ltd. (April 14, 2012)'. The front cover mentioned 'Bookvika publishing' and 'High Quality Content by Wikipedia articles!'. The back cover mentioned Pubmix.com and carried the following blurb:-

I didn't have to transcribe the text because it was repeated in Amazon's 'Book Description':-

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Chess960 (or Fischer Random Chess) is a chess variant invented and advocated by former World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer, originally announced on June 19, 1996 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It employs the same board and pieces as standard chess, but the starting position of the pieces is randomized along the players' home ranks. The random setup forces players to resort to talent and creativity rather than the possibility of obtaining an advantage through the memorization of opening moves.

That's all very true, but how much of the book is original and how much is taken from Wikipedia? Clicking on the name of the first 'editor' leads to 'Books › "Jesse Russell"', where we find '"Official Scrabble Players Dictionary" by Jesse Russell and Ronald Cohn (May 14, 2012)' and '"Industry Foundation Classes" by Jesse Russell and Ronald Cohn (Jan 16, 2012)', among many other titles. The first title had a single customer review:-

Silly me, I thought this was supposed to be a Scrabble dictionary, with words that can be used for Scrabble. Instead, it talks about the origins of Scrabble and then gives me a history lesson on Israel and Thailand. I can't understand why it's called a Scrabble Dictionary! I'm starting to wonder if the contents was mistakenly put into this book! Not pleased!

Silly me, indeed. I imagine that the chess960 title also has its 180 pages filled with peripheral info. A Bobby Fischer bio, anyone? Not pleased, indeed!

***

Ziggy, 8 November 2012

More Chess960 on Chessgames.com

After writing the post about 2001 Leko - Adams on Chessgames.com, I set off looking for more resources on the same site. In addition to the pages already mentioned in relation to 'Leko - Adams', all of the most interesting resources were linked from the end of the index Chess openings: Chess variants (000).

• Zoltan Varga vs Alexander Morozevich; FiNet Open Mainz 2004
• Team White vs Team Black; Fischerandom Team Game 2007
• Team White vs Team Black; Fischerandom Team Game 2009
• Artur Jakubiec vs Hikaru Nakamura; Mainz Chess960 Tournament 2009

For the record, although the official name used on the site is 'fischerandom', this returned the least number of pages (search on 'site:chessgames.com fischerandom'). The single most used term was 'chess960', which was about 10% more frequent than 'fischer random'. The search on 'fischerrandom' returned the most results, because it combined both 'fischerrandom' & 'fischer random', a useful search technique I hadn't seen used before in this specific instance.

As for the four games linked from the 'Variants (000)' page, all are undoubtedly worth a dedicated post. The two 'Team White vs Team Black' games are especially interesting because they record the comments made by the two teams while discussing the start position and the subsequent game. A small King, either White or Black, to the right of the kibitzers name indicates for which team the comment was made. I assume the (secret?) comments by the two teams were merged after the game to produce the final set of comments.

If you're interested in the team games for traditional chess (SP518), see The Chessgames Challenge. The current game is 'The World vs Varuzhan Akobian'.

2001 Leko - Adams on Chessgames.com

Some people collect stamps, others collect coins, still others collect chess sets. I collect links to web pages. You might think that my collection has no value, but you would be wrong. It's worth its weight in another intangible resource : time. Whenever I need an idea for a post, I sort through the collection of links and -- voila -- something always catches my attention. I hadn't looked at recently acquired chess960 links for at least six months, so when I started sorting through them for this post, dozens of ideas came to mind.

The link I finally chose was from Chessgames.com (CG.com), Peter Leko vs Michael Adams; Mainz CC Fischer Random 2001. The game is from the first chess960 'World Championship' match, as documented on my page Chess960 @ Chess Classic Mainz. It turns out that CG.com has a number of chess960 games in its database, linked from an index page Chess openings: Chess variants (000). From this page we find another game from the same match on CG.com, Peter Leko vs Michael Adams; Mainz CC Fischer Random 2001.

Fortunately, GM Gligoric's book, which I covered in a post with a similar title, Shall We Play Chess960?, gives the moves from all eight games of that match in an appendix. From this we learn that the first Leko - Adams game linked above was game one of the match, while the second linked game was game five. I don't know why these two games are available on CG.com and the other six games from the match are missing, but that 'Variants 000' page points to a few more chess960 games.

A few years ago I used a CG.com page as the basis for a preliminary post on a Chess960 FAQ. It might prove useful to discover what other chess960 resources are available on the same site.

Deferring the Castling Option

In my most recent post I discussed the generalities of The KQR Corner Family. The position in the diagram is a specific example from a game I played as Black with HarryO. It started with the position SP468 RBBNNKRQ, and reached the diagram after 1.Nf3 c5 2.c4.

The move that cries out to be played is 2...O-O. Castling O-O-O isn't going to be possible anytime soon, and it is hard to see where the Black King will find shelter elsewhere. The problem of King safety is intertwined with the problems of developing the Queen and g-Rook. It's easy to imagine where the minor pieces will be developed, but not at all easy for the King and major pieces.

I had two problems with 2...O-O. The first problem was the attack 3.g4 and 4.h4. After a single move forward, the Pawns backed by their own Rook and Queen already present a real menace. The second problem was the development 3.b3 and 4.Bb2. The Bishops on the a1-h8 and b1-h7 diagonals, although not presenting any immediate threat, will be raking Black's King position for a long time to come.

I decided that it was better to delay the castling decision for as long as possible, preferably waiting until White has shown his own hand. I finally played 2...b6, a natural move that opposes the light-squared Bishop against the Queen on the a8-h1 diagonal.

One advantage to thinking deeply about castling O-O was not having to revisit the decision over the next few moves. White castled O-O on the 11th move and Black followed suit on the 12th, confident that the King would not be overwhelmed. Castling on the first or second move is always an attractive option in chess960, but that doesn't mean it's a good one.

The KQR Corner Family

In Non-Random Chess 960 Trial Game 5: SP468, HarryO identified an important family of start positions (SPs).

This SP is part of 108 SPs that feature the combination of a Rook, a King and a Queen in the corner, leaving most of the opposite side of the board to the minor pieces and a lone rook.

His math works, too. If we reserve f/g/h for the KQR (in whatever order), that leaves five squares for the other pieces. After randomly placing one Bishop on the three remaining squares of the same color, then randomly placing the other Bishop on the two squares of the same color, that leaves three squares to place the remaining Rook. Placing the Knights on the two remaining squares doesn't change the number of permutations, so we have 3 x 2 x 3 = 18 different permutations of the five pieces for each combination of KQR. Since there are three of those (see next paragraph), there are exactly 54 positions with KQR in one corner. Doubling that to account for the other corner gives 108 SPs, which is HarryO's number.

It's also worth noting that in the 54 KQR-corner SPs, the Queen determines the position of the other two pieces. If the Queen is on the f-file, the pieces must be placed 'QKR'; Queen on the g-file forces 'KQR'; and Queen on the h-file leaves 'KRQ'.

The family of SPs is important because the KQR at such close proximity interfere with each other in their initial movements. They also have different objectives in the opening: the King seeks safety, the Queen seeks a safe development square, and the Rook wants a connection with the other Rook. On top of that, the three heavy pieces bunched together present a convenient target for the enemy Bishops, which are most likely to be on the other side of the board, ready to take up attacking positions after a move or two.

That SP468 post is in fact a game where HarryO and I have been struggling with one such position (SP468 RBBNNKRQ). I'll discuss it in more detail when we are through with our investigations.

Kasparov *Did* Play Chess960

Sheesh, did I get that wrong! Late last year, in Not Everyone Likes Chess960, I listed three commentators who had gone on record against chess960: Kasparov, Damsky, and NN. I ended the post with the categorical,

The one thing all of these commentators have in common is that it's obvious that none of them has ever tried chess960.

This week I received a freebie 26-page PDF from Mongoose Press, "On Life and Chess" by Sergey Shipov. Here I learned (p.5),

In 1998 Kasparov invited me to be his sparring partner. His breaks between tournaments were fairly long, and so as not to lose his playing edge and feel for the flag Garry needed a partner who could pose problems for him at the board. He couldn't just go to a chess club and play in rapid or blitz tournaments like ordinary mortals.

In the first place, the champion's raging popularity simply would not have allowed him to play his games in peace; and secondly, in public tournaments the percentage of players who could put up any resistance to him was too small. And generally in Moscow, apart from the elite grandmasters, there weren't a lot of candidates for sparring partner. You cannot imagine how powerful he was in that period! This was probably the peak of his practical strength for his entire career. Everyone remembers that unbelievable series of wins by Kasparov at 10 straight supertournaments.

That is interesting in itself, but there was more.

By the way, those fools who for years explained Kasparov's dominance only by his opening superiority (which, let me point out, is not a gift that falls from heaven, but rather comes from hard labor) simply had no idea what they were talking about. I remember we played six games of Fischerandom chess, and there was no battle there at all! In completely unfamiliar positions, Kasparov's advantage over me was far greater than in normal chess. In the absence of the usual pathfinders his flights of fancy, his sense of dynamics, and his ability to instantly separate the important from the secondary became particularly salient.

Assuming he played according to Fischer's published rules, Kasparov did indeed play chess960. Moreover, it looks like I'll have to abandon any hope of winning against him in a chess960 game. What are the chances of getting the move record of those six games?

Of course, all the games I played with The Great One were accurately recorded on my computer, but I don't want to share them with my readers. My wins were nothing to be proud of (training and official tournaments are different things), and my losses were distressing. The chess content of our encounters would hardly embellish the treasure troves. Basically, this is just a memorable exhibit in my personal collection.

To get your own copy of Shipov's monograph, see Mongoose Press on Facebook.com.

***

Later: Not only did Shipov's monograph shed some light on Kasparov's experience with chess960, it also mentioned Yakov Damsky, the second of the trio in the 'Not Everyone Likes' post. There is, however, no chess960 connection (p.11):-

Iakov Damsky, our Soviet master and radio commentator, helped me a lot. In his later years he became a professional chess writer. He knocked out new books almost once a month. I myself spent at least four years on my first Hedgehog.

For more about Damsky, see 'Chess Records' by Damsky, on my main blog.

Extreme Barbecues

After our first two tests of Non-random Fischer Random, which I documented in

• The Barbecue Positions, and
• A Clash of Styles,

HarryO and I decided to skip the initial phase of selecting a start position (SP) and go directly to an SP that had caught our attention in the first game. This was SP000 BBQNNRKR, aka the 'Extreme Barbecue' position. The name is derived from the BBQ formation on the first three files, aimed at the RKR formation on the last three files. Given the latent pressure of the three diagonal pieces against the bunched King and Rooks, it's an SP that could prove to be one of the trickiest for Black to navigate.

After that game, we played a second game starting with SP959 RKRNNQBB, the twin of SP000. Here the RKR on the first three files are under pressure from the QBB on the last three. Strategically, the only difference between SP000 and SP959 is the castling option. The top diagram below shows the position after the first five moves in the SP000 game, where HarryO played White. The bottom diagram shows the position after five moves in the SP959 game, where I had White. The moves and commentary for the two games are on HarryO's blog, Chess960 Jungle:-

• Non-Random Chess960 Trial Game 3: SP000
• Non-Random Chess960 Trial Game 4: SP959

HarryO subtitled SP000 'or SP960 depending on who you talk to'. He is referring to the common error that chess960 newcomers sometimes make, numbering the 960 SPs starting with '1' rather than with '0'. In that case, they invariably tack SP000 on to the end of the list. It's a fortunate coincidence that the two 'Extreme Barbecue' SPs are located numerically at the extremities of the standard numbering system.

Our running commentary for the two trial games can be found on the same posts where we made the moves. I don't have much to add. In both games, it's amazing how much has been accomplished on the board after only five moves for each side. The RKR setup is difficult to unravel, especially because the inside Rook (c- or f-file) blocks the corner Rook from castling. One option is to develop the corner Rook by pushing the Pawn in front of it to its fourth rank, then lifting the Rook to its third rank. This means that the Rooks are going to remain unconnected for a long time. Castling to the far side with the inside Rook involves moving three or four other pieces out of the way. All of this has to be done while the diagonal pieces are bearing down on the RKR.

In the second game, I had an unpleasant experience that I had never encountered before. The diagram shows my c-Pawn on c4. My plan in playing this was to move the Rook to c2 and castle Queenside (a-side for the purists). After that I had the mental image of the King sitting on b1 and the Rook on c1, instead of c1 and d1 when O-O-O is done correctly. I also had the persistent problem of confusing the abcd-files with the efgh-files in my analysis. In other words, while playing c2-c4, my inner voice would be saying f2-f4, and vice versa. As I wrote in a comment,

I think I made this elementary mistake because we just played the twin start position, SP000, and I simply flipped all my ideas in my head without readjusting for the new castling situation.

I took away two lessons from this. First, the chess960 castling options are not as firmly entrenched in my subconscious mind as I thought they were, certainly not to the level of the two castling options in traditional chess. Second, I consciously have to avoid the same phenomenon if I should again play an SP immediately followed by its twin. I shouldn't be thinking about how the pieces move. I should be thinking about what happens after they move.