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PRESS RELEASE

Chess books on the theory about chess opening moves sequences can be thrown in the bin

Chess960 becomes popular

5 February 2008 – Enschede (the Netherlands) – Three years ago IM Hans Böhm brought up the problem of the chess opening positions during the Corus Chess Tournament where he commented the matches. “Maybe we have to take a look at Fischer Random Chess” was his statement. Fischer Random Chess (also known as Fullchess) is nowadays mainly called Chess960.

Chess960 is a chess variant in which the pieces do not have a fixed position. The white pawns are on the second row and the black pawns on the seventh, just like in common chess. The white pieces are on the first row and the black ones on the eighth row, but not in the known positions. They are put randomly, with a few rules:

1. King has to be between the rooks
2. Bishops may not be on the same colour.
3. Black pieces are put in the reflection of the white pieces.

Furthermore the standard rules of chess apply. As the king stands between the rooks, the castling is possible and the bishops on different colours makes the known teamwork of these pieces possible.
The name Chess960 comes from the number of possible starting positions.

This type of play was developed by the great chess player and former world champion Bobby Fischer. He presented his invention in Argentina on June 19, 1996. It was meant to bring back chess again to a game, in which creativity and vision are more important than remembering all kinds of opening moves sequences.
By beginning each game in a different starting position, the theory about chess opening moves sequences would become less important.
“The old chess is too limited”, put Fischer. A meaning in which he was supported by many Grandmasters. Also by the booming of computers and the presence of millions of matches on the internet the theory of opening moves sequences has been developed so extensively that sometimes the first twenty to thirty moves are played according to “the book”.

Also GM Gary Kasparov finds it a good idea to experiment with other starting positions.
In the leading chess magazine “New In Chess” (2005, issue 1) he proposed to choose twenty to thirty starting positions from the 960 to experiment with.

Meanwhile Chess960 is facing a quickly growing popularity. It is played by more and more grandmasters, books have already been published (GM Svetozar Gligoric “Shall We Play Fischerandom Chess?”) and big tournaments are organized with it.

The first Chess960 tournament was held in Yugoslavia in 1996 and was won by GM Peter Leko. In 2001 Leko – who played Chess960 also against Fischer himself - became the unofficial world champion in Mainz. He beat GM Michael Adams in a match over eight rapid games with 4.5-3.5.

 

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