Chess960
Encyclopedia
Chess960 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
.
Randomizing the main pieces has long been known as Shuffle Chess, but Chess960 introduces new rules so that full castling
options are retained in all starting positions, resulting in 960 possible (non-mirrored) positions. To maintain the character of standard chess, a player's bishops must start on opposite-color squares, and the king must start on a square between the rooks.
Black's pieces are placed equal-and-opposite to White's pieces. (For example, if the white king is placed on f1, then the black king is placed on f8. Note that the king never starts on the a- or h-files, since this would leave no room for a rook.)
The starting position can be generated before the game by computer program, or chosen by the players by a variety of methods using dice, coin, cards, etc.
:
This leaves three empty squares. Place the king on the middle empty square, and the rooks on the remaining two squares. Place all white and black pawns on their usual squares, and place Black's pieces to exactly mirror White's (so, Black should have on a8 exactly the same type of piece White has on a1, except that bishops would be on opposite-color squares).
This procedure generates any of the 960 possible initial positions with equal chance. This particular procedure uses an average of 6.7 die rolls. Note that one of these initial positions (rolled by 2-3-3-2-3 or 2-3-3-4-2) is the standard chess position, at which point a standard chess game ensues.
It is also possible to use this procedure to understand why there are exactly 960 possible initial positions. Each bishop can take one of four positions, the queen one of six, and the two knights can assume five or four possible positions, respectively. This leaves three open squares which the king and rooks must occupy according to setup stipulations, without choice. This means there are 4×4×6×5×4 = 1920 possible starting positions if the two knights were different in some way. However, the two knights are indistinguishable during play (if swapped, there would be no difference). So the number of distinguishable possible positions is half of 1920, or 1920/2 = 960. (Half of the 960 are left-right mirror images of the other half, however Chess960 castling rules preserve left-right asymmetry in play.)
once per game, moving both the king and a rook in a single move. However, a few reinterpretations of standard chess rules are needed for castling, because the standard rules presume initial locations of the rook and king that often do not apply in Chess960 games.
After castling, the rook and king's final positions are exactly the same as they would be in standard chess. Thus, after a-side castling (also called sometimes c-castling), the king is on the c-file (c1 for White and c8 for Black) and the a-side rook is on the d-file (d1 for White and d8 for Black). This move is notated as 0-0-0 and is known as queenside castling in orthodox chess. After h-side castling (also called sometimes g-castling), the king is on the g-file and the h-side rook is on the f-file. This move is notated as 0-0 and is known as kingside castling in orthodox chess. It is recommended that a player state "I am about to castle" before castling, to eliminate potential misunderstanding.
However, castling may only occur under the following conditions. The first two are identical to the standard chess castling rules. The third is an extension of the standard chess rule, which requires only that the squares between the king and castling rook must be vacant.
If the initial position happens to be the standard chess initial position, these castling rules have exactly the same effect as the standard chess castling rules. In some starting positions, some squares can stay filled during castling that would have to be vacant in standard chess. For example, after a-side castling (0-0-0), it's possible to have a, b, and/or e still filled, and after h-side castling (0-0), it's possible to have e and/or h filled. In some starting positions, the king or rook (but not both) do not move during castling.
Eric van Reem suggests other ways to castle:
In the meantime there has been an adjustment setting of the WNCA that when performing a castling move it is irrelevant in which sequence involved pieces were touched. All pieces involved in a move may be touched arbitrarily. When castling those pieces are the king and rook, and in capturing moves they are the capturing and the captured piece. Especially with players new to Chess960 it might make sense also to announce a castling to avoid misunderstandings. When a chess clock will be used, pressing the button could be taken as a sign that a castling move has been completed.
When castling using a computer interface, programs should have separate a-side (0-0-0) and h-side (0-0) castling actions (e.g., as a button or menu item). Ideally, programs should also be able to detect a king or rook move that cannot be anything other than a castling move and consider that a castling move. Recommended gestures are: the king is moving to his at least two steps distant castling target square or else upon the involved rook, to avoid by this a possible confusion with normal king's moves.
When using an electronic board, to castle one should remove the king, remove the castling rook, place the castling rook on its new position, and then place the king on its new position. This will create an unambiguous move for electronic boards, which often only have sensors that can detect the presence or absence of an object on each square (and cannot tell what object is on the square). Ideally, electronic boards should detect a king or rook move that can only be a castling move as well, but users should not count on this.
It has been argued that two games should be played from each starting position, with players alternating as White and Black, since some initial positions may offer White a bigger advantage than in standard chess. For example, in some Chess960 starting positions White can attack an unprotected black pawn after the first move, whereas in standard chess it takes two turns for White to attack and there are no unprotected pawns. (See first-move advantage in chess
.)
games must also record the initial position. Games recorded using the Portable Game Notation
(PGN) can record the initial position using Forsyth–Edwards Notation (FEN), as the value of the "FEN" tag. Castling is marked as O-O or O-O-O as in standard chess (except PGN requires letter O not number 0). Note that not all chess programs can handle castling correctly in Chess960 games (except if the initial position is the standard chess initial position).
To correctly record a Chess960 game in PGN, an additional "Variant" tag must be used to identify the rules; the rule named "Fischerandom" is accepted by many chess programs
as identifying Chess960, though "Chess960" should be accepted as well. Be careful to use "Variant" and not "Variation", which has a different meaning. This means that in a PGN-recorded game, one of the PGN tags (after the initial seven tags) would look like this: [Variant "Fischerandom"].
FEN is capable of expressing all possible starting positions of Chess960. However, unmodified FEN
cannot express all possible positions of a Chess960 game. In a game, a rook may move into the back row on the same side of the king as the other rook, or pawn(s) may be underpromoted into rook(s) and moved into the back row. If a rook is unmoved and can still castle, yet there is more than one rook on that side, FEN notation as traditionally interpreted is ambiguous. This is because FEN records that castling is possible on that side, but not which rook is still allowed to castle.
A modification of FEN
, X-FEN
, has been devised by Reinhard Scharnagl
to remove this ambiguity. In X-FEN
, the castling markings "KQkq" have their expected meanings: "Q" and "q" mean a-side castling is still legal (for White and Black respectively), and "K" and "k" mean h-side castling is still legal (for White and
Black respectively). However, if there is more than one rook on the baseline on the same side of the king, and the rook that can castle is not the outermost rook on that side, then the file letter (uppercase for White) of the rook that can castle is used instead of "K", "k", "Q", or "q"; in X-FEN
notation, castling potentials belong
to the outermost rooks by default. The maximum length of the castling value is still four characters. X-FEN
is upwardly compatible with FEN, that is, a program supporting X-FEN will automatically use the normal FEN codes for a traditional chess starting position without requiring any special programming. As a benefit all 18 pseudo FRC positions (positions with traditional placements of rooks and king) still remain uniquely encoded.
The solution implemented by chess engines like Shredder
and Fritz
is to use the letters of the columns on which the rooks began the game. This scheme is sometimes called Shredder-FEN. For the traditional setup, Shredder-FEN would use HAha instead of KQkq.
and introduced formally to the chess public on June 19, 1996, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Shuffle Chess had been played for quite some time before this, as early as 1842. Fischer's goal was to eliminate what he considered the complete dominance of openings preparation in chess today, and to replace it with creativity and talent. His belief about Russians fixing all international games also provided motivation. In a situation where the starting position was random it would be impossible to fix every move of the game. Since the opening book for each possible opening position would be too difficult to devote to memory (960 "book opening" systems), each player must create every move originally. From the first move, both players have to come up with original strategies and cannot use well-known thinking patterns. Fischer believed that eliminating memorized book moves would level the playing field.
The first Fischer Random Chess tournament was held in Yugoslavia in the spring of 1996, and was won by Grandmaster
Péter Lékó
.
In 2001, Lékó became the first Fischer Random Chess world champion, defeating GM Michael Adams in an eight game match played as part of the Mainz
Chess Classic. There were no qualifying matches (also true of the first orthodox world chess champion titleholders), but both players were in the top five in the January 2001 world rankings for orthodox chess. Lékó was chosen because of the many novelties he has introduced to known chess theories, as well as his previous tournament win; in addition, Lékó has supposedly played Fischer Random Chess games with Fischer himself. Adams was chosen because he was the world number one in blitz (rapid) chess and is regarded as an extremely strong player in unfamiliar positions. The match was won by a narrow margin, 4½ to 3½.
In 2002 at Mainz, an open tournament was held which attracted 131 players. Peter Svidler
won the event. Other interesting events happened in 2002. The website ChessVariants.org selected Fischer Random chess as its "Recognized Variant of the Month" for April 2002. Yugoslavian Grandmaster Svetozar Gligorić
published in 2002 the book Shall We Play Fischerandom Chess?, popularizing this variant further.
At the 2003 Mainz Chess Classic, Svidler beat Lékó in an eight game match for the World Championship title by a score of 4.5 - 3.5. The Chess960 open tournament attracted 179 players, including 50 GMs. It was won by Levon Aronian
, the 2002 World Junior Champion. Svidler is the official first World New Chess Association (WNCA) world champion inaugurated on August 14, 2003 with Jens Beutel, Mayor of Mainz as the President and Hans-Walter Schmitt, Chess Classic organiser as Secretary. The WNCA maintains an own dedicated Chess960 rating list.
Aronian played Svidler for the title at the 2004 Mainz Chess Classic, losing 4.5–3.5. At the same tournament in 2004, Aronian played two Chess960 games against the Dutch computer chess program The Baron, developed by Richard Pijl. Both games ended in a draw. It was the first ever man against machine match in Chess960. Zoltán Almási
won the Chess960 open tournament in 2004.
In 2005, The Baron played two Chess960 games against Chess960 World Champion Peter Svidler; Svidler won 1.5–0.5. The chess program Shredder
, developed by Stefan Meyer-Kahlen from Düsseldorf, Germany, played two games against Zoltán Almási
from Hungary; Shredder won 2–0. Almási and Svidler played an eight-game match at the 2005 Mainz Chess Classic. Once again, Svidler defended his title, winning 5–3. Levon Aronian
won the Chess960 open tournament in 2005. During the Chess Classic 2005 in Mainz, initiated by Mark Vogelgesang and Eric van Reem, the first-ever Chess960 computer chess world championship was played. Nineteen programs, including the powerful Shredder
, played in this tournament. As a result of this tournament, Spike became the first Chess960 computer world champion.
The 2006 Mainz Chess Classic saw Svidler defending his championship in a rematch against Levon Aronian. This time, Aronian won the match 5–3 to become the third ever Fischer Random Chess World Champion. Étienne Bacrot
won the Chess960 open tournament, earning him a title match against Aronian in 2007. In 2006 Shredder
won the computer championship, making it Chess960 computer world champion. Three new Chess960 world championship matches were held, in the women, junior and senior categories. In the women category, Alexandra Kosteniuk
became the first Chess960 Women World Champion by beating Elisabeth Paehtz 5.5 to 2.5. The 2006 Senior Chess960 World Champion was Vlastimil Hort
, and the 2006 Junior Chess960 World Champion was Pentala Harikrishna.
In 2007 Mainz Chess Classic Aronian successfully defended his title of Chess960 World Champion over Viswanathan Anand
, while Victor Bologan
won the Chess960 open tournament. Rybka
won the 2007 computer championship.
In 2010 the US Chess Federation sponsored its first Chess960 tournament, at the Jerry Hanken Memorial US Open tournament in Irvine, California. This one-day event, directed by Damian Nash, saw a first place tie between GM Larry Kaufmann and FM Mark Duckworth.
Hans-Walter Schmitt, chairman of the Frankfurt Chess Tigers e.V. and an advocate of this variant, started a brainstorming
process for selecting a new name, which had to meet requirements of leading grandmasters; specifically, the new name and its parts:
The effort culminated in the name choice Chess960 – derived from the number of different possible starting positions.
R. Scharnagl, another proponent of the variant, advocated the term "FullChess" instead. But today he uses FullChess to refer to variants which consistently embed traditional chess (e.g. Chess960, and some new variants based on the extended 10×8 piece set in Capablanca chess
). He currently recommends the name Chess960 in preference to Fischer Random Chess for the variant.
Bobby Fischer never publicly stated his feeling about the name 'Chess960'.
The players or a tournament setting may decide on a specific position in advance, for example. Tournament Directors prefer that all boards in a single round play the same random position, as to maintain order and abbreviate the setup time for each round.
Edward Northam suggests the following approach for allowing players to jointly create a position without randomizing tools: First, the back ranks are cleared of pieces, and the white bishops, knights, and queen are gathered together. Starting with Black, the players, in turn, place one of these pieces on White's back rank, where it must stay. The only restriction is that the bishops must go on opposite colored squares. There will be a vacant square of the required color for the second bishop, no matter where the previous pieces have been placed. Some variety could be introduced into this process by allowing each player to exercise a one time option of moving a piece already on the board instead of putting a new piece on the board. After all five pieces have been put on the board, the king must be placed on the middle of the three vacant back rank squares that remain. Rooks go on the other two.
This approach to the opening setup has much in common with Pre-Chess, the variant in which White and Black, alternately and independently, fill in their respective back ranks. Pre-Chess could be played with the additional requirement of ending up with a legal Chess960 opening position. A chess clock could even be used during this phase as well as during normal play.
Without some limitation on which pieces go on the board first, it is possible to reach impasse positions, which cannot be completed to legal Chess960 starting positions. Example: Q.RB.N.N If the players want to work with all eight pieces, they must have a prior agreement about how to correct illegal opening positions that may arise. If the bishops end up on same color squares, a simple action, such as moving the a-side bishop one square toward the h-file, might be agreeable, since there is no question of preserving randomness. Once the bishops are on opposite colored squares, if the king is not between the rooks, it should trade places with the nearest rook.
Note also that although the game can start with any of 960 starting positions, half of these are actually mirror positions that theoretically don't change the games' tactics.
Naturally, the right to castle is lost:
And castling is prevented temporarily:
Note: There are other claims to the nomenclature 'Chess480'. Reinhard Scharnagl defines it as the white queen is always to the left of the white king. Another way of defining Chess480 is that the white king must always be located on a dark square. The definition could also be that the white king must always be on a light square. The point is that half the positions are mirror image reversals of the other half. It is really up to the individual to decide how to filter the 480 positions.
David O'Shaughnessy argues in "Castling in Chess480: An appeal for sanity" that the Chess480 rules are often not useful from a gameplay perspective. In about 66% of starting positions, players have the options of castling deeper into the wing the king started on, or castling into the center of the board (when the king starts on the b-, c-, f-, or g-files). To quote from the wiki Chess page "Castling is an important goal in the early part of a game, because it serves two valuable purposes: it moves the king into a safer position away from the center of the board, and it moves the rook to a more active position in the center of the board". An example of poor castling options is a position where the kings start on g1 and g8 respectively. There will be no possibility of "opposite-side castling" where each player's pawns are free to be used as attacking weapons (as in many Sicilian variations), as the kings scope for movement is very restricted (it can only move to the h- or e-file). These "problem positions" play well with Chess960 castling rules.
These include:
Chess variant
A chess variant is a game related to, derived from or inspired by chess. The difference from chess might include one or more of the following:...
invented and advocated by former World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer
Robert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess Grandmaster and the 11th World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Fischer was also a best-selling chess author...
, originally announced on June 19, 1996 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It employs the same board and pieces as standard chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
, 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
Chess opening
A chess opening is the group of initial moves of a chess game. Recognized sequences of opening moves are referred to as openings as initiated by White or defenses, as created in reply by Black. There are many dozens of different openings, and hundreds of named variants. The Oxford Companion to...
.
Randomizing the main pieces has long been known as Shuffle Chess, but Chess960 introduces new rules so that full castling
Castling
Castling is a special move in the game of chess involving the king and either of the original rooks of the same color. It is the only move in chess in which a player moves two pieces at the same time. Castling consists of moving the king two squares towards a rook on the player's first rank, then...
options are retained in all starting positions, resulting in 960 possible (non-mirrored) positions. To maintain the character of standard chess, a player's bishops must start on opposite-color squares, and the king must start on a square between the rooks.
Rules
Before the game, a starting position is randomly determined and set up, subject to certain requirements. After setup, the game is played in the same way as standard chess (except that castling can occur from the different possible starting positions for king and rooks). In particular, pieces and pawns have their normal moves, and the objective is to checkmate the opposing king.Starting position requirements
White pawns are placed on the second rank as in standard chess. All remaining white pieces are placed randomly on the first rank, with the following restrictions:- the king must be placed somewhere between the rooks
- the bishops must be placed on opposite-color squares
Black's pieces are placed equal-and-opposite to White's pieces. (For example, if the white king is placed on f1, then the black king is placed on f8. Note that the king never starts on the a- or h-files, since this would leave no room for a rook.)
The starting position can be generated before the game by computer program, or chosen by the players by a variety of methods using dice, coin, cards, etc.
Determining a starting position
There are many procedures for creating a starting position. A common one is that proposed by Ingo Althoefer in 1998, which requires only one six-sided dieDice
A die is a small throwable object with multiple resting positions, used for generating random numbers...
:
- Roll the die, and place a white bishop on the black square indicated by the die, counting from the left. Thus, 1 indicates the first black square from the left (a1 in algebraic notationAlgebraic chess notationAlgebraic notation is a method for recording and describing the moves in a game of chess. It is now standard among all chess organizations and most books, magazines, and newspapers...
), 2 indicates the second black square from the left (c1), 3 indicates the third (e1), and 4 indicates the fourth (g1). Since there are no fifth or sixth positions, re-roll a 5 or 6 until another number shows. - Roll the die, and place a white bishop on the white square indicated (1 indicates b1, 2 indicates d1, and so on). Re-roll a 5 or 6.
- Roll the die, and place the queen on the first empty position indicated (always skipping filled positions). Thus, a 1 places the queen on the first (leftmost) empty position, while a 6 places the queen on the sixth (rightmost) empty position.
- Roll the die, and place a knight on the empty position indicated. Re-roll a 6.
- Roll the die, and place a knight on the empty position indicated. Re-roll a 5 or 6.
This leaves three empty squares. Place the king on the middle empty square, and the rooks on the remaining two squares. Place all white and black pawns on their usual squares, and place Black's pieces to exactly mirror White's (so, Black should have on a8 exactly the same type of piece White has on a1, except that bishops would be on opposite-color squares).
This procedure generates any of the 960 possible initial positions with equal chance. This particular procedure uses an average of 6.7 die rolls. Note that one of these initial positions (rolled by 2-3-3-2-3 or 2-3-3-4-2) is the standard chess position, at which point a standard chess game ensues.
It is also possible to use this procedure to understand why there are exactly 960 possible initial positions. Each bishop can take one of four positions, the queen one of six, and the two knights can assume five or four possible positions, respectively. This leaves three open squares which the king and rooks must occupy according to setup stipulations, without choice. This means there are 4×4×6×5×4 = 1920 possible starting positions if the two knights were different in some way. However, the two knights are indistinguishable during play (if swapped, there would be no difference). So the number of distinguishable possible positions is half of 1920, or 1920/2 = 960. (Half of the 960 are left-right mirror images of the other half, however Chess960 castling rules preserve left-right asymmetry in play.)
Rules for castling
Chess960 allows each player to castleCastling
Castling is a special move in the game of chess involving the king and either of the original rooks of the same color. It is the only move in chess in which a player moves two pieces at the same time. Castling consists of moving the king two squares towards a rook on the player's first rank, then...
once per game, moving both the king and a rook in a single move. However, a few reinterpretations of standard chess rules are needed for castling, because the standard rules presume initial locations of the rook and king that often do not apply in Chess960 games.
After castling, the rook and king's final positions are exactly the same as they would be in standard chess. Thus, after a-side castling (also called sometimes c-castling), the king is on the c-file (c1 for White and c8 for Black) and the a-side rook is on the d-file (d1 for White and d8 for Black). This move is notated as 0-0-0 and is known as queenside castling in orthodox chess. After h-side castling (also called sometimes g-castling), the king is on the g-file and the h-side rook is on the f-file. This move is notated as 0-0 and is known as kingside castling in orthodox chess. It is recommended that a player state "I am about to castle" before castling, to eliminate potential misunderstanding.
However, castling may only occur under the following conditions. The first two are identical to the standard chess castling rules. The third is an extension of the standard chess rule, which requires only that the squares between the king and castling rook must be vacant.
- Unmoved: The king and the castling rook must not have moved before in the game, including castling.
- Unattacked: No square between the king's initial and final squares (including the initial and final squares) may be under attack by any opposing piece.
- Unimpeded: All the squares between the king's initial and final squares (including the final square), and all of the squares between the rook's initial and final squares (including the final square), must be vacant except for the king and castling rook. An equivalent way of stating this is that the smallest back rank interval containing the king, the castling rook, and their destination squares contains no pieces other than the king and castling rook.
If the initial position happens to be the standard chess initial position, these castling rules have exactly the same effect as the standard chess castling rules. In some starting positions, some squares can stay filled during castling that would have to be vacant in standard chess. For example, after a-side castling (0-0-0), it's possible to have a, b, and/or e still filled, and after h-side castling (0-0), it's possible to have e and/or h filled. In some starting positions, the king or rook (but not both) do not move during castling.
How to castle
When castling on a physical board with a human player, it is recommended that the king be moved outside the playing surface next to his final position, the rook then be moved from its starting to ending position, and then the king be placed on his final square. This is always unambiguous, and is a simple rule to follow.Eric van Reem suggests other ways to castle:
- If only the rook needs to move (jumping over the king), only the rook needs to be moved.
- If only the king needs to move (jumping over the castling rook), only the king needs to be moved.
- One can pick up both the king and rook (in either order), then place them on their final squares (this is called "transpositioni" castling).
- One can move the king to its final square and move the rook to its final square as two separate moves in either order (this is called "double-move" castling). Obviously, if the rook is on the square the king will occupy, the player needs to move the rook first, and if the king is on the square the rook will occupy, the player needs to move the king first.
In the meantime there has been an adjustment setting of the WNCA that when performing a castling move it is irrelevant in which sequence involved pieces were touched. All pieces involved in a move may be touched arbitrarily. When castling those pieces are the king and rook, and in capturing moves they are the capturing and the captured piece. Especially with players new to Chess960 it might make sense also to announce a castling to avoid misunderstandings. When a chess clock will be used, pressing the button could be taken as a sign that a castling move has been completed.
When castling using a computer interface, programs should have separate a-side (0-0-0) and h-side (0-0) castling actions (e.g., as a button or menu item). Ideally, programs should also be able to detect a king or rook move that cannot be anything other than a castling move and consider that a castling move. Recommended gestures are: the king is moving to his at least two steps distant castling target square or else upon the involved rook, to avoid by this a possible confusion with normal king's moves.
When using an electronic board, to castle one should remove the king, remove the castling rook, place the castling rook on its new position, and then place the king on its new position. This will create an unambiguous move for electronic boards, which often only have sensors that can detect the presence or absence of an object on each square (and cannot tell what object is on the square). Ideally, electronic boards should detect a king or rook move that can only be a castling move as well, but users should not count on this.
Gameplay
The study of openings in Chess960 is in its infancy, but fundamental opening principles still apply, including: protect the king, control the central squares (directly or indirectly), and develop rapidly starting with the less valuable pieces. Some starting positions have unprotected pawns that may need to be dealt with quickly.It has been argued that two games should be played from each starting position, with players alternating as White and Black, since some initial positions may offer White a bigger advantage than in standard chess. For example, in some Chess960 starting positions White can attack an unprotected black pawn after the first move, whereas in standard chess it takes two turns for White to attack and there are no unprotected pawns. (See first-move advantage in chess
First-move advantage in chess
The first-move advantage in chess is the inherent advantage of the player who makes the first move in chess. Chess players and theorists generally agree that White begins the game with some advantage. Statistics compiled since 1851 support this view, showing that White consistently wins slightly...
.)
Recording games and positions
Since the initial position is usually not the orthodox chess initial position, recordedgames must also record the initial position. Games recorded using the Portable Game Notation
Portable Game Notation
Portable Game Notation is a computer-processible format for recording chess games ; many chess programs recognize this extremely popular format due to its being stored in plain text.-History:...
(PGN) can record the initial position using Forsyth–Edwards Notation (FEN), as the value of the "FEN" tag. Castling is marked as O-O or O-O-O as in standard chess (except PGN requires letter O not number 0). Note that not all chess programs can handle castling correctly in Chess960 games (except if the initial position is the standard chess initial position).
To correctly record a Chess960 game in PGN, an additional "Variant" tag must be used to identify the rules; the rule named "Fischerandom" is accepted by many chess programs
as identifying Chess960, though "Chess960" should be accepted as well. Be careful to use "Variant" and not "Variation", which has a different meaning. This means that in a PGN-recorded game, one of the PGN tags (after the initial seven tags) would look like this: [Variant "Fischerandom"].
FEN is capable of expressing all possible starting positions of Chess960. However, unmodified FEN
Fen
A fen is a type of wetland fed by mineral-rich surface water or groundwater. Fens are characterised by their water chemistry, which is neutral or alkaline, with relatively high dissolved mineral levels but few other plant nutrients...
cannot express all possible positions of a Chess960 game. In a game, a rook may move into the back row on the same side of the king as the other rook, or pawn(s) may be underpromoted into rook(s) and moved into the back row. If a rook is unmoved and can still castle, yet there is more than one rook on that side, FEN notation as traditionally interpreted is ambiguous. This is because FEN records that castling is possible on that side, but not which rook is still allowed to castle.
A modification of FEN
Fen
A fen is a type of wetland fed by mineral-rich surface water or groundwater. Fens are characterised by their water chemistry, which is neutral or alkaline, with relatively high dissolved mineral levels but few other plant nutrients...
, X-FEN
X-FEN
X-FEN is an extension of Forsyth-Edwards Notation .The traditional Forsyth-Edwards Notation is not sufficient to represent all possible positions in 8x8 Chess960 or 10x8 Capablanca random chess . Consequently, an extension of FEN was needed, with the requirement of being fully backward compatible...
, has been devised by Reinhard Scharnagl
Reinhard Scharnagl
Reinhard Scharnagl is author of a book about the future of the game of Chess, inventor of Capablanca Random Chess and the Chess960 numbering scheme and developer of the chess variant program SMIRF.- Chessbook author :...
to remove this ambiguity. In X-FEN
X-FEN
X-FEN is an extension of Forsyth-Edwards Notation .The traditional Forsyth-Edwards Notation is not sufficient to represent all possible positions in 8x8 Chess960 or 10x8 Capablanca random chess . Consequently, an extension of FEN was needed, with the requirement of being fully backward compatible...
, the castling markings "KQkq" have their expected meanings: "Q" and "q" mean a-side castling is still legal (for White and Black respectively), and "K" and "k" mean h-side castling is still legal (for White and
Black respectively). However, if there is more than one rook on the baseline on the same side of the king, and the rook that can castle is not the outermost rook on that side, then the file letter (uppercase for White) of the rook that can castle is used instead of "K", "k", "Q", or "q"; in X-FEN
X-FEN
X-FEN is an extension of Forsyth-Edwards Notation .The traditional Forsyth-Edwards Notation is not sufficient to represent all possible positions in 8x8 Chess960 or 10x8 Capablanca random chess . Consequently, an extension of FEN was needed, with the requirement of being fully backward compatible...
notation, castling potentials belong
to the outermost rooks by default. The maximum length of the castling value is still four characters. X-FEN
X-FEN
X-FEN is an extension of Forsyth-Edwards Notation .The traditional Forsyth-Edwards Notation is not sufficient to represent all possible positions in 8x8 Chess960 or 10x8 Capablanca random chess . Consequently, an extension of FEN was needed, with the requirement of being fully backward compatible...
is upwardly compatible with FEN, that is, a program supporting X-FEN will automatically use the normal FEN codes for a traditional chess starting position without requiring any special programming. As a benefit all 18 pseudo FRC positions (positions with traditional placements of rooks and king) still remain uniquely encoded.
The solution implemented by chess engines like Shredder
Shredder (chess)
Shredder is a commercial chess program developed in Germany by Stefan Meyer-Kahlen in 1993. Shredder won the World Microcomputer Chess Championship in 1996 and 2000, the World Computer Chess Championship in 1999 and 2003, the World Computer Speed Chess Championship in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and...
and Fritz
Fritz (chess)
Fritz is a German chess program developed by Frans Morsch and Mathias Feist and published by ChessBase. There is also a version called Deep Fritz that is designed for multiprocessing....
is to use the letters of the columns on which the rooks began the game. This scheme is sometimes called Shredder-FEN. For the traditional setup, Shredder-FEN would use HAha instead of KQkq.
History
Fischer Random Chess is a variant of Shuffle chess defined by former World Champion Bobby FischerBobby Fischer
Robert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess Grandmaster and the 11th World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Fischer was also a best-selling chess author...
and introduced formally to the chess public on June 19, 1996, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Shuffle Chess had been played for quite some time before this, as early as 1842. Fischer's goal was to eliminate what he considered the complete dominance of openings preparation in chess today, and to replace it with creativity and talent. His belief about Russians fixing all international games also provided motivation. In a situation where the starting position was random it would be impossible to fix every move of the game. Since the opening book for each possible opening position would be too difficult to devote to memory (960 "book opening" systems), each player must create every move originally. From the first move, both players have to come up with original strategies and cannot use well-known thinking patterns. Fischer believed that eliminating memorized book moves would level the playing field.
The first Fischer Random Chess tournament was held in Yugoslavia in the spring of 1996, and was won by Grandmaster
International Grandmaster
The title Grandmaster is awarded to strong chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain....
Péter Lékó
Péter Lékó
On the way to winning the prestigious Corus chess tournament in 2005, Lékó defeated Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand with the black pieces. The moves were:...
.
In 2001, Lékó became the first Fischer Random Chess world champion, defeating GM Michael Adams in an eight game match played as part of the Mainz
Mainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
Chess Classic. There were no qualifying matches (also true of the first orthodox world chess champion titleholders), but both players were in the top five in the January 2001 world rankings for orthodox chess. Lékó was chosen because of the many novelties he has introduced to known chess theories, as well as his previous tournament win; in addition, Lékó has supposedly played Fischer Random Chess games with Fischer himself. Adams was chosen because he was the world number one in blitz (rapid) chess and is regarded as an extremely strong player in unfamiliar positions. The match was won by a narrow margin, 4½ to 3½.
In 2002 at Mainz, an open tournament was held which attracted 131 players. Peter Svidler
Peter Svidler
Peter Veniaminovich Svidler is a Russian chess grandmaster.He is six-time Russian champion ....
won the event. Other interesting events happened in 2002. The website ChessVariants.org selected Fischer Random chess as its "Recognized Variant of the Month" for April 2002. Yugoslavian Grandmaster Svetozar Gligorić
Svetozar Gligoric
Svetozar Gligorić is a Serbian chess grandmaster. He won the championship of Yugoslavia a record twelve times, and is considered the best player ever from Serbia...
published in 2002 the book Shall We Play Fischerandom Chess?, popularizing this variant further.
At the 2003 Mainz Chess Classic, Svidler beat Lékó in an eight game match for the World Championship title by a score of 4.5 - 3.5. The Chess960 open tournament attracted 179 players, including 50 GMs. It was won by Levon Aronian
Levon Aronian
Levon Grigor Aronian is an Armenian chess Grandmaster and the reigning World Blitz Chess Champion. On the September 2011 FIDE list, he has an Elo rating of 2807, making him number three in the world and Armenia's number one...
, the 2002 World Junior Champion. Svidler is the official first World New Chess Association (WNCA) world champion inaugurated on August 14, 2003 with Jens Beutel, Mayor of Mainz as the President and Hans-Walter Schmitt, Chess Classic organiser as Secretary. The WNCA maintains an own dedicated Chess960 rating list.
Aronian played Svidler for the title at the 2004 Mainz Chess Classic, losing 4.5–3.5. At the same tournament in 2004, Aronian played two Chess960 games against the Dutch computer chess program The Baron, developed by Richard Pijl. Both games ended in a draw. It was the first ever man against machine match in Chess960. Zoltán Almási
Zoltan Almasi
Zoltán Almási is a Grandmaster of chess from Hungary. He is a seven-time Hungarian Chess Champion, winning in 1995, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2006 and 2008...
won the Chess960 open tournament in 2004.
In 2005, The Baron played two Chess960 games against Chess960 World Champion Peter Svidler; Svidler won 1.5–0.5. The chess program Shredder
Shredder (chess)
Shredder is a commercial chess program developed in Germany by Stefan Meyer-Kahlen in 1993. Shredder won the World Microcomputer Chess Championship in 1996 and 2000, the World Computer Chess Championship in 1999 and 2003, the World Computer Speed Chess Championship in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and...
, developed by Stefan Meyer-Kahlen from Düsseldorf, Germany, played two games against Zoltán Almási
Zoltan Almasi
Zoltán Almási is a Grandmaster of chess from Hungary. He is a seven-time Hungarian Chess Champion, winning in 1995, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2006 and 2008...
from Hungary; Shredder won 2–0. Almási and Svidler played an eight-game match at the 2005 Mainz Chess Classic. Once again, Svidler defended his title, winning 5–3. Levon Aronian
Levon Aronian
Levon Grigor Aronian is an Armenian chess Grandmaster and the reigning World Blitz Chess Champion. On the September 2011 FIDE list, he has an Elo rating of 2807, making him number three in the world and Armenia's number one...
won the Chess960 open tournament in 2005. During the Chess Classic 2005 in Mainz, initiated by Mark Vogelgesang and Eric van Reem, the first-ever Chess960 computer chess world championship was played. Nineteen programs, including the powerful Shredder
Shredder (chess)
Shredder is a commercial chess program developed in Germany by Stefan Meyer-Kahlen in 1993. Shredder won the World Microcomputer Chess Championship in 1996 and 2000, the World Computer Chess Championship in 1999 and 2003, the World Computer Speed Chess Championship in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and...
, played in this tournament. As a result of this tournament, Spike became the first Chess960 computer world champion.
The 2006 Mainz Chess Classic saw Svidler defending his championship in a rematch against Levon Aronian. This time, Aronian won the match 5–3 to become the third ever Fischer Random Chess World Champion. Étienne Bacrot
Étienne Bacrot
Étienne Bacrot is a French chess grandmaster and currently ranked number one in France.He started playing at 4; by 10 young Bacrot was already winning junior competitions and in 1996, at 13 years of age, he won against Vasily Smyslov...
won the Chess960 open tournament, earning him a title match against Aronian in 2007. In 2006 Shredder
Shredder (chess)
Shredder is a commercial chess program developed in Germany by Stefan Meyer-Kahlen in 1993. Shredder won the World Microcomputer Chess Championship in 1996 and 2000, the World Computer Chess Championship in 1999 and 2003, the World Computer Speed Chess Championship in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and...
won the computer championship, making it Chess960 computer world champion. Three new Chess960 world championship matches were held, in the women, junior and senior categories. In the women category, Alexandra Kosteniuk
Alexandra Kosteniuk
Alexandra Konstantinovna Kosteniuk is a Russian chess Grandmaster and a former Women's World Chess Champion.-Chess career:Kosteniuk learned to play chess at the age of five after being taught by her father...
became the first Chess960 Women World Champion by beating Elisabeth Paehtz 5.5 to 2.5. The 2006 Senior Chess960 World Champion was Vlastimil Hort
Vlastimil Hort
Vlastimil Hort is a chess Grandmaster of Czech nationality. During the 1960s and 1970s he was one of the world's strongest players and reached the Candidates stage of competition for the world chess championship, but was never able to compete for the actual title.Hort was born in Kladno,...
, and the 2006 Junior Chess960 World Champion was Pentala Harikrishna.
In 2007 Mainz Chess Classic Aronian successfully defended his title of Chess960 World Champion over Viswanathan Anand
Viswanathan Anand
V. Anand or Anand Viswanathan, usually referred as Viswanathan Anand, is an Indian chess Grandmaster, the current World Chess Champion, and currently second highest rated player in the world....
, while Victor Bologan
Victor Bologan
Viktor Viorel Bologan is a Moldovan chess grandmaster.On the April 2005 FIDE list, he had an Elo rating of 2700, making him number 18 in the world and Moldova's best chess player. His major accomplishment has been winning the Dortmund Sparkassen 2003, ahead of higher-rated and well-known players...
won the Chess960 open tournament. Rybka
Rybka
Rybka is a computer chess engine designed by International Master Vasik Rajlich. , Rybka is one of the top-rated engines on chess engine rating lists and has won many computer chess tournaments...
won the 2007 computer championship.
In 2010 the US Chess Federation sponsored its first Chess960 tournament, at the Jerry Hanken Memorial US Open tournament in Irvine, California. This one-day event, directed by Damian Nash, saw a first place tie between GM Larry Kaufmann and FM Mark Duckworth.
Summary table
| Year | World Chess960 Championship | Mainz Open | World Chess960 Women's Championship | Computer Championship |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Péter Lékó Péter Lékó On the way to winning the prestigious Corus chess tournament in 2005, Lékó defeated Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand with the black pieces. The moves were:... (4.5–3.5 vs Michael Adams) |
- | - | - |
| 2002 | - | Peter Svidler Peter Svidler Peter Veniaminovich Svidler is a Russian chess grandmaster.He is six-time Russian champion .... |
- | |
| 2003 | Peter Svidler Peter Svidler Peter Veniaminovich Svidler is a Russian chess grandmaster.He is six-time Russian champion .... (4.5–3.5 vs Péter Lékó) |
Levon Aronian Levon Aronian Levon Grigor Aronian is an Armenian chess Grandmaster and the reigning World Blitz Chess Champion. On the September 2011 FIDE list, he has an Elo rating of 2807, making him number three in the world and Armenia's number one... |
- | |
| 2004 | Peter Svidler Peter Svidler Peter Veniaminovich Svidler is a Russian chess grandmaster.He is six-time Russian champion .... (4.5–3.5 vs Levon Aronian) |
Zoltán Almási Zoltan Almasi Zoltán Almási is a Grandmaster of chess from Hungary. He is a seven-time Hungarian Chess Champion, winning in 1995, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2006 and 2008... |
- | - |
| 2005 | Peter Svidler Peter Svidler Peter Veniaminovich Svidler is a Russian chess grandmaster.He is six-time Russian champion .... (5–3 vs Zoltán Almási) |
Levon Aronian Levon Aronian Levon Grigor Aronian is an Armenian chess Grandmaster and the reigning World Blitz Chess Champion. On the September 2011 FIDE list, he has an Elo rating of 2807, making him number three in the world and Armenia's number one... |
- | Spike |
| 2006 | Levon Aronian Levon Aronian Levon Grigor Aronian is an Armenian chess Grandmaster and the reigning World Blitz Chess Champion. On the September 2011 FIDE list, he has an Elo rating of 2807, making him number three in the world and Armenia's number one... (5–3 vs Peter Svidler) |
Étienne Bacrot Étienne Bacrot Étienne Bacrot is a French chess grandmaster and currently ranked number one in France.He started playing at 4; by 10 young Bacrot was already winning junior competitions and in 1996, at 13 years of age, he won against Vasily Smyslov... |
Alexandra Kosteniuk Alexandra Kosteniuk Alexandra Konstantinovna Kosteniuk is a Russian chess Grandmaster and a former Women's World Chess Champion.-Chess career:Kosteniuk learned to play chess at the age of five after being taught by her father... (5.5–2.5 vs Elisabeth Pähtz) |
Shredder Shredder (chess) Shredder is a commercial chess program developed in Germany by Stefan Meyer-Kahlen in 1993. Shredder won the World Microcomputer Chess Championship in 1996 and 2000, the World Computer Chess Championship in 1999 and 2003, the World Computer Speed Chess Championship in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and... |
| 2007 | Levon Aronian Levon Aronian Levon Grigor Aronian is an Armenian chess Grandmaster and the reigning World Blitz Chess Champion. On the September 2011 FIDE list, he has an Elo rating of 2807, making him number three in the world and Armenia's number one... (2–2, 1.5–0.5 vs Viswanathan Anand Viswanathan Anand V. Anand or Anand Viswanathan, usually referred as Viswanathan Anand, is an Indian chess Grandmaster, the current World Chess Champion, and currently second highest rated player in the world.... ) |
Victor Bologan Victor Bologan Viktor Viorel Bologan is a Moldovan chess grandmaster.On the April 2005 FIDE list, he had an Elo rating of 2700, making him number 18 in the world and Moldova's best chess player. His major accomplishment has been winning the Dortmund Sparkassen 2003, ahead of higher-rated and well-known players... |
- | Rybka Rybka Rybka is a computer chess engine designed by International Master Vasik Rajlich. , Rybka is one of the top-rated engines on chess engine rating lists and has won many computer chess tournaments... |
| 2008 | - | Hikaru Nakamura Hikaru Nakamura Hikaru Nakamura is an American chess Grandmaster . He has been ranked among the top six players in the world by FIDE.... |
Alexandra Kosteniuk Alexandra Kosteniuk Alexandra Konstantinovna Kosteniuk is a Russian chess Grandmaster and a former Women's World Chess Champion.-Chess career:Kosteniuk learned to play chess at the age of five after being taught by her father... (2.5–1.5 vs Kateryna Lahno) |
Rybka Rybka Rybka is a computer chess engine designed by International Master Vasik Rajlich. , Rybka is one of the top-rated engines on chess engine rating lists and has won many computer chess tournaments... |
| 2009 | Hikaru Nakamura Hikaru Nakamura Hikaru Nakamura is an American chess Grandmaster . He has been ranked among the top six players in the world by FIDE.... (3.5–0.5 vs Levon Aronian) |
Alexander Grischuk Alexander Grischuk Alexander Igorevich Grischuk is a Russian chess grandmaster and Russian Champion in 2009.-Chess career:In the FIDE World Chess Championship 2000, Grischuk he made it to the semifinals, losing to Alexei Shirov.... |
- | Rybka Rybka Rybka is a computer chess engine designed by International Master Vasik Rajlich. , Rybka is one of the top-rated engines on chess engine rating lists and has won many computer chess tournaments... |
Naming
This chess variant has held a number of different names. It was initially known as "Fischerandom Chess" after Fischer formalized his variation of Shuffle Chess. Later name forms included "Fischer Random Chess", "FR Chess", and "FRC".Hans-Walter Schmitt, chairman of the Frankfurt Chess Tigers e.V. and an advocate of this variant, started a brainstorming
process for selecting a new name, which had to meet requirements of leading grandmasters; specifically, the new name and its parts:
- should not contain part of the name of any Grandmaster
- should not include negatively biased or "spongy" elements (such as "random" or "freestyle")
- should be universally understood
The effort culminated in the name choice Chess960 – derived from the number of different possible starting positions.
R. Scharnagl, another proponent of the variant, advocated the term "FullChess" instead. But today he uses FullChess to refer to variants which consistently embed traditional chess (e.g. Chess960, and some new variants based on the extended 10×8 piece set in Capablanca chess
Capablanca chess
Capablanca chess is a chess variant invented in the 1920s by former World Chess Champion José Raúl Capablanca. It incorporates two new pieces and is played on a 10×8 board. Capablanca proposed the variant while World Champion, and not as a "sour grapes" rationalization after losing his title as...
). He currently recommends the name Chess960 in preference to Fischer Random Chess for the variant.
Bobby Fischer never publicly stated his feeling about the name 'Chess960'.
Non-random setups
The initial setup need not necessarily be random.The players or a tournament setting may decide on a specific position in advance, for example. Tournament Directors prefer that all boards in a single round play the same random position, as to maintain order and abbreviate the setup time for each round.
Edward Northam suggests the following approach for allowing players to jointly create a position without randomizing tools: First, the back ranks are cleared of pieces, and the white bishops, knights, and queen are gathered together. Starting with Black, the players, in turn, place one of these pieces on White's back rank, where it must stay. The only restriction is that the bishops must go on opposite colored squares. There will be a vacant square of the required color for the second bishop, no matter where the previous pieces have been placed. Some variety could be introduced into this process by allowing each player to exercise a one time option of moving a piece already on the board instead of putting a new piece on the board. After all five pieces have been put on the board, the king must be placed on the middle of the three vacant back rank squares that remain. Rooks go on the other two.
This approach to the opening setup has much in common with Pre-Chess, the variant in which White and Black, alternately and independently, fill in their respective back ranks. Pre-Chess could be played with the additional requirement of ending up with a legal Chess960 opening position. A chess clock could even be used during this phase as well as during normal play.
Without some limitation on which pieces go on the board first, it is possible to reach impasse positions, which cannot be completed to legal Chess960 starting positions. Example: Q.RB.N.N If the players want to work with all eight pieces, they must have a prior agreement about how to correct illegal opening positions that may arise. If the bishops end up on same color squares, a simple action, such as moving the a-side bishop one square toward the h-file, might be agreeable, since there is no question of preserving randomness. Once the bishops are on opposite colored squares, if the king is not between the rooks, it should trade places with the nearest rook.
Chess480
John Kipling Lewis's "Castling in Chess960: An appeal for simplicity" proposes the same rules for the initial position as Chess960, but proposes an alternative set of castling rules. In this variation, the preconditions for castling are the same, but when castling "the king is transferred from its original square two squares towards (or over) the rook, then that rook is transferred to the square the king has just crossed (if it is not already there). If the king and rook are adjacent in a corner and the king cannot move two spaces over the rook, then the king and rook exchange squares." Note that these rules are different from the Chess960 rules, since the final position after castling will usually not be the same as the final position of a castling move in traditional chess. Lewis argues that this alternative better conforms to how the castling move was historically developed. Lewis has named this chess variation "Chess480"; this variation follows the rules of Chess960 with the exception of the castling rules which Lewis has named "Orthodoxed Castling".Note also that although the game can start with any of 960 starting positions, half of these are actually mirror positions that theoretically don't change the games' tactics.
Naturally, the right to castle is lost:
- if the king has already moved, or
- with a rook that has already moved.
And castling is prevented temporarily:
- if the square on which the king stands, or the square which it must cross, or the square which it is to occupy, is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces.
- if there is any piece between the king and the rook with which castling is to be effected, or on the final square the king is going to occupy.
Note: There are other claims to the nomenclature 'Chess480'. Reinhard Scharnagl defines it as the white queen is always to the left of the white king. Another way of defining Chess480 is that the white king must always be located on a dark square. The definition could also be that the white king must always be on a light square. The point is that half the positions are mirror image reversals of the other half. It is really up to the individual to decide how to filter the 480 positions.
David O'Shaughnessy argues in "Castling in Chess480: An appeal for sanity" that the Chess480 rules are often not useful from a gameplay perspective. In about 66% of starting positions, players have the options of castling deeper into the wing the king started on, or castling into the center of the board (when the king starts on the b-, c-, f-, or g-files). To quote from the wiki Chess page "Castling is an important goal in the early part of a game, because it serves two valuable purposes: it moves the king into a safer position away from the center of the board, and it moves the rook to a more active position in the center of the board". An example of poor castling options is a position where the kings start on g1 and g8 respectively. There will be no possibility of "opposite-side castling" where each player's pawns are free to be used as attacking weapons (as in many Sicilian variations), as the kings scope for movement is very restricted (it can only move to the h- or e-file). These "problem positions" play well with Chess960 castling rules.
Other related chess variants
There are other chess variants with rules similar to Chess960.These include:
- Chess256 (or Random pawns chess): Only the pawns are randomized, on the 2nd and 3rd rank. Black's position mirrors White's.
- Corner chess: Like Chess960, the placement of the pieces on the 1st and 8th row are randomized, but with the king in the right hand corner. Black's starting position is obtained by rotating White's position 180 degrees around the board's center.
- Double Fischer Random Chess: Similar to Chess960, but the opening White and Black positions do not mirror each other.
- Transcendental chessTranscendental chessTranscendental chess is a chess variant invented in 1978 by Maxwell Lawrence. It inspired Chess960 which is similar but has fewer starting positions. In transcendental chess the beginning positions of the pieces on the back row are randomly determined, with the one restriction that the bishops be...
: Like above, but there is no castling and concept of auction (offering extra moves for the right of picking the side) is added. - Moab Random Chess: A variant of shuffle chess, using the same initial positions as Transcendental Chess and Double Fischer Random, except that the set-up phase is part of the game. Players take turns placing back-rank pieces on their side or their opponent's. Complex castling rules are replaced with the simple "evacuation" of the king to any empty first-rank square.
- Shuffle chess: The parent variant of Chess960. No additional rules on the back rank shuffles, castling only possible when king and rook are on their traditional starting squares.
Descriptions and commentary
- The Birth of Fischer Random Chess
- Chess960.net Chess960 information: What, where, why and how
- Audio clip of Bobby Fischer describing his Fischer Random Chess
- Fischer Random Chess Description at ChessVariants.org
- "Leko, the first ever kingpin of Fischer Random Chess"
- Shall We Play Fischerandom Chess? book by Svetozar Gligorić
- Play Stronger Chess by Examining Chess960 book by Gene Milener
- Reinhard ScharnaglReinhard ScharnaglReinhard Scharnagl is author of a book about the future of the game of Chess, inventor of Capablanca Random Chess and the Chess960 numbering scheme and developer of the chess variant program SMIRF.- Chessbook author :...
's (English/German) book Fischer-Random-Schach (FRC/Chess960) ISBN 3-8334-1322-0 (German server) - CCRL Computer Chess Engines FRC Ratings List
Chess960, servers tools and software
- Lichess play Chess960 with a friend or an AI. No registration, no download, no flash. Integrated chat and analyse mode. Opensource website.
- Chess Hotel play Chess960 free in real-time, no registration required, browser-based
- www.mychess.de - Internet Chess Server play Chess960 free in correspondence time, registration required, browser based or with mobile device
- Free Internet Chess Server play Chess960 free, not browser based, with software download interface
- The Email/Correspondence Chess Club for Chess960
- Arena interface play against an engine or against other people over the Internet
- Fischer random chess generator online tool to create a random Chess960 position
- Free web based PGN Player capable of reviewing Chess and Chess960 games (Broken? Nov 21-10)
- Free web-based player capable of large-scale Chess960 tournaments (scaled for 50,000 players per tournament)
- Scid Vs PC free chess program with the ability to play Chess960 against a computer opponent
- iTunes Chess960 Calculator
- brettspielnetz.de Chess960 against Java Applet
- ChessManiac.com play Chess960 with players from all over the world
- Meingames.de play Chess960 against other people over the Internet
- Chess.com play free online chess, including tournamnets, Chess960, blitz, live chess, and many more
- Play.Chessvariants.org the Fischer Random Chess PBM Game Courier