xpertchesslessons.wordpress.com/ … dom-chess/
“God does not play random chess with the universe.”-Albert Eynstein
The respondant is correct: the idea (with the players using the first eight moves to choose locations for their pieces) has been around for a long time. Chess Life (or was it Chess Life and Review in those days?) did an article on it (“Pre-Chess”) in the 1970s or 1980s, even had two GM’s play a short match.
. .
Years ago I briefly dabbled with different “asymmetrical” back rank formations, to compare against chess960-FRC.
Compared to chess960 start setups (meaning all 32 pieces), I can confidently say that…
“Asymmetrical” setups, where the two kings do not start across from each other on the same column, are far more confusing to play than are any of the chess960 setups. Same goes for all other officer types, not just for the kings. I doubt people could enjoy asymmetrical games they way many enjoy chess960.
By the way, ideally the ‘Random’ would be removed from Fischer Random Chess (and from chess960).
Instead, one of the more sensible alternative 959 setups should be chosen as second stable setup to be routinely reused, reused a lot like the traditional setup of reused. Then we could all watch a new book of open theory grow from infancy, and a fast Fritz-fueled rate barely imagined when Fischer was WCChamp.
Watch that opening book growth, and participating in it, would be an experience that today’s amateur and professional players will otherwise never have. The eventual results would also give us a perspective on opening principles in chess that we cannot obtain until humanity develops a second opening book.
. .
On what basis do you make your “confident” assertion in paragraph 2?
I’ve played both and I can confidently state that I personally enjoyed the strategy of the piece placement and assymetrical positions far more than I enjoyed Chess 960’s symmetry and lack of placement strategy. I am not so arrogant as to assume that my enjoyment factors are the same as other’s. The fact that no TD intervention or effort is needed to establish a starting position is also an advantage to the Benko variety, albeit a minor one. And the virtually immeasurable number of starting positions eliminates any potential for opening book to be made on the Chess960 legal positions.
“Mr. Chairman, Mr. CHAIRMAN! I make a motion to change the name of this thread to “Benko Random Chess” IMMEDIATELY!”
Randomly Nocab
. .
It is not “arrogant” for me to feel a high percentage of likelihood about something I have researched and experienced, and to thereby state my expectation for the preference trend in a group of test subjects.
In my experience with asymmetrical start setups, I noticed I had less comprehension of the overall position due to fact that — I could not leverage my understanding of my own back rank into a partial understanding of my opponent’s evolving development and how his development would interact with mine.
As I said, the proper utilization of Bobby Fischer’s Fischer Random Chess (FRC - chess960) is to discard the ‘Random’. One of the other 959 setups, and not more than one, should be chosen for routine reuse, and reused for a decade or two. Games that reuse this second stable reused setup would not involve any “TD intervention”.
A funny story: H.G.Petrie ran a couple of FRC-chess960 tournaments near Seattle WA. But in the second such tournament, the traditional setup (so called S#518) was randomly drawn. I wasn’t there and supposedly something was not done correctly, but the group proceeded to play with the traditional setup (Fail).
About Pre-chess, several times I have read different people caution that Pre-chess players would likely end up playing lots of traditional setup games. Who knows?
With 960 setups in Fischer Random Chess, there is already no chance for the best grandmasters to book up on memorized openings. The extra variety of setups possible under Benko is unnecessary for eliminating booking up.
…
By the way, I had thought Pre-chess was first proposed by Bruce Hochberg and Pal Benko, in Chess Life magazine in November 1978.
. .
Gene,
Please note that I said absolutely nothing suggesting you were arrogant. I relayed my own experience and said I wasn’t arrogant enough to extrapolate my experience beyond that point. Knowing that you wrote a book on Chess 960 I rather assumed you have more experience and asked you to share it. Regrettably, you didn’t really tell us much about what your experience was. I agree with your observation that there might be less comprehension of the position, but to those adventurous enough to play this variant, that lack of comprehension may will be more of a plus than a minus. I would be interested in any studies you know of that would support or contradict that theory.
Also note that in Mr. Bacon’s thread I also cited Benko’s Pre-Chess articles. I fail to see why a prechess player would opt for a traditional setup. That seems silly. I’d rather tuck my king in a safer place from the start. Certainly in the pre-chess event I played in, no one did that. By the way, I played in the first of Mr. Pitre’s (correct spelling of his name) Chess 960 events.