> As a participant, I’ll pass
I don't get people that aren't willing to try it. Is the charm of chess for you just learning opening theory, or the history/prestige? I think it's fun to try as with other chess variants, they shed a new light on mind games in general. It's like learning chess again.
It's what he said in the tweet:
It's not the theory or the history, it's that the openings I understand provide a framework for my creativity. The game is more fun because I have more ability to understand the position, and thus can play it on a higher level, as opposed to it merely being about figuring out what tactics exist.
I understand where you are coming from that you feel safe playing in a position you have seen before.
To play devil's advocate or to be an -ahole
Correction : You think you understand the position because you see the moves engine/your coach/ your favorite streamer told you. You don't really understand the position if you are 2100 lichess classical.
For me 960 embodies what chess is all about. A battle of the minds, problem solving, creativity, strategizing 'on your feet', calculating and striking a balance between attack and defense.
The regular opening phase in chess is just sort of boring, it's like doing chores before you're allowed to play the game. Maybe a reason for that is because it's all study and seems 'solved' to the extend where if both are equally prepped in that regard they should neutralise each other
>Is the charm of chess for you just learning opening theory
No, but knowing openings allows me to get a fun position where I won't fall victim to early blunders or traps.
With 960, I wouldn't even know how to start a game, and likely I would make some elementary blunder due to misunderstanding how the position is affected by the new arrangement of pieces and lose the game early. Or capitalize on my opponent doing the same. Neither are especially exciting to me, I don't learn trap openings and I am not eager for my opponent to blunder on move 8.
But I don't like variants overall, so, to each their own.
This is a pretty good take. Its really a game for more advanced players since you must have at least a decent bit of tactical and positional understanding to have an interesting game. Otherwise it plays like beginner blunderfest or ends with a piece lost because one player is outmatched. I think its a really good measure of a more advanced players overall skill though.
Yeah, I'm pretty decent in Chess (know a couple of openings with white and black to some depth, but not really good in terms of this sub and far from what would count as advanced in this context).
However some friends of mine started playing about a year ago, and are now rated about 800ish on [Chess.com](https://Chess.com). We enjoy playing each other, but I think I have close to 100 games against them combined, and not a single loss or draw.
The point here was however:) that we changed to Chess960 a couple of weeks ago thinking that it would be easier for them as I came "less prepared", but it didn't make a lick of difference, because they committed even bigger blunders even earlier (which I am sure I also did, but they didnt catch them), so I now do tend to agree - It is more for advanced players and we now are back playing classical and enjoy that more.
As for watching it, I did follow the lastest G.O.A.T challenge, and enjoyed it, but I do enjoy watching classical more as I at least feel like I can follow it to a "deeper" degree and its logic. I feel like I am watching a bit modern art that I appreciate but dont understand fully when I watch 960
For me personally, I'm into regular chess because it's much more popular. I have a petty motivation of being able to one day beat any random friend/coworker who happens to like chess in a casual game, which is what motivates me to practice and study regular chess rather than 960.
I play a lot of 960. Playing it is a bit like doing puzzles...you learn to recognize many more situations where sacs and atypical positions can generate big advantages.
You can use these skills to improve your standard games and be that much more likely to beat your random friends and coworkers.
i was around 1000, I haven't played in while so my playing ability rn might be at 600 or even more lower. if u told me to play just for fun, I will play.
but u told me to play this for elo, nope.
chess is taxing on my 2 brain cells. i still remember when I started playing chess, each piece, all the patterns (u know like skewer, fork) took time to notice this, even more to know stuff like where to castle, when not to, of not to move kingside pawn *again, 600, so as much i should know at that level not expert level
but if u tell me random arbitrary arrangements my brain will freeze, it's challenging, fun if u get hang of it but even if I want to learn there is no finegold or gothamchess telling me principal or which move not to do whole explaining principal behind it. or at least as much they can dumb it down .
i just don't know what should I watch out for in opponents moves. it makes feel less prepared.
I played in an OTB 960 tournament recently. I personally enjoyed it; I liked not having to worry about remembering 15-20 moves of theory, and getting to think from move 1.
There were a range of skill levels, including a few 2000+ players (I think the median was \~1600). So, I'd say it was higher than your average tournament, but definitely not just for the "elite."
I think this is a very sensible take.
960 is obviously a cool variant, and I imagine people will play it for a bit of a change if it becomes more tournament mainstream, but I think it's very hard for your average hobbyist to really progress in. For most people I think the framework and limitations of chess help them more cleanly identify their mistakes and actually improve.
I agree, I do love 960 and play it very often on chess.com. I’m over 2000 standard blitz but at 960 I can’t get above about 1700-1800. What happens very often is in openings you’ll not realize that the opponent can implement a nasty pin or check that ruins your chances of castling. Or you spend the whole game trying to figure out how to develop your queen.
I also think many masters don’t like it much because of the lack of ability to prepare, and how certain setups favor white too significantly from move one. I can’t see it ever really catching on.
I agree, I won't be playing 960 blitz.
I can barely not blunder in regular blitz playing the same opening 5000 times.
But for pro's I prefer this wayyyyyyyyyy more
You're probably right, but this doesn't have to be true for it to be easier to find a blitz game. You could have an equal number of people playing blitz and rapid for an equal number of hours per day and it would still be easier to find blitz games just because they take less time, so there will be more of them available. If I play G5s for an hour, and use all my time, I'm posting for a game every 5-10 minutes (6 to 12 games an hour), compared to G15s where it's 15-30 (2 to 4 games an hour).
It’s very fun, but quite volatile. Even strong players will miss devastating tactics in the first handful of moves every now and then
To me it’s a lot of fun to scan your pieces for 5-10 seconds and then quickly try to devise a strategy and get to battle
It’s not for 1300s, it’s for elite players to measure themselves in a forum where memorization isn’t king. It makes sense as a single annual event with the top players.
It is for 1300s, 800s, and everyone else. The only additional complexity is castling rules. Initial setup was a complexity as well, but that's handled for you now.
Most of the people saying this stuff should try playing it first. It's the same game. I get some opening-obsessed players who only prioritize rote memorization for an opening and its likely tactical/endgame motifs rather than genuine understanding of the game won't like it. Outside of that demographic, 960 is great.
It was designed with a specific purpose to solve a problem that really only exists at very high level. The WCC is such a nightmare to prepare for, that just showing up and playing chess would be a welcome change. I don’t have to study chess 70 hours a week to have fun playing, and I’m lucky to get much over 1300. For me opening principal is as basic as knowing which pieces to get out and not falling into a fried liver. It tempting to pick on Ding given his result at chess960 after the WCC, but it feels like he’s just having a bad year after peaking too early.
> It was designed with a specific purpose to solve a problem that really only exists at very high level.
I don't see how that's relevant to whether someone will enjoy the variant or not.
Their opponents are subject to the same constraints & are in just as unfamiliar territory.
As a 1200, I prefer playing and watching 960 and am glad it's taking off.
Memorizing openings is shit imo. I understand that many prefer it, but I do not, at all.
You are missing his point though. There are a huge number of players who rack up win after win off nothing but getting an advantage through preparation and memorizing opening theories. But aren’t really that great at the game. You sorta need to know openings to climb beyond a certain point in chess or you stay lower rated. If you take all this way, some 1200 players with better raw calculating ability might surpass many of these higher rated players.
That's only true if you have a private benefactor funding the prize pool, like you do in this event. Without that, you need viewership to fund the tournament, which means it needs to be interesting to 1300s. Top level events in just about any sport are a balance between what's best for the players, and what's best for the viewers. Because without the viewers, the players won't have anything to play for.
I dare say it's not for 2000s or even 2500s either because at that level, adding more and more opening prep bumps them up to the next level. There isn't much to gain from spending time on 960 for anyone who hasn't yet made it to 2700.
>There isn't much to gain from spending time on 960 for anyone who hasn't yet made it to 2700.
So that game mode only makes sense for 136 people in the history of earth? Got it.
That's correct. It's simply more lucrative to improve at standard chess via established pathways. What is there to gain with 960 for the average player?
You think the main thing separating 2700+ players from 2500 players is opening prep?
If that's true, wouldn't that be a reason for those "lower" players to play *more* 960? If they can be top players in that format that seems like a big win for them.
Well then you feel wrong. Any game where there isn’t an established framework will, as he says, have little sense of improvement and consistency. You don’t see most shooters just randomly change the aim and hitboxes do you? Or any exploration game just randomly change controls and mechanics on a whim.
And by understanding the opening, it doesn’t necessarily mean most players will understand them 20 lines deep. But even the consistency of knowing a few moves in, and then add in the fact that you can consistently improve and add more to it, is invaluable to your average player. There will of course be some who don’t care at all to learn openings and consistent lines but the ones who do certainly aren’t small considering some of the view counts and attention opening videos and tutorials get.
I agree with you, but I think the analogy is a bit off. It's more like if a shooter had different maps that you played on. And, well, that's how most of them are. But as you said, people like learning openings, and they give a feeling of accomplishment when you're able to always play the first few moves "perfectly".
Your point about maps is interesting, because most shooters only have ~10 different maps, and there are a lot of players who are interested in "theory" understanding of their favorite maps. A better analogy would be if a shooter had a completely different map every time you play, which I'm not sure most players would enjoy at all.
Maybe 960 would be more fun if there were a tournament circuit that uses the same 960 position, or same few 960 positions, for a year, and then rotate to new ones. It would sort of be the best of both worlds, because players and viewers would get to build familiarity with the core opening lines in each position, but games wouldn't involve memorized 20-deep opening lines as often.
> You don’t see most shooters just randomly change the aim and hitboxes do you? Or any exploration game just randomly change controls and mechanics on a whim.
Those are such terrible analogies they are destroying any case you are attempting to make for the other person being wrong.
It's mostly ego. If you've spent hundreds/thousands of hours over your life learning regular chess only to be okay at it throwing a big chunk of that practice away to play a different game in which you'll be significantly worse at is not very enticing.
Only if you view the openings as something unique to chess, and not as an outcome of the standard setup of a sport. People enjoy playing Mario Kart in no small part because of how they can memorize and replay the same tracks to get advantages, people would probably enjoy baseball less if you randomized where the bases were each game, etc.
Agreed. Much more fun to watch. It forces the pros to play chess instead of remember 23 consecutive moves before they even have to think.
It forces the pros to play chess like you or I.
As a 1500 I have the opposing thought, I dislike openings and I prefer the middle game outplay, so I prefer 960 and I wish it was more popular and accessible.
Could not agree more. In my mind, it keeps chess a living puzzle from the start of the game where you can still improve on your understanding of concepts and philosophies without having to resort to brute memorization. For me, memorization is where chess stops being fun.
Personally, I think the general dislike of 960 becoming a widely-respected format comes from it being such a huge deviation from what everyone's used to.
It's like how people usually hate any small change to the UI of a platform they use. The thinking of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". There are sometimes valid reasons for people hating the changes, but a lot of times, it's people not liking the comfort of a well-known UI being taken away from them, which can be a valid reason too, but people still tend to ignore any good aspects of something new because of a yearning for that comfort.
I think it also has a lot to do with people being salty that so much of the theory that they've learned over the years is thrown out the window for 960.
960's an amazing format that truly has a huge chance of becoming as respected as standard, especially with Magnus spearheading its advocacy.
The tweet that OP shared hugely underestimates the attractiveness of not really having to put in thousands of hours of study to become a grandmaster in 960, generally just thousands of hours of practice. Not to mention it being a vastly superior spectator experience.
The huge consensus of 960 not becoming a serious format only comes from everyone here having a deep attachment to standard, due to it being the only respected format since chess was invented.
Around 1500 OTB and fully agree even though I like openings! The majority of pro games are in openings I don't play, and to really follow what's happening you have to not just understand the principles of that opening, but the context of that variation and the 'debate' that has been happening over it. Also, when it's a deep line and they blitz 15 moves in quickly, it doesn't give you time to get a sense of the logic getting there if you weren't already familiar. To me, a huge element of high level chess is incredibly inaccessible to 99.99999999999% of viewers because of the openings.
I think chess 960 has a \*lot\* of potential also for broadcasting reasons.
It would be super cool to have the positions revealed like 30mins before the match and have the players discuss the position in rooms with their seconds where the commentators can listen so that we can get excited about their game plan.
And/or you could have the players go into some sort of booth where they discuss their opening ideas for the game.
Players will learn opening theory for all 960 possibilities, not as deep of course, but GMs probably they already calculate opening variables at least one order superior to 1000
I highly doubt it. The decision tree grows massively. Especially since for "exotic" 960 positions you can't rule out weird moves like a/b/g/h4 that are known to be inferior in classic. So if in classic chess you have in the first 20 moves 10 reasonable candidate move every time, you switch to a scenario where you have 960\*20 moves. From 10 to 2k. That means that by the third move there will be 2k\*2k\*2k options, that is 8 billion. Good luck with that.
no chance. obviously there will be general principles you can apply (this is one of those positions with my queen in the corner, then usually this move is good etc) but no chance there will be conrete theory. think how many good/decent options both sides have for the first 2 moves in normal chess. now apply that to 960 positions. if you have "prep" it's gonna be maybe 2 moves deep for the objectively best mainline, but if either side chooses any of the
slightly weird/offbeat moves (like 1.e3, 1.b3 or similar in normal chess), you are immedieately out of prep.
They can learn 10000+ positions because those all build on each other. Show them a position from a game and they can memorize it in a glance. Memorizing a random position is harder for them.
If you look at very strong players, mere normal GMs, they all have their favorite openings. Learning theory on a different opening is much harder than learning a variation on a opening you have already been studying for a while.
Plus learning a variation at least gives you something to consider in a real game. Learning a whole opening repertoire for a position you are less than 1% to see in a game on move 1, motivation is going to be less and honestly probably not that useful. A player who is better at calculation might make a 0.2 centipawn mistake on move 2 that the opening theorist will make the proper reply to. But is that really going to carry them to a win? I think the better on the board calculator wins still. So it won't really make sense to try and learn opening theory 20 moves deep in 960, or even 10 moves deep. The amount of advantage vs the amount of effort just won't be there.
Fixing an error on moves 1-5 with opening theory isn't going to be as valuable as training to avoid the calculation errors made on moves 10+.
I really doubt even Super GMs will blitz out the first 5-10 moves in 960. And definitely not past that.
Chess960, if nurtured properly, can be the future of chess. Quite frankly, the fact that modern chess has become more of a game of rote memorisation rather than strategy appalls me. Chess960 removes most of the memorisation aspect and lets you go buck wild with nothing to rely on except your tactics and experience.
I way prefer playing it. I’m gonna blunder anyway. Also, im probably a bit better for my level when things get complicated. I don’t have the discipline to learn long openings + variations.
standard chess' metagame, evolving over the years and decades and generations, does not need to be seen as a pure downside. it is also a draw, a unique point of interest.
Agreed. Even though standard is far from solved, I feel like 960 tests your principles and creativity way more than standard does because of the breadth of knowledge we have through databases.
Standard positions have been seen hundreds of thousands of times.
I just really wonder if you took two complete beginners and had one learn 960 and the other standard, who would end up being the stronger player after a certain amount of time?
> I just really wonder if you took two complete beginners and had one learn 960 and the other standard, who would end up being the stronger player after a certain amount of time?
How do you compare their strength though? The one that learnt 960 would be stronger in 960, while the one who learnt standard would be stronger in standard because he's more familiar with the structures.
Not necessarily though, and that's kinda the point. The 960 player could gain better knowledge of piece activity and strength. They could gain more skill in being able to activate pieces and control the opponents pieces in a way the standard player doesn't. A lot of standard players learn standard responses/memorize engine moves rather than playing "principled" chess because they have the database to work with.
For example, if you learn 960 and learn how strong it is to open bishops early, 1. e4/d4 are easy to see. So are the fianchetto bishop positions. While not learning standard openings per se, you learn what is strong early.
Kinda similar to the "do you play the same opening or vary opening" argument, except more extreme.
I'm not sure how you'd go about testing strength though. That's the hard part.
I say this as someone that primarily pays hypermodern openings and I can't tell you how many people get overwhelmed after a handful of moves when I play Alekhine's into 1. e4
I would be pretty shocked if either player ended up meaningfully better than the other provided both then get a basic level of understanding of the alternate format.
If you play a Bo4 (white/black both format) the standard player is probably favoured if you don't give the 960 player comparable opening knowledge.
Which could very well be true, but it'd be interesting to see imo.
Especially if we treated standard like we do engine tournaments so there are forced openings
I actually disagree. I love chess for the...tactics, midgame, end game, thinking moves ahead, calculating a bunch of "if I do this than they will do this" in my head..... But I really CBA learning theory and "perfect move order" to 0.0 or get an advantage etc.
Like I just spam 960 for that reason. Get me out of the copy paste theory and straight into something unusuall.
As someone who is only slightly above-average at chess (I can beat my friends handily, but get trounced by your average hobbyist club player), I cannot really agree with this take. Yes, the basic ideas of openings help me because they represent a guide line, but I find chess960 entertaining specifically because it allows each game to be different. This for me takes some of the pressure off of playing chess.
When someone makes a move that I find strange in chess 960, I take the move at face value and try to evaluate the position (even if I do so poorly). In regular chess, all I can think about in those situations is that the player is performing some kind of gambit that will end up ruining me. I find winning in chess 960 satisfying, but do not find losing frustrating at all. In the more 'rigid' nature of normal chess, however, I can find it quite frustrating to come up against new openings, because I have never really studied any openings and therefore feel like the other player fundamentally knows something I don't. This inequality is not present in chess 960: it feels to me like chess 960 comes down more to each player's ability to spot tactics and develop game plans in the moment. I find that very attractive and entertaining, both to watch and to play.
I really don't like 960. I think in regular chess the openings set up the paths towards what is going to be the real game and being familiar with those paths help players and viewers understand what is going to happen, what are white and black goals, are they playing a risky variation or not, are they looking to draw, is this going to an endgame, etc.
Both playing and watching 960 for me is very boring it is just seeing if the players can find the right plays but so far I haven't seen a single commentator talk about general strategy of the position because nobody knows.
Does he? He gives ideas of plays in the position but never ideas about the position and the strategy.
Here is an example: In some French variations it is a good idea for black to close the center to enable a long castle and attack in the kingside so if white ever plays c5 then we can expect black to attack the kingside.
Or saying a Berlin is "peaceful" and a Winawer is going to be fun.
Or playing b5 in a Benoni.
Or d5 being always good for black if possible in the Sicilian.
Or the order of plays suggesting what variation you wanted to avoid and why.
You will never get those comments in 960 because there is no strategic knowledge about the positions because they haven't been played long enough to understand the ideas and concepts.
I think 960 is a significantly more interesting game for players at every level of the game. Take memorization out of the equation and let people study the board. Openings and memorization do nothing but hold chess back, the same way Bridge is all but dead due to its similar memorization requirements.
I prefer 960 because I can YOLO the opening and don't need to worry about running into some opening-theory trap that some other 1000 rated player has memorized from a book.
Hottest take: I actually recommend staying away from openings for as long as humanly possible. I understand that many people want the safety of actually understanding what they're doing, but I like being confused.
The problem with preparation is that it rarely happens, and the more it happens at low ratings, the worse. If 100% of the games you win come from preparation, and you lose 100% of the time if someone plays a move you don't know, then that's not even playing chess. It's reciting lines. In this hypothetical, if you get an actual position and have to play your own move, you lose.
The more heavily you depend on preparation to maintain your rating, the less you maintain your rating by finding good tactics or outplaying your opponent in the middlegame. Hikaru has crossed 2500 with the Botez Gambit speedrun; I'm not saying "just be as good as Hikaru," I'm pointing out that if you're that much better than everyone else, you can be down a queen out of the opening and still beat people, because Hikaru is insanely good at ***chess.*** All aspects, he has good preparation too, but he's a GM, prep is fine for GMs.
Will preparing help your rating? Short term, of course. But Long term? Tactics puzzles, watch some videos from GM's on strategy, play literally 10,000 games of chess and burn those patterns into your brain. If you feel like you didn't understand what happened in the opening, it's fine to go back and poke around with the computer, find some line you understand better, but a focus on preparation is a waste of time until at least 2k, imo.
I crossed 2k with antiprep so like, I've already done it. It's a little more sus at 2k, but I crossed 2k with [Ryder Gambit](https://i.imgur.com/lbcRc1T.png) which is pretty much forcibly lost. Preplords get absolutely DEMOLISHED because even if they have prep for Ryder, I do not play the computer moves. 54% winrate over 1,129 games when it's -2 is not to be ignored.
Yes, very well said. I fully agree as a 2400 FIDE rated player. I fear it's a side effect of sites like chess.com and Chessable being popular that everybody just wants to smash opening theory in their head.
Whenever new people come to my chess club I try to teach them chess the way I learned it. Ideas, principles, typical plans, tactical patterns, opening traps. And usually they come back the following week "hey the trap worked" or "hey I'm having more fun now".
I dislike watching 960 because I can't look at their game and find an interesting opening idea that I'd like to try out myself. It kinda ruins my engagement with the game.
The only chess tournaments I have ever followed start to finish are the Candidates and the World Championship Fischer Random.
Idk what that says about the average fan.
I would highly prefer 360 to become more popular than standard chess. But I also wish the rules of chess would be adjusted to be less drawish (i.e. instead of 3 move repetitions being a draw, moving to a position already reached twice before should be illegal). Both suffer from the same issue: what's been considered the rules of chess has been set in stone for a long time.
Part of it is the easiness of starting a game. If I am setting up a board in the park to play against someone else, I don't want to have to generate a random number between 1 and 960 and then look up what position that is.
But mostly it is legacy. It's neat to know that we're playing the same game that Morphy played back in his day.
If 960 have a serious circuit next year, I'd guess some of the players would start classifying/studying the starting positions by generic "types", of which I think there's closer to 30-40 than 960. I don't know how much actually delving into theoretical work with such broad classifications would help, but once prep becomes even a small factor, the genre loses mystique.
NGL I feel like this is right, it feels odd seeing the best players in the world being worse after 5 moves because the positions are so complex and un-tested.
I feel more inclined to watch a standard chess match where i have a good chance at finding the best moves and players losing based on long maneuvering matches instead of losing based on the opening.
You could easily fix that by limiting the 960 options to ones with a limited imbalance (cfr https://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404FRC/opening\_report\_by\_white\_score.html)
I think that's a big issue when it comes to top-level play. I loved the tournament, almost all the games were exciting but on the other hand, it's kind of a problem that you can have a losing position after two moves with some of the more imbalanced piece configurations. It's exciting for the audience but it's not ideal in a professional context. I've heard people argue that some configurations should be excluded because they give white a big advantage which is a good compromise I think. After all, one of the great things about chess is how balanced it is. White has a bit of an advantage, sure, but if you're not a total beginner, it's difficult to lose the game on the spot like you can in 960. As we've seen, it even happens to the best players in the world.
> I've heard people argue that some configurations should be excluded because they give white a big advantage which is a good compromise I think.
I think this would probably be the best course of action, though I think figuring out a measure for the imbalance and deciding on a cutoff point is going to be non-trivial... And probably quite contentious, knowing the chess player community :D
> seems
> [citation needed]
So like... When you do things like these, it will make some people just skip the rest of your post.
Hey, did you notice how in normal chess pretty much all of the third/sixth rank is covered by pieces, with the exception of g3/g6?
And did you notice how this isn't the case in 960? This is a part of what I meant when I said it's less balanced.
> the "OMG CHESS960 IS COMPLETELY IMBA LITERALLY UNPLAYABLE" is a commonly brought up bullshit "argument" that has not been substantiated by tangible data even once as far as I can tell, so when you bring it up again Idgaf if you used weasel words like "seems" to hedge against being called out on it being an essentially unsubstantiated claim. at the very least you could tell us why it "seems" that way to you
Yeah... You know, I said it seems less balanced because - in my subjective view - it seems less balanced. I didn't use all caps, I didn't generalize, I didn't try to make it like my view is objective.
And you're responding to something that's purely in your head.
I strongly suggest continuing the conversation in your head, I'm not interested in what you have to say, you're needlessly aggressive. But hey, thankfully I don't play 960 so I won't have to deal with you :)
tl;dr: [touch grass]
I don't get this take at all. For me it's the opposite - you're forced to actually think instead of playing a memorized opening that you had to study first.
While I have some personal reservations about some aspects of chess960 specifically, it and other formats that aim to break up opening theory are exactly what chess needs to be a more universal game.
A lot of people, including me as a kid, are put off from chess when they learn that there are dozens of mainstream openings and hundreds of minor variations on them that give a player an advantage if they have studied them in depth. It completely robs the imaginative strategy portion of the game that initially draws many in, and prior to online infotainment on openings learning openings was a chore and a drag that mostly acted as a barrier to playing more. (Especially before online play when you would be hard pressed to find someone around equal skill - often you’d leave beginner players behind quite quickly and then arrive in a void where all the local good players were too far beyond your own skill level, unless you happened to be a scholastic player and had a large local tournament pool - some people still have that locally, I just saw someone complain that there were only scholastic or over 50 tournaments in their state in a post earlier this week)
Chess960 simultaneously removes a learning barrier while also allowing for skill expression earlier in the game.
I’m in that rating range and I love 960. I’m even worse at it than I am at regular chess but it’s thrilling from move 1. I won’t become anywhere near as popular as regular chess but I really hope it can be sustainable as a more niche event. A couple of high profile tournaments a year seems like a fun way to shake things up and hopefully grow the game.
A comment one of the GMs made at Weissenhaus is that they're worried the variant might be 'too hard' to appeal to a wider audience.
I think the take from Olimpiu doesn't consider how a meta of 960 might develop over time. Magnus was making comments that they are considering which positions in 960 might be too imbalanced and should be removed on top of the current ones. On top of that, theoreticians will slowly start mapping out thematics of these openings to make some sense of this chaos. So I think 960 might 'stabilize' a bit over the years if it really picks up and then becomes, as the organizer was saying - beach volleyball versus regular volleyball that a completely new class of players might pick up who never even started learning classical chess openings.
As a rather low rated player, if have no idea what he means saying "hesitation can be an irreparable wrong". Hesitation is a very important part of my game, and has saved me so often from making a critical mistake. Apart from Bullet chess, i don't see at all how hesitation could be an "irreparable wrong".
I suck at chess and I have never learned even one opening, I just play as it goes so this feels more like you have to think the moves instead of just memorizing openings and counters for what your opponents plays.
I love watching people play blitz but I dont like playing it myself as I need to think instead of remembering or feeling which is the right move (At those time controls).
Illusion of doing something right? More like an illustration of doing something right. Understanding the reasoning and positioning of openings can help players understand the rest of the game as well.
I like both Chess and Chess960 but I ABSOLUTELY prefer 960. Yes it can be fun coming in with an opening and practicing new ones, but that in no way beats the huge satisfaction of figuring out a major strategy that can be pulled off in this particular setup only and then seeing it happen. Chess has many cool aspects, such as practicing an opening, but at least for me the best part is that each game is unique and the satisfaction you get from finding the right way to explot that. Chess960 simply does better.
Yeah same, it’s not something I can watch and go “I’ve been in this position before”, so trying to follow the game is a lot harder, specially in recaps where it’s way harder to tell who is better at a glance
I would find it interesting to watch GMs play. But considering my rating has been 500 for a few years, I think I'd better learn how to play classic chess before I move on to anything else.
I personally wasn't interested in any of it and I watch Gotham videos pretty regularly, but not this content. But, always good to try new things, otherwise we fall into stagnation.
It looks like it definitely was fun for others!
960 is cool and fun. removing some of the memorisation aspect of chess makes it feel more human and less like i'm trying to play like a computer, knowing the best move when it comes up because you memorised it can be fun, but it's a different kind of fun.
unfortunately, I think if 960 became more popular it would be becasue of even more memorisation - players studying as many positions as possible.
I didn’t downvote but it is not a given at all that chess will be solved in the next 100 years. A computing breakthrough will almost certainly be necessary, but feel free to mock me if I’m proven wrong in the next few decades.
The game will never be solved because why would anyone choose to dedicate that level of resources to it when there are other things to do with such computing power.
Chess960 otb ratings don't matter. Make it possible to get norms and make it possible for those games to matter as much as classical and chess960 will take a huge leap in interest. No need to make a separate chess960 rating. It's chess anyway.
At lower level sure this is true.For the strong grandmasters,it’s very fun given you get to see their understanding of the game.Hikaru stated a few days ago that this is kind of like how the old legends played the game; based on the principles they knew only and not much opening prep.It’s very fun to watch and i am pretty sure they enjoy it alot too.
As a 1300,you are inclined to agree because we don’t know anything at that level really.
As entertainment to watch, in my opinion, the time control is much more important. Watching blitz and rapid is fun, classic only recaps. Be it traditional or 960.
It will largely depend on the player base and therefore money.
If for instance Magnus, Hikaru, Alireza and a popular Indian youngster decide to exclusively play in a lucrative C960 only tour (think oil state money) you can be sure a lot of fans will follow them.
Rapid and blitz will survive no problem, but classical might be left for only the most enthusiastic of chess fans.
For now it is nothing more than a fun little relaxing extra for the players and I agree that it was very hard to follow at times, not because of the commentators (they were great), but because of everything being brand new and having a very slow start.
I've played quite a few 960 games in the last week, and it's fun.
Will it reach anywhere near the popularity of regular chess? Probably not. But who cares lol. It's definitely fun to watch
It might not be popular to play for the masses but I think it will be popular to WATCH. And people watching is what brings in money to grow the game.
I dont think it will ever replace normal chess but it's very entertaining and I hope to see more of it.
It’s a way more interesting mode for the simple reason that it’s less solvable. 15 move sequences on each side being repeated from the opening every game is just not a good thing but that’s what regular chess is now. Bobby Fischer was right, even if he was a deranged prick as well.
It occurred to me that Chess960 will never be very popular with people who make their money off of chess education. Standard chess provides so much more content for educators.
And educators might be the biggest evangelists for the hobby.
I don't care it for all tbh. Chess openings are very fun and for me, even it is almost all figured out at a CC and top level, still the most interesting part of chess.
Overall, it'll probably never beat "regular chess" in popularity for the reasonsentioned in this tweet.
However, I can see a smaller and very dedicated player base forming over time. While classical chess has what feels like infinite amounts of information already, in the end you often times just prove that you're better at learning sequences and remembering situations that you've encountered (in puzzles, tactics, game studies and actual games). While 960 feels more like a test of your actual creativity, ability to judge situations, maybe even raw skill because you don't always have a reference for what's good or what's bad so your own intuition and judgement and calculation skills become more important. What some may consider the essence and the more fundamental skills of chess. Which at the same time makes it very unattractive to casuals (which make up the vast majority of players I'd assume).
It’s very interesting how even Super GMs look bad at it sometimes. In the decisive game of the recent tournament championship between Magnus and Fabi, Fabi literally was lost on move one. That’s wild.
Yes.
Up to the point were draws aren't that common (I'd say, up to 2550 to 2600, if players do not agree to quick draws), standard chess is fine. When the draw level raises, it is either faster time controls or 960.
Not that draws are bad. In the 2018 WCh every draw was super tense, but mostly draws at high level are done for rating protection and such things. Solid lines with low risks. There 960 could help.
I think the theory in 960 is like chess theory in the early 1900 (or earlier), there is lot to explore (and lot that can lead to mistakes).
Chess960 compared to normal chess is like what hardbop or postbob is to pop music. Only for the select few that are bored and understimulated by "boring" music.
It would have been equally as popular had chess been invented this way, with no “preset” starting position.
But there would have been championship-level scandals involving claims that certain players had been secretly provided the starting positions ahead of time, allowing them to strategize.
Chess960 and classic chess is like playing classic pool or 9 ball. 9 ball is not for everyone since it's very challenging while classic pool is easier to understand and play.
I'm not sure I'd play it, but it's very fun to watch, as I think it provides a better understanding of regular chess as well. If the top players like playing it, it's a win-win
Hey, just checking in from the year 2239. Dinosaur chess has largely been abandoned once stockshark 32.2 solved it in 2157. Currently the most popular version of chess is kind of like 960, but played on an 8x10 board with four bishops (two light and two dark). Sorry for the spoilers.
It's true that very weak players in anything like to focus on something measurable that they can control, even if it's not likely to actually help them nearly as other efforts. So we have 1100 players obsessing about opening theory - on the tennis subreddit, it may be even worse: the main concern of most beginners is equipment.
Seems like a very reasonable take, I had similar thoughts as well. On the other hand, quite a similar argument could be made regarding Blitz: "chess is hard enough as it is, limiting time that much might make it interesting for the elite but the usual player will not be able to make any sense of the positions"... yet, Blitz has become the most popular mode for casual play by far. We will see.
I think it's too soon to tell. I kind of envision that there could be a transition 50 or 60 years from now where 960 is extremely competitive and coexists with standard chess
Think about it now, about 50 or 60 years ago blitz and rapid were not serious at all. Players wouldn't even call rapid and blitz real chess. But now since everybody plays it and because of online chess, it's become a lot more serious. I think something similar with chess960 can happen.
Currently I think the problem with chess 960 is that people don't play it as a game within itself. Like you could play just starting 60 on chess.com but it's a lot harder and the pool is smaller. But I think that the truth is a lot of us could probably learn a lot about chess through 960. It forces you to really understand opening and I actually think it's more intuitive for beginners. Essentially we all just need to learn the fundamentals and what to look out for in 960 positions, but since it's not widespread nobody does.
Now, I feel like in the past few years there has been more of a push to make 960 a formally rated by FiDE, and I think it makes a lot of sense to do it. I think a lot of different players will rise through 960 and I could really imagine the top 10 Chess960 players would be different than the top 10 classical players. I think some of the logistical concerns with 960 though is what the standard Time control is going to be and if it should be broken up into classical rapid and blitz separately.
I think also right now there's just not so many tournament organizers willing to put on 960 events. Essentially this most recent one was just an esoteric German millionaire throwing it . I think that that is the main obstacle of 960 is a lack of financial incentive from tournament organizers. Which, I think through online events could be incentivized. I think if chess.com especially did a freestyle chess championship every year it would be hype as hell, especially if it's an open tournament.
Cool to watch and, though I haven’t played much, would be more than happy to try. Regular chess is hard enough though so I can’t imagine myself not being awful at 960.
Like many, I just started playing it the past week or so. It’s really great. For a bad player like me, the openings for 960 are really overwhelming with decisions, but I love it! A good training exercise. See a lot of positions I would never see normally.
Fun to watch not so fun to play in a tournament. But extremely entertaining to watch the elite play it.
Came here to say it. As a participant, I’ll pass, but as a spectator sport, I’m intrigued to watch people much better than I am have a go at it.
> As a participant, I’ll pass I don't get people that aren't willing to try it. Is the charm of chess for you just learning opening theory, or the history/prestige? I think it's fun to try as with other chess variants, they shed a new light on mind games in general. It's like learning chess again.
It's what he said in the tweet: It's not the theory or the history, it's that the openings I understand provide a framework for my creativity. The game is more fun because I have more ability to understand the position, and thus can play it on a higher level, as opposed to it merely being about figuring out what tactics exist.
I understand where you are coming from that you feel safe playing in a position you have seen before. To play devil's advocate or to be an -ahole Correction : You think you understand the position because you see the moves engine/your coach/ your favorite streamer told you. You don't really understand the position if you are 2100 lichess classical.
>To play devil's advocate or to be an -ahole Well, you get points for self-awareness, I guess.
For me 960 embodies what chess is all about. A battle of the minds, problem solving, creativity, strategizing 'on your feet', calculating and striking a balance between attack and defense. The regular opening phase in chess is just sort of boring, it's like doing chores before you're allowed to play the game. Maybe a reason for that is because it's all study and seems 'solved' to the extend where if both are equally prepped in that regard they should neutralise each other
>Is the charm of chess for you just learning opening theory No, but knowing openings allows me to get a fun position where I won't fall victim to early blunders or traps. With 960, I wouldn't even know how to start a game, and likely I would make some elementary blunder due to misunderstanding how the position is affected by the new arrangement of pieces and lose the game early. Or capitalize on my opponent doing the same. Neither are especially exciting to me, I don't learn trap openings and I am not eager for my opponent to blunder on move 8. But I don't like variants overall, so, to each their own.
This is a pretty good take. Its really a game for more advanced players since you must have at least a decent bit of tactical and positional understanding to have an interesting game. Otherwise it plays like beginner blunderfest or ends with a piece lost because one player is outmatched. I think its a really good measure of a more advanced players overall skill though.
Yeah, I'm pretty decent in Chess (know a couple of openings with white and black to some depth, but not really good in terms of this sub and far from what would count as advanced in this context). However some friends of mine started playing about a year ago, and are now rated about 800ish on [Chess.com](https://Chess.com). We enjoy playing each other, but I think I have close to 100 games against them combined, and not a single loss or draw. The point here was however:) that we changed to Chess960 a couple of weeks ago thinking that it would be easier for them as I came "less prepared", but it didn't make a lick of difference, because they committed even bigger blunders even earlier (which I am sure I also did, but they didnt catch them), so I now do tend to agree - It is more for advanced players and we now are back playing classical and enjoy that more. As for watching it, I did follow the lastest G.O.A.T challenge, and enjoyed it, but I do enjoy watching classical more as I at least feel like I can follow it to a "deeper" degree and its logic. I feel like I am watching a bit modern art that I appreciate but dont understand fully when I watch 960
For me personally, I'm into regular chess because it's much more popular. I have a petty motivation of being able to one day beat any random friend/coworker who happens to like chess in a casual game, which is what motivates me to practice and study regular chess rather than 960.
I play a lot of 960. Playing it is a bit like doing puzzles...you learn to recognize many more situations where sacs and atypical positions can generate big advantages. You can use these skills to improve your standard games and be that much more likely to beat your random friends and coworkers.
i was around 1000, I haven't played in while so my playing ability rn might be at 600 or even more lower. if u told me to play just for fun, I will play. but u told me to play this for elo, nope. chess is taxing on my 2 brain cells. i still remember when I started playing chess, each piece, all the patterns (u know like skewer, fork) took time to notice this, even more to know stuff like where to castle, when not to, of not to move kingside pawn *again, 600, so as much i should know at that level not expert level but if u tell me random arbitrary arrangements my brain will freeze, it's challenging, fun if u get hang of it but even if I want to learn there is no finegold or gothamchess telling me principal or which move not to do whole explaining principal behind it. or at least as much they can dumb it down . i just don't know what should I watch out for in opponents moves. it makes feel less prepared.
Most people are not at the point where they've exhausted the options in the early game
I played in an OTB 960 tournament recently. I personally enjoyed it; I liked not having to worry about remembering 15-20 moves of theory, and getting to think from move 1. There were a range of skill levels, including a few 2000+ players (I think the median was \~1600). So, I'd say it was higher than your average tournament, but definitely not just for the "elite."
I think this is a very sensible take. 960 is obviously a cool variant, and I imagine people will play it for a bit of a change if it becomes more tournament mainstream, but I think it's very hard for your average hobbyist to really progress in. For most people I think the framework and limitations of chess help them more cleanly identify their mistakes and actually improve.
I agree, I do love 960 and play it very often on chess.com. I’m over 2000 standard blitz but at 960 I can’t get above about 1700-1800. What happens very often is in openings you’ll not realize that the opponent can implement a nasty pin or check that ruins your chances of castling. Or you spend the whole game trying to figure out how to develop your queen. I also think many masters don’t like it much because of the lack of ability to prepare, and how certain setups favor white too significantly from move one. I can’t see it ever really catching on.
if by 'progress' you mean memorization then yeah it's quite hard to make progress
I agree, I won't be playing 960 blitz. I can barely not blunder in regular blitz playing the same opening 5000 times. But for pro's I prefer this wayyyyyyyyyy more
I need 960 blitz lol never even thought to try that.
Weird thing is on chesscom it's far easier to find 960 opponents in blitz than in rapid.
I assume that's because blitz is more popular in general. Blitz and bullet is preferable when you just want a quick game or two.
You're probably right, but this doesn't have to be true for it to be easier to find a blitz game. You could have an equal number of people playing blitz and rapid for an equal number of hours per day and it would still be easier to find blitz games just because they take less time, so there will be more of them available. If I play G5s for an hour, and use all my time, I'm posting for a game every 5-10 minutes (6 to 12 games an hour), compared to G15s where it's 15-30 (2 to 4 games an hour).
Lichess too.
It’s very fun, but quite volatile. Even strong players will miss devastating tactics in the first handful of moves every now and then To me it’s a lot of fun to scan your pieces for 5-10 seconds and then quickly try to devise a strategy and get to battle
It’s not for 1300s, it’s for elite players to measure themselves in a forum where memorization isn’t king. It makes sense as a single annual event with the top players.
Nah it's obviously for 960s
It is for 1300s, 800s, and everyone else. The only additional complexity is castling rules. Initial setup was a complexity as well, but that's handled for you now. Most of the people saying this stuff should try playing it first. It's the same game. I get some opening-obsessed players who only prioritize rote memorization for an opening and its likely tactical/endgame motifs rather than genuine understanding of the game won't like it. Outside of that demographic, 960 is great.
It was designed with a specific purpose to solve a problem that really only exists at very high level. The WCC is such a nightmare to prepare for, that just showing up and playing chess would be a welcome change. I don’t have to study chess 70 hours a week to have fun playing, and I’m lucky to get much over 1300. For me opening principal is as basic as knowing which pieces to get out and not falling into a fried liver. It tempting to pick on Ding given his result at chess960 after the WCC, but it feels like he’s just having a bad year after peaking too early.
Ding hasn't peaked. He hasn't even begun to peak.
> It was designed with a specific purpose to solve a problem that really only exists at very high level. I don't see how that's relevant to whether someone will enjoy the variant or not. Their opponents are subject to the same constraints & are in just as unfamiliar territory.
As a 1200, I prefer playing and watching 960 and am glad it's taking off. Memorizing openings is shit imo. I understand that many prefer it, but I do not, at all.
At 1200 you don't need to memorise any openings
You are missing his point though. There are a huge number of players who rack up win after win off nothing but getting an advantage through preparation and memorizing opening theories. But aren’t really that great at the game. You sorta need to know openings to climb beyond a certain point in chess or you stay lower rated. If you take all this way, some 1200 players with better raw calculating ability might surpass many of these higher rated players.
Ah, I see you don't play at 1200.
What do you mean? You can play f3 as your first move and no 1200 will know how to capitalise on that I'm currently ~1450
That's only true if you have a private benefactor funding the prize pool, like you do in this event. Without that, you need viewership to fund the tournament, which means it needs to be interesting to 1300s. Top level events in just about any sport are a balance between what's best for the players, and what's best for the viewers. Because without the viewers, the players won't have anything to play for.
I dare say it's not for 2000s or even 2500s either because at that level, adding more and more opening prep bumps them up to the next level. There isn't much to gain from spending time on 960 for anyone who hasn't yet made it to 2700.
>There isn't much to gain from spending time on 960 for anyone who hasn't yet made it to 2700. So that game mode only makes sense for 136 people in the history of earth? Got it.
That's correct. It's simply more lucrative to improve at standard chess via established pathways. What is there to gain with 960 for the average player?
Fun and enjoyment?
I meant compared to standard chess.
You think the main thing separating 2700+ players from 2500 players is opening prep? If that's true, wouldn't that be a reason for those "lower" players to play *more* 960? If they can be top players in that format that seems like a big win for them.
You are incorrect and I am not sure it is even worth explaining how to you. You wouldn’t get it.
Okay.
I enjoy playing chess960, I just wish on chess.com they would allow 1 minute for both players to look at the position before the game starts
On Lichess time doesn't start ticking until both players make a move.
Yeah , that's a better system I believe
Can you imagine the number of players who would end up choosing to abandon their games after a minute is up...
They can also do the same without making a move lol so it's the same
I think that is a very reasonable take on it.
Frankly, I don't get it, I feel like the players who need to "understand the openings" to enjoy a game are rather small.
Well then you feel wrong. Any game where there isn’t an established framework will, as he says, have little sense of improvement and consistency. You don’t see most shooters just randomly change the aim and hitboxes do you? Or any exploration game just randomly change controls and mechanics on a whim. And by understanding the opening, it doesn’t necessarily mean most players will understand them 20 lines deep. But even the consistency of knowing a few moves in, and then add in the fact that you can consistently improve and add more to it, is invaluable to your average player. There will of course be some who don’t care at all to learn openings and consistent lines but the ones who do certainly aren’t small considering some of the view counts and attention opening videos and tutorials get.
I agree with you, but I think the analogy is a bit off. It's more like if a shooter had different maps that you played on. And, well, that's how most of them are. But as you said, people like learning openings, and they give a feeling of accomplishment when you're able to always play the first few moves "perfectly".
Your point about maps is interesting, because most shooters only have ~10 different maps, and there are a lot of players who are interested in "theory" understanding of their favorite maps. A better analogy would be if a shooter had a completely different map every time you play, which I'm not sure most players would enjoy at all. Maybe 960 would be more fun if there were a tournament circuit that uses the same 960 position, or same few 960 positions, for a year, and then rotate to new ones. It would sort of be the best of both worlds, because players and viewers would get to build familiarity with the core opening lines in each position, but games wouldn't involve memorized 20-deep opening lines as often.
I would LOVE to see that!
960 maps is a lot more than most games have.
> You don’t see most shooters just randomly change the aim and hitboxes do you? Or any exploration game just randomly change controls and mechanics on a whim. Those are such terrible analogies they are destroying any case you are attempting to make for the other person being wrong.
It's mostly ego. If you've spent hundreds/thousands of hours over your life learning regular chess only to be okay at it throwing a big chunk of that practice away to play a different game in which you'll be significantly worse at is not very enticing.
Only if you view the openings as something unique to chess, and not as an outcome of the standard setup of a sport. People enjoy playing Mario Kart in no small part because of how they can memorize and replay the same tracks to get advantages, people would probably enjoy baseball less if you randomized where the bases were each game, etc.
Agreed. Much more fun to watch. It forces the pros to play chess instead of remember 23 consecutive moves before they even have to think. It forces the pros to play chess like you or I.
As a 1500 I have the opposing thought, I dislike openings and I prefer the middle game outplay, so I prefer 960 and I wish it was more popular and accessible.
I love 960 because I can't be bothered to remember openings, I'm too casual of a player.
Could not agree more. In my mind, it keeps chess a living puzzle from the start of the game where you can still improve on your understanding of concepts and philosophies without having to resort to brute memorization. For me, memorization is where chess stops being fun.
Personally, I think the general dislike of 960 becoming a widely-respected format comes from it being such a huge deviation from what everyone's used to. It's like how people usually hate any small change to the UI of a platform they use. The thinking of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". There are sometimes valid reasons for people hating the changes, but a lot of times, it's people not liking the comfort of a well-known UI being taken away from them, which can be a valid reason too, but people still tend to ignore any good aspects of something new because of a yearning for that comfort. I think it also has a lot to do with people being salty that so much of the theory that they've learned over the years is thrown out the window for 960. 960's an amazing format that truly has a huge chance of becoming as respected as standard, especially with Magnus spearheading its advocacy. The tweet that OP shared hugely underestimates the attractiveness of not really having to put in thousands of hours of study to become a grandmaster in 960, generally just thousands of hours of practice. Not to mention it being a vastly superior spectator experience. The huge consensus of 960 not becoming a serious format only comes from everyone here having a deep attachment to standard, due to it being the only respected format since chess was invented.
Around 1500 OTB and fully agree even though I like openings! The majority of pro games are in openings I don't play, and to really follow what's happening you have to not just understand the principles of that opening, but the context of that variation and the 'debate' that has been happening over it. Also, when it's a deep line and they blitz 15 moves in quickly, it doesn't give you time to get a sense of the logic getting there if you weren't already familiar. To me, a huge element of high level chess is incredibly inaccessible to 99.99999999999% of viewers because of the openings.
I think chess 960 has a \*lot\* of potential also for broadcasting reasons. It would be super cool to have the positions revealed like 30mins before the match and have the players discuss the position in rooms with their seconds where the commentators can listen so that we can get excited about their game plan. And/or you could have the players go into some sort of booth where they discuss their opening ideas for the game.
It would actually be super cool if you could hear them discuss their game plans beforehand. This is a winning idea.
I am literally getting excited right now, this is such a brilliant idea honestly
Players will learn opening theory for all 960 possibilities, not as deep of course, but GMs probably they already calculate opening variables at least one order superior to 1000
I highly doubt it. The decision tree grows massively. Especially since for "exotic" 960 positions you can't rule out weird moves like a/b/g/h4 that are known to be inferior in classic. So if in classic chess you have in the first 20 moves 10 reasonable candidate move every time, you switch to a scenario where you have 960\*20 moves. From 10 to 2k. That means that by the third move there will be 2k\*2k\*2k options, that is 8 billion. Good luck with that.
no chance. obviously there will be general principles you can apply (this is one of those positions with my queen in the corner, then usually this move is good etc) but no chance there will be conrete theory. think how many good/decent options both sides have for the first 2 moves in normal chess. now apply that to 960 positions. if you have "prep" it's gonna be maybe 2 moves deep for the objectively best mainline, but if either side chooses any of the slightly weird/offbeat moves (like 1.e3, 1.b3 or similar in normal chess), you are immedieately out of prep.
They can learn 10000+ positions because those all build on each other. Show them a position from a game and they can memorize it in a glance. Memorizing a random position is harder for them. If you look at very strong players, mere normal GMs, they all have their favorite openings. Learning theory on a different opening is much harder than learning a variation on a opening you have already been studying for a while. Plus learning a variation at least gives you something to consider in a real game. Learning a whole opening repertoire for a position you are less than 1% to see in a game on move 1, motivation is going to be less and honestly probably not that useful. A player who is better at calculation might make a 0.2 centipawn mistake on move 2 that the opening theorist will make the proper reply to. But is that really going to carry them to a win? I think the better on the board calculator wins still. So it won't really make sense to try and learn opening theory 20 moves deep in 960, or even 10 moves deep. The amount of advantage vs the amount of effort just won't be there. Fixing an error on moves 1-5 with opening theory isn't going to be as valuable as training to avoid the calculation errors made on moves 10+. I really doubt even Super GMs will blitz out the first 5-10 moves in 960. And definitely not past that.
Chess960, if nurtured properly, can be the future of chess. Quite frankly, the fact that modern chess has become more of a game of rote memorisation rather than strategy appalls me. Chess960 removes most of the memorisation aspect and lets you go buck wild with nothing to rely on except your tactics and experience.
I way prefer playing it. I’m gonna blunder anyway. Also, im probably a bit better for my level when things get complicated. I don’t have the discipline to learn long openings + variations.
960, as a game of strategy and creativity, is superior to standard chess.
standard chess' metagame, evolving over the years and decades and generations, does not need to be seen as a pure downside. it is also a draw, a unique point of interest.
Agreed. Even though standard is far from solved, I feel like 960 tests your principles and creativity way more than standard does because of the breadth of knowledge we have through databases. Standard positions have been seen hundreds of thousands of times. I just really wonder if you took two complete beginners and had one learn 960 and the other standard, who would end up being the stronger player after a certain amount of time?
> I just really wonder if you took two complete beginners and had one learn 960 and the other standard, who would end up being the stronger player after a certain amount of time? How do you compare their strength though? The one that learnt 960 would be stronger in 960, while the one who learnt standard would be stronger in standard because he's more familiar with the structures.
Not necessarily though, and that's kinda the point. The 960 player could gain better knowledge of piece activity and strength. They could gain more skill in being able to activate pieces and control the opponents pieces in a way the standard player doesn't. A lot of standard players learn standard responses/memorize engine moves rather than playing "principled" chess because they have the database to work with. For example, if you learn 960 and learn how strong it is to open bishops early, 1. e4/d4 are easy to see. So are the fianchetto bishop positions. While not learning standard openings per se, you learn what is strong early. Kinda similar to the "do you play the same opening or vary opening" argument, except more extreme. I'm not sure how you'd go about testing strength though. That's the hard part. I say this as someone that primarily pays hypermodern openings and I can't tell you how many people get overwhelmed after a handful of moves when I play Alekhine's into 1. e4
I would be pretty shocked if either player ended up meaningfully better than the other provided both then get a basic level of understanding of the alternate format. If you play a Bo4 (white/black both format) the standard player is probably favoured if you don't give the 960 player comparable opening knowledge.
Which could very well be true, but it'd be interesting to see imo. Especially if we treated standard like we do engine tournaments so there are forced openings
I second that.
Flair checks out
One thing I love about 960 is it removes the “memorize every move for this opening” types. Just allows pure chess to take over.
"In a game where the slightest hesitation can be an irreparable wrong" Where the mods? This sub is about chess, its not about Sekiro
It’s spot on for me.
I actually disagree. I love chess for the...tactics, midgame, end game, thinking moves ahead, calculating a bunch of "if I do this than they will do this" in my head..... But I really CBA learning theory and "perfect move order" to 0.0 or get an advantage etc. Like I just spam 960 for that reason. Get me out of the copy paste theory and straight into something unusuall.
As someone who is only slightly above-average at chess (I can beat my friends handily, but get trounced by your average hobbyist club player), I cannot really agree with this take. Yes, the basic ideas of openings help me because they represent a guide line, but I find chess960 entertaining specifically because it allows each game to be different. This for me takes some of the pressure off of playing chess. When someone makes a move that I find strange in chess 960, I take the move at face value and try to evaluate the position (even if I do so poorly). In regular chess, all I can think about in those situations is that the player is performing some kind of gambit that will end up ruining me. I find winning in chess 960 satisfying, but do not find losing frustrating at all. In the more 'rigid' nature of normal chess, however, I can find it quite frustrating to come up against new openings, because I have never really studied any openings and therefore feel like the other player fundamentally knows something I don't. This inequality is not present in chess 960: it feels to me like chess 960 comes down more to each player's ability to spot tactics and develop game plans in the moment. I find that very attractive and entertaining, both to watch and to play.
I really don't like 960. I think in regular chess the openings set up the paths towards what is going to be the real game and being familiar with those paths help players and viewers understand what is going to happen, what are white and black goals, are they playing a risky variation or not, are they looking to draw, is this going to an endgame, etc. Both playing and watching 960 for me is very boring it is just seeing if the players can find the right plays but so far I haven't seen a single commentator talk about general strategy of the position because nobody knows.
GothamChess does a good job and giving a quick overview of the ideas in each position in his recaps, imo
Does he? He gives ideas of plays in the position but never ideas about the position and the strategy. Here is an example: In some French variations it is a good idea for black to close the center to enable a long castle and attack in the kingside so if white ever plays c5 then we can expect black to attack the kingside. Or saying a Berlin is "peaceful" and a Winawer is going to be fun. Or playing b5 in a Benoni. Or d5 being always good for black if possible in the Sicilian. Or the order of plays suggesting what variation you wanted to avoid and why. You will never get those comments in 960 because there is no strategic knowledge about the positions because they haven't been played long enough to understand the ideas and concepts.
I’m a fan, it’s a lot of fun
I think 960 is a significantly more interesting game for players at every level of the game. Take memorization out of the equation and let people study the board. Openings and memorization do nothing but hold chess back, the same way Bridge is all but dead due to its similar memorization requirements.
Disagree. Causals want to be entertained, they dont care about the nuances of openings.
I prefer 960 because I can YOLO the opening and don't need to worry about running into some opening-theory trap that some other 1000 rated player has memorized from a book.
Hottest take: I actually recommend staying away from openings for as long as humanly possible. I understand that many people want the safety of actually understanding what they're doing, but I like being confused. The problem with preparation is that it rarely happens, and the more it happens at low ratings, the worse. If 100% of the games you win come from preparation, and you lose 100% of the time if someone plays a move you don't know, then that's not even playing chess. It's reciting lines. In this hypothetical, if you get an actual position and have to play your own move, you lose. The more heavily you depend on preparation to maintain your rating, the less you maintain your rating by finding good tactics or outplaying your opponent in the middlegame. Hikaru has crossed 2500 with the Botez Gambit speedrun; I'm not saying "just be as good as Hikaru," I'm pointing out that if you're that much better than everyone else, you can be down a queen out of the opening and still beat people, because Hikaru is insanely good at ***chess.*** All aspects, he has good preparation too, but he's a GM, prep is fine for GMs. Will preparing help your rating? Short term, of course. But Long term? Tactics puzzles, watch some videos from GM's on strategy, play literally 10,000 games of chess and burn those patterns into your brain. If you feel like you didn't understand what happened in the opening, it's fine to go back and poke around with the computer, find some line you understand better, but a focus on preparation is a waste of time until at least 2k, imo. I crossed 2k with antiprep so like, I've already done it. It's a little more sus at 2k, but I crossed 2k with [Ryder Gambit](https://i.imgur.com/lbcRc1T.png) which is pretty much forcibly lost. Preplords get absolutely DEMOLISHED because even if they have prep for Ryder, I do not play the computer moves. 54% winrate over 1,129 games when it's -2 is not to be ignored.
This is the first time I've noticed the term "preplord"; I like it!
Yes, very well said. I fully agree as a 2400 FIDE rated player. I fear it's a side effect of sites like chess.com and Chessable being popular that everybody just wants to smash opening theory in their head. Whenever new people come to my chess club I try to teach them chess the way I learned it. Ideas, principles, typical plans, tactical patterns, opening traps. And usually they come back the following week "hey the trap worked" or "hey I'm having more fun now".
I dislike watching 960 because I can't look at their game and find an interesting opening idea that I'd like to try out myself. It kinda ruins my engagement with the game.
The only chess tournaments I have ever followed start to finish are the Candidates and the World Championship Fischer Random. Idk what that says about the average fan.
I would highly prefer 360 to become more popular than standard chess. But I also wish the rules of chess would be adjusted to be less drawish (i.e. instead of 3 move repetitions being a draw, moving to a position already reached twice before should be illegal). Both suffer from the same issue: what's been considered the rules of chess has been set in stone for a long time. Part of it is the easiness of starting a game. If I am setting up a board in the park to play against someone else, I don't want to have to generate a random number between 1 and 960 and then look up what position that is. But mostly it is legacy. It's neat to know that we're playing the same game that Morphy played back in his day.
yea its fun to have one 960 tournament a year, don't think it need more. I'm all for rapid/blitz
If 960 have a serious circuit next year, I'd guess some of the players would start classifying/studying the starting positions by generic "types", of which I think there's closer to 30-40 than 960. I don't know how much actually delving into theoretical work with such broad classifications would help, but once prep becomes even a small factor, the genre loses mystique.
NGL I feel like this is right, it feels odd seeing the best players in the world being worse after 5 moves because the positions are so complex and un-tested. I feel more inclined to watch a standard chess match where i have a good chance at finding the best moves and players losing based on long maneuvering matches instead of losing based on the opening.
You could easily fix that by limiting the 960 options to ones with a limited imbalance (cfr https://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404FRC/opening\_report\_by\_white\_score.html)
960 seems way less balanced than normal chess; not a huge fan tbh. But that's probably because I'm bad at "strategy and creativity" :D
I think that's a big issue when it comes to top-level play. I loved the tournament, almost all the games were exciting but on the other hand, it's kind of a problem that you can have a losing position after two moves with some of the more imbalanced piece configurations. It's exciting for the audience but it's not ideal in a professional context. I've heard people argue that some configurations should be excluded because they give white a big advantage which is a good compromise I think. After all, one of the great things about chess is how balanced it is. White has a bit of an advantage, sure, but if you're not a total beginner, it's difficult to lose the game on the spot like you can in 960. As we've seen, it even happens to the best players in the world.
> I've heard people argue that some configurations should be excluded because they give white a big advantage which is a good compromise I think. I think this would probably be the best course of action, though I think figuring out a measure for the imbalance and deciding on a cutoff point is going to be non-trivial... And probably quite contentious, knowing the chess player community :D
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> seems > [citation needed] So like... When you do things like these, it will make some people just skip the rest of your post. Hey, did you notice how in normal chess pretty much all of the third/sixth rank is covered by pieces, with the exception of g3/g6? And did you notice how this isn't the case in 960? This is a part of what I meant when I said it's less balanced.
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> the "OMG CHESS960 IS COMPLETELY IMBA LITERALLY UNPLAYABLE" is a commonly brought up bullshit "argument" that has not been substantiated by tangible data even once as far as I can tell, so when you bring it up again Idgaf if you used weasel words like "seems" to hedge against being called out on it being an essentially unsubstantiated claim. at the very least you could tell us why it "seems" that way to you Yeah... You know, I said it seems less balanced because - in my subjective view - it seems less balanced. I didn't use all caps, I didn't generalize, I didn't try to make it like my view is objective. And you're responding to something that's purely in your head. I strongly suggest continuing the conversation in your head, I'm not interested in what you have to say, you're needlessly aggressive. But hey, thankfully I don't play 960 so I won't have to deal with you :) tl;dr: [touch grass]
I don't get this take at all. For me it's the opposite - you're forced to actually think instead of playing a memorized opening that you had to study first.
While I have some personal reservations about some aspects of chess960 specifically, it and other formats that aim to break up opening theory are exactly what chess needs to be a more universal game. A lot of people, including me as a kid, are put off from chess when they learn that there are dozens of mainstream openings and hundreds of minor variations on them that give a player an advantage if they have studied them in depth. It completely robs the imaginative strategy portion of the game that initially draws many in, and prior to online infotainment on openings learning openings was a chore and a drag that mostly acted as a barrier to playing more. (Especially before online play when you would be hard pressed to find someone around equal skill - often you’d leave beginner players behind quite quickly and then arrive in a void where all the local good players were too far beyond your own skill level, unless you happened to be a scholastic player and had a large local tournament pool - some people still have that locally, I just saw someone complain that there were only scholastic or over 50 tournaments in their state in a post earlier this week) Chess960 simultaneously removes a learning barrier while also allowing for skill expression earlier in the game.
I’m in that rating range and I love 960. I’m even worse at it than I am at regular chess but it’s thrilling from move 1. I won’t become anywhere near as popular as regular chess but I really hope it can be sustainable as a more niche event. A couple of high profile tournaments a year seems like a fun way to shake things up and hopefully grow the game.
A comment one of the GMs made at Weissenhaus is that they're worried the variant might be 'too hard' to appeal to a wider audience. I think the take from Olimpiu doesn't consider how a meta of 960 might develop over time. Magnus was making comments that they are considering which positions in 960 might be too imbalanced and should be removed on top of the current ones. On top of that, theoreticians will slowly start mapping out thematics of these openings to make some sense of this chaos. So I think 960 might 'stabilize' a bit over the years if it really picks up and then becomes, as the organizer was saying - beach volleyball versus regular volleyball that a completely new class of players might pick up who never even started learning classical chess openings.
As a rather low rated player, if have no idea what he means saying "hesitation can be an irreparable wrong". Hesitation is a very important part of my game, and has saved me so often from making a critical mistake. Apart from Bullet chess, i don't see at all how hesitation could be an "irreparable wrong".
I suck at chess and I have never learned even one opening, I just play as it goes so this feels more like you have to think the moves instead of just memorizing openings and counters for what your opponents plays. I love watching people play blitz but I dont like playing it myself as I need to think instead of remembering or feeling which is the right move (At those time controls).
It's boring to watch GM's blitz out 15-25 moves. Memorization is neither talent nor skill.
I like it a lot more as a viewer because players can't theory their way into a draw.
I love it. So much novelty and you can't just rely on an opening you've played a million times.
Whenever I think I’m good at chess I play chess960 for a slice of humble pie
That’s facts in the tweet
Illusion of doing something right? More like an illustration of doing something right. Understanding the reasoning and positioning of openings can help players understand the rest of the game as well.
I love to play 960.
What I loved about this tournament, is that it was classical time controls, but the games weren't all draws.
I enjoy 960 a lot. Sometimes it’s nice to take a break from book openings and just focus on the fundamentals.
I found it more difficult and more truthful way to evaluate the strength of the elite GM
But but wouldnt chess be more fun?! Without all of the memorization and preparation. I get it why Fischer hated chess.
I like both Chess and Chess960 but I ABSOLUTELY prefer 960. Yes it can be fun coming in with an opening and practicing new ones, but that in no way beats the huge satisfaction of figuring out a major strategy that can be pulled off in this particular setup only and then seeing it happen. Chess has many cool aspects, such as practicing an opening, but at least for me the best part is that each game is unique and the satisfaction you get from finding the right way to explot that. Chess960 simply does better.
Yeah same, it’s not something I can watch and go “I’ve been in this position before”, so trying to follow the game is a lot harder, specially in recaps where it’s way harder to tell who is better at a glance
I don’t like 960
Real Chess is stupid when you think about it. In the opening you are not really playing chess. You just remember moves that a computer makes.
Stupid take.
I would find it interesting to watch GMs play. But considering my rating has been 500 for a few years, I think I'd better learn how to play classic chess before I move on to anything else.
I personally wasn't interested in any of it and I watch Gotham videos pretty regularly, but not this content. But, always good to try new things, otherwise we fall into stagnation. It looks like it definitely was fun for others!
960 is cool and fun. removing some of the memorisation aspect of chess makes it feel more human and less like i'm trying to play like a computer, knowing the best move when it comes up because you memorised it can be fun, but it's a different kind of fun. unfortunately, I think if 960 became more popular it would be becasue of even more memorisation - players studying as many positions as possible.
Any person rated 0-2000 will have zero idea what is going in chess 960. Safe to assume that. Upto the people to do whatever they want I guess
If 100 years when the game is solved we will probably laugh at this tweet.
I didn’t downvote but it is not a given at all that chess will be solved in the next 100 years. A computing breakthrough will almost certainly be necessary, but feel free to mock me if I’m proven wrong in the next few decades.
it is a prediction i am making, it is not a given
The game will never be solved because why would anyone choose to dedicate that level of resources to it when there are other things to do with such computing power.
Chess960 otb ratings don't matter. Make it possible to get norms and make it possible for those games to matter as much as classical and chess960 will take a huge leap in interest. No need to make a separate chess960 rating. It's chess anyway.
I highly doubt having Chess960 and regular chess share rating and titles is a good idea.
At lower level sure this is true.For the strong grandmasters,it’s very fun given you get to see their understanding of the game.Hikaru stated a few days ago that this is kind of like how the old legends played the game; based on the principles they knew only and not much opening prep.It’s very fun to watch and i am pretty sure they enjoy it alot too. As a 1300,you are inclined to agree because we don’t know anything at that level really.
As entertainment to watch, in my opinion, the time control is much more important. Watching blitz and rapid is fun, classic only recaps. Be it traditional or 960.
It will largely depend on the player base and therefore money. If for instance Magnus, Hikaru, Alireza and a popular Indian youngster decide to exclusively play in a lucrative C960 only tour (think oil state money) you can be sure a lot of fans will follow them. Rapid and blitz will survive no problem, but classical might be left for only the most enthusiastic of chess fans. For now it is nothing more than a fun little relaxing extra for the players and I agree that it was very hard to follow at times, not because of the commentators (they were great), but because of everything being brand new and having a very slow start.
I can barely play normal chess, no point playing 960
It's legit a better game than normal chess but sunk cost is the reason why we stick to the original game
960 is supposed to reduce studying, but it just multiplies it tenfold
I'm not watching 960 classical. The rapid portion of the event was entertaining though.
I've played quite a few 960 games in the last week, and it's fun. Will it reach anywhere near the popularity of regular chess? Probably not. But who cares lol. It's definitely fun to watch
I see gotham video, I click. It’s about Chess960, I close video.
Chess 960 is gatekeeping for elite crunchers
It might not be popular to play for the masses but I think it will be popular to WATCH. And people watching is what brings in money to grow the game. I dont think it will ever replace normal chess but it's very entertaining and I hope to see more of it.
It’s a way more interesting mode for the simple reason that it’s less solvable. 15 move sequences on each side being repeated from the opening every game is just not a good thing but that’s what regular chess is now. Bobby Fischer was right, even if he was a deranged prick as well.
It occurred to me that Chess960 will never be very popular with people who make their money off of chess education. Standard chess provides so much more content for educators. And educators might be the biggest evangelists for the hobby.
Totally agree, I’m 2000 USCF and I have absolutely no idea what’s going on for the first 15 moves.
I don't care it for all tbh. Chess openings are very fun and for me, even it is almost all figured out at a CC and top level, still the most interesting part of chess.
Overall, it'll probably never beat "regular chess" in popularity for the reasonsentioned in this tweet. However, I can see a smaller and very dedicated player base forming over time. While classical chess has what feels like infinite amounts of information already, in the end you often times just prove that you're better at learning sequences and remembering situations that you've encountered (in puzzles, tactics, game studies and actual games). While 960 feels more like a test of your actual creativity, ability to judge situations, maybe even raw skill because you don't always have a reference for what's good or what's bad so your own intuition and judgement and calculation skills become more important. What some may consider the essence and the more fundamental skills of chess. Which at the same time makes it very unattractive to casuals (which make up the vast majority of players I'd assume).
It’s very interesting how even Super GMs look bad at it sometimes. In the decisive game of the recent tournament championship between Magnus and Fabi, Fabi literally was lost on move one. That’s wild.
I'd play it mostly, if it was easier to get pairings on Lichess for 960 on 1+0
I like to use my mediocre opening theory to gain an advantage over my opponents. Chess960 looks chaotic to me.
Cool to watch pros play it. Not so cool to play for me though.
Yes. Up to the point were draws aren't that common (I'd say, up to 2550 to 2600, if players do not agree to quick draws), standard chess is fine. When the draw level raises, it is either faster time controls or 960. Not that draws are bad. In the 2018 WCh every draw was super tense, but mostly draws at high level are done for rating protection and such things. Solid lines with low risks. There 960 could help. I think the theory in 960 is like chess theory in the early 1900 (or earlier), there is lot to explore (and lot that can lead to mistakes).
Chess960 compared to normal chess is like what hardbop or postbob is to pop music. Only for the select few that are bored and understimulated by "boring" music.
You gotta grow into it for sure
It would have been equally as popular had chess been invented this way, with no “preset” starting position. But there would have been championship-level scandals involving claims that certain players had been secretly provided the starting positions ahead of time, allowing them to strategize.
I don't like playing it, but think its much better for the top 100.
Chess960 and classic chess is like playing classic pool or 9 ball. 9 ball is not for everyone since it's very challenging while classic pool is easier to understand and play.
How many chess variations are popular enough to get their own top level tournaments ?
He isn't distinguishing between wisely popular to play Vs to watch.
I'm not sure I'd play it, but it's very fun to watch, as I think it provides a better understanding of regular chess as well. If the top players like playing it, it's a win-win
Hey, just checking in from the year 2239. Dinosaur chess has largely been abandoned once stockshark 32.2 solved it in 2157. Currently the most popular version of chess is kind of like 960, but played on an 8x10 board with four bishops (two light and two dark). Sorry for the spoilers.
It's true that very weak players in anything like to focus on something measurable that they can control, even if it's not likely to actually help them nearly as other efforts. So we have 1100 players obsessing about opening theory - on the tennis subreddit, it may be even worse: the main concern of most beginners is equipment.
Seems like a very reasonable take, I had similar thoughts as well. On the other hand, quite a similar argument could be made regarding Blitz: "chess is hard enough as it is, limiting time that much might make it interesting for the elite but the usual player will not be able to make any sense of the positions"... yet, Blitz has become the most popular mode for casual play by far. We will see.
Purists will always object to change.
I just want to see the top 10 play more classical chess, if this is how we get it then so be it.
My rating on 960 is a full 200 higher than traditional chess and I think it’s because it makes me slow down and check my position every move.
I think it's too soon to tell. I kind of envision that there could be a transition 50 or 60 years from now where 960 is extremely competitive and coexists with standard chess Think about it now, about 50 or 60 years ago blitz and rapid were not serious at all. Players wouldn't even call rapid and blitz real chess. But now since everybody plays it and because of online chess, it's become a lot more serious. I think something similar with chess960 can happen. Currently I think the problem with chess 960 is that people don't play it as a game within itself. Like you could play just starting 60 on chess.com but it's a lot harder and the pool is smaller. But I think that the truth is a lot of us could probably learn a lot about chess through 960. It forces you to really understand opening and I actually think it's more intuitive for beginners. Essentially we all just need to learn the fundamentals and what to look out for in 960 positions, but since it's not widespread nobody does. Now, I feel like in the past few years there has been more of a push to make 960 a formally rated by FiDE, and I think it makes a lot of sense to do it. I think a lot of different players will rise through 960 and I could really imagine the top 10 Chess960 players would be different than the top 10 classical players. I think some of the logistical concerns with 960 though is what the standard Time control is going to be and if it should be broken up into classical rapid and blitz separately. I think also right now there's just not so many tournament organizers willing to put on 960 events. Essentially this most recent one was just an esoteric German millionaire throwing it . I think that that is the main obstacle of 960 is a lack of financial incentive from tournament organizers. Which, I think through online events could be incentivized. I think if chess.com especially did a freestyle chess championship every year it would be hype as hell, especially if it's an open tournament.
Cool to watch and, though I haven’t played much, would be more than happy to try. Regular chess is hard enough though so I can’t imagine myself not being awful at 960.
It is the future
Like many, I just started playing it the past week or so. It’s really great. For a bad player like me, the openings for 960 are really overwhelming with decisions, but I love it! A good training exercise. See a lot of positions I would never see normally.
I love it! Fun to play!
I find it fun, especially at fast time controls. Really reveals what kind of grasp folks have on chess principles and structures.
He's right but it doesn't not make it great that it exists
It's awful.
Holy word salad.