HiveChess Study (5) : A Deep Look Into The Chess960 Variant

Hello chess friends! Today, I want to examine the Chess960 Variant, I want to Look at our games. Our host @schamangerbert has been giving us this variant to play now more frequently and as much as the variant is fun to play,we still mix it up with standard chess. Before I proceed, I'd like to add that I've been inactive and also missed the last Chess960 tournament because I travelled to play a Rapid mini-chess event in a close by state. I won the event yesterday ahead of some Master players which makes me happy.

Chess960 also known as Fischer Random was Invented by former world champion Bobby Fisher. According to Wikipedia, it was:

on June 19, 1996, in Buenos Aires, Argentina Fischer random chess employs the same board and pieces as classical chess, but the starting position of the pieces on the players' home ranks is randomized, following certain rules. The random setup makes gaining an advantage through the memorization of openings impracticable; players instead must rely more on their skill and creativity over the board.

The pieces are arranged totally different from the standard chess and keeps changing.

There are 960 possible Initial Starting Positions.

Alot of remarks have been made over this variant in recent years and several tournaments has been played using this system. On #Hivechess this variant has been played for quite a while but alot of us find ourselves stucked very early, sometimes we loose very quickly. In one of the tournaments, I lost two games in the same fashion to one player! That rarely happens to me. I checked and i wasn't the only one making this mistakes,Many others too!. In the last tournament, @jaki01 won the event without losing a game,but it was important to note that most of his games were already won before move 7!. So i took a deeper look and i have some reasons/situations where we get it wrong.

In standard chess, castling the king to safety is very important and almost necessary at all times. But it is quite different in Chess960. Firstly, The position sometimes doesn't require you to castle and secondly, because a wrong King castling can't get a person into a bad position.

But First, How do you castle a king in this variant?

Just like in standard chess, chess960 allows each player to castle once per game. After castling, the king and rook's final positions are exactly the same as they would be in standard chess. All you need to do is, make the final positions vacant and unattacked.

In this position, we can see that white has vacated the g1 and f1 square(final castling positions of the king) and also the paths to get there which is the e1 square. Provided that the king and the rook have not been move, a single touch on the king and then on the Rook will initiate castling.

Final Castling Position (0-0)

Development before Castling

I am of the opinion that in chess960, we should develop our pieces before castling, if we castle very early, it might give our opponents a chance to attack our king.

Game 1. Da_K1ng (@b0s) Vs @stayoutoftherz

In this game, white castled very early and looked perfectly okay.

But after some pawn attack by black,it was difficult to defend the white position.

Now as you could see from the picture above, black hasn't castled but has a very promising attack on the open a-file which he converted very aggressively.

You can check the full game here

Game 2: Blackswan21 (@tungphong) vs @jaki01

This two very strong players game explains the when and how to castle!. Like I said, castle only when you are developed. Black won this game with a brilliant center control.

After 7.Ng5 black castled with 7.0-0-0. The difference between this and the previous game is how well the black pieces are developed. Before white even got a pawn storm against the castled king,black already had a winning center attack.

Black went on to win convincingly. You can find the full game here

So as regards castling, I have concluded that ,it should be considered only when it is necessary. I hope to hear from you to know what you think about this theory.

I would say concentration plays a big role in chess and we all know that. But for some reasons, the chess960 variant makes it more difficult to concentrate as we often times neglect easy moves that we would have seen in standard chess.

Game 1 : Zgm_samostically Vs @Lighteye

In a tournament where the black player did remarkably so well and even ended with a third place finish, in this game, being a pawn up,he faltered easily on move 12!

White played 12.Rfe1 attacking e7 and black ignored the threat with 12.Nd7??. And after 13.Qxe7+, the game ended with a checkmate for white four moves later.

I don't believe that the black player would miss that easily in standard chess (maybe), but I feel the 960 positions transitions makes it difficult to concentrate. You can find the full game here

Game 2 : HerbyW (@schamangerbert) Vs Jonbellionfan (@kintokris)

This game explains it all, an inaccuracy perhaps, or a misjudged position. I feel black player wouldn't have fallen if it was a standard position.

White played 8.Bb2 and black blundered with 8.c6?? And after 9.Bxg7! Black yet again replied with 9.Nxg7? Leaving his queen after 10.Nxc7

HerbyW went on to win the game and even finished 2nd in the tournament!. You can view the tournament game here

In Conclusion...

These are my observations and they might be wrong anyway but I just wanted to put it out there as my study in our chess960 games. I love the variant and I hope this article and video helps in producing more quality games. Personally, I have fared terribly in the tournaments, I also hope to improve my games too.

Thanks For Your Attention.

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Images and Screenshots Used in this article are mine except stated otherwise

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