Learn to Play Chess960 (Fischer Random) 

How to play in Chess app?

Does Chess have Ballot Openings similar to Draughts or is Fischer Random Chess's ballot option?

EXACTLY

It's not the engine that's lacking, Stockfish for example can already play 960 perfectly well and kicks any grandmasters butt. It's that the opening theory, supergms knowing opening and their variants 20-25 moves deep, just nearly increased by factor 1000. Learning the stuff by heart is no longer an option, and they have to play by the same principles as us plebs (centre control, safe King, etc), just with vastly superior pattern recognition, calculations and intuition.

I agree

Even chess960 will be mastered, probably even quicker than it took normal chess

@@agentg9910 It doesn't matter if an engine can master it, no human can memorize 960 opening theories.

That’s too hard, I like my b pawn in its b column

"b takes g5"

I had an idea - No Open Random 960x5. Shuffle the pieces into one of 960 random grand master openings at the 5th move. So the first move in the No Open Random 960x5 would technically be the 6th move departing from a standard starting setup. Castling moves still apply with same rules as long as the King is not in a castled position to start. I feel like Bobby's biggest complaint is the openings are all memorized that it takes 5 or more moves to finally get into "real" play. By starting randomly at the 5 movement, you are diving into the game skipping the boring shit. End game is still there but it is certainly not as boring as the openings are for a seasoned chess player. Bypass the openings and you bypass the most boring part of it all.

😄😄😄😁😁😁😆😆😆

Bro that's still just pawns

Great minds think alike

From what I read about Fischer in his later years "Crazy Chess" and "Fischer Random" is quite synonymous 🙂

I am a noob, so I probably should shut up, but part of the draw of classical chess is that there are century old traditions being refined and explored. Specific openings that are studied. I know that Fischer personally hated this aspect of chess, hence his invention, but others would not agree. I prefer the random nature of 960, I am bad at memorizing or understanding lines. I like the middle game aesthetics of 960 and how beautiful the chaos can look on the board. I don't like the opening setting, just the aesthetics of the pieces not in their classical positions. It does not look good. So one must play the opening quickly, the remove the eye sore.

Many people feel the way you do. And yes, 960 positions start to resemble regular positions fairly quickly.

Would you say there is one perfect position tho? And one of the principles of strategy games is reducing randomness increases the ness for skill.

@@sohinimukherjee2856 For chess, it actually decreases the skill required. It encourages memorizing all the openings and playing specific series of moves. With 960, you can't really do that.

Me Yes depends what you value. You could argue that the ability to memorize lines and prepare lines ahead of time for opponents is itself a skill that we value in chess. Strategy and tactics are very important and honestly I like FR more than classical on paper, but I could see why it would be annoying for people with poor spatial awareness to be even further handicapped. Idk

I think his problem was not how it was found, but the fact that you would be a “better” player if you just memorized a lot of openings. Computers just made it easier to find all those perfect opening lines to an incredible depth. He criticized in the interview that chess is now too much about memorization, and that creativity comes just in third place.

@@SanderSmit77 but the third most important thing ends up the most important when everybody has memorised everying ie at the super gm level

@@h.h.h.9307 I mean for those strong players of course, those are what Bobby was up against. What he noticed was people learning more and more deep opening theory. The only way to compete at that level was to also learn those lines that deep. Before Bobby, it was more about creativity, but during his time the computer analysis and deep opening theory became more important. Nowadays, grandmasters know most of the common opening ideas (main lines) up to 20 moves deep. At that level, a small inconsistency is enough to lose the game. It isn't just about knowing the right moves, but also about knowing when your opponent deviated from the deep theory At that point, in classical chess, you can take time to find the weakness in their deviation and exploit it. Grandmasters are smart enough to find those weaknesses if they have the time. At a lower level things are very different of course. There it is usually good to get people out of their prep and they usually won't find the weakness if it is a small inconsistency. Getting out of prep there is usually an advantage.

Yes, in my first game I tried castling several times and then just did it manually. Now I know on lichess you just drag the king onto the rook...

I understand what you mean, but just remember the king is either going to g1 or c1, no matter where anything is (assuming you have empty squares for the castle itself). The only squares that can't be in check are the king's current square and all squares on the way to its final destination square after the castle (just like regular chess).

Jeff K Thank you

Jeff K does the rook move to the normal castle spot too?

@@COZYZEHDUCK Yes, correct. The rook that's closer to h1 would end up on f1 like normal for that castle, no matter where it started. The rook that's closer to a1 would end up on d1, no matter where it started. Sometimes the king doesn't move at all during a Chess960 castle (or it moves a lot), or the rook might not move at all. (or the rooks to f8 or d8 if playing Black)

@@COZYZEHDUCK watch how Nakamura, playing White, castles in Chess960 to get out of trouble. You can tell by Magnus Carlsen's reaction that maybe Magnus didn't realize the castle was still an option, but I'm only speculating. Here it is, and Nakamura does the castle near the very beginning of the video. The 2d graphical board doesn't update the move right away, but you can see what he does on the left/video portion. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NlfsVy2feu4.html

You're never too old to try new things:)

Few people explain castling on FischerRandom/960 correctly. Here's the key: imagine the final positions of the King and Rook in standard chess. In Fischer Random, they land on the exact same squares! So one need only visualize where the King would normally start, and then imagine where the King and Rook would normally end up.

Such a sweet story 🙈🥰

You can't

Fischer specifically avoided what you suggested because then majority of the time white will have an advantage. With the castling rule and different color bishops and both white and black mirror then the playing field becomes more even.

@@Jordan-vr7ip White advantage does not depend on king´s position. Some positions with the king on the side give way too much advantage to white, yes, like some positions with the king in between the rooks give way too much advantage to white. That´s a non-factor.

Black bishops and white bishops are effectively different pieces. You can't checkmate with 2 bishops on the same square for example. I feel like if you want to retain the feel of normal chess, you need to retain having 1 bishop on each square.

Rooks either side of the Kings...Bishops placed on the opposite shade of squares....mirror mirror image ofcourse!! 000-959 .... from the starting position 518 & the king n queen are the only 2pieces different from sp#518...listed as #534 from the 960 available often seen on chessboard boxes!!

@@chessplay8404 There is another way to play that is not mirror image, the pieces are the same on each side instead of mirror image.

did you?

That sounds like a playable variant, but I think the point of this game is to play like classical chess but with less of the memorization and theory. Also are you saying the second player swaps any two pieces? That seems like going first but better, like going first twice.

@@protercool8474 by using a coin and die you can have the 16 pieces in a random setup on the back to rows but the same for each player (filing from left to right, so opposite, not mirroring). then flip a coin, winner chooses, one person switches the position of 2 of his pieces and the other person makes the first official move. The second player's repositioning would negate a possible obvious first move straight attack piece take that might be in place due to the random setup of the board, it would be necessary at times. got to be some way for players to come to an agreement on if it's fair to start. Otherwise the game might start of with a rook and queen face directly at each other, with an obvious sacrafice. I've always been interested in a game along these lines and a chess board and it's pieces could definately be the way. I really like chess but the memorization or lack of memorization can often make it feel like an arbitrary contest of minds, enough that I haven't play too much.

I feel like every position would realistically be drawn.

@@bigboy2217 The game starts from almost even odds, and yet people win all the time. In fact white has a slight advantage in traditional chess but black still manages to win plenty of times. Obviously if you started with half the pieces it would be a higher rate of a draw but if you started from a random position 5-10 moves in. maybe down a pawn or two and a minor piece there would be a lot of wins in fact you could generate open positions with pieces under attack where there would be a much higher chance of someone winning, yet the odds are still even

No, because of castling rules. Have you watched the video at all?

@@ZelenoJabko condescending superiority complex WeirdChamp

idk, but if you want to lower draws even further, you could play with midline invasion as a victory condition - you win if you can reach the 5th rank with your king (you can't move into check). It makes the endgames a lot less boring and memorization-based.

Yeah, they changed the name from Fischer Random because they didn't like that Fischer was anti-Semitic. Pure politics. I NEVER call it chess 960.

You can't. There have to be no pieces in the way.

No. They can't

@@salammaamur735 Thanks, I thought that must be the case. 👍

One of the other rules is your bishops have to be on opposite colors

Mikhail Tal and Bobby Fischer would disagree with you.

Memorization is NOT the whole point of chess. Actually, Bobby Fischer would heavily argue that theory kills chess play. Think about it, what is theory? All it is, is the theoretical best move. That's it. So in a popular opening you can easily have 20 moves of just theory. This happens all the time at top level play, its only when they differ from the opening theory that the game gets interesting. It kills creativity and any magic that can happen with chess, having 30 moves of engine prep is not fun. It's supposed to be mind vs mind not engine vs engine.

This video gets my first ever RU-vid dislike as it failed to deliver its only job

@@Aramil4 agree, i came here for this and both explanation and the single example where not that enlightening.

you could roll a die to place the pieces

No.

He found it boring.

Not for pros, they try to memorize every bit of moves. Hence, it becomes boring and methodical. Chess960 needs more creativity than classic chess. But this geniuses will still try to memories certain moves.

Oy Vey what’s wrong with Danny?

What the hell. Danny is so cool.

chloe lopez No

I guess you know the different beauties of chess better than Robert "What do I Know" Fischer.

You are such an idiot. Classical chess became a foolish game. A game of memory. It's so stupid when players make 30-40 moves from memory. Chess960 is a game from the first to the last move.

ok boomer

Okay, I get your point (although I disagree with it) but I hope you also decry speed/blitz chess travesties.