Random chess (Eng. Fischerandom Chess) or Chess 960 (Eng. Chess 960), or Fisher-random is a chess variant invented by the 11th world champion Robert Fischer (Popularly known as Bobby Fischer).

The rules basically coincide with classical chess, but the initial arrangement of pieces is chosen randomly, with certain restrictions. Changed the rules of castling.

Story

The need to change the rules of classical chess has been discussed many times, almost from the moment when the classical rules were fully formed. The reason for the innovation was the active development of chess theory, which made us fear that in the near future a draw would await chess. By the end of the 20th century, in general, it became clear that a draw would not threaten death for a long time, but two other motives for changing the rules appeared: increasing the excitement of the game and protection from the computer. The development of the opening theory led to the fact that the real struggle in the party begins only in the second ten moves. In some cases, the analysis was carried out literally before the endgame, most of the openings were analyzed so deeply that they left no room for experiments and creativity in the initial part of the game; a chess player can only choose from well-known, learned options. Computer chess also creates a lot of problems for the game; it’s not even that the computer beats the best human chess players, but that it is now possible to use computer prompts in tournaments. One of the reasons for the power of computers is that they can store and quickly use huge arrays of ready-made options that are impossible for humans.

The invention of new types and modifications of chess was carried away by just amateurs, and theorists involved in the study of games, and the strongest chess players. For example, Jose Raul Capablanca offered several options for new chess, one of which is known as Capablanca chess. Mostly, innovations went in several directions, sometimes simultaneously: changing the rules of moves, changing the board (dimensions, and sometimes shape), introducing new figures, changing the starting position of the game. Very exotic options were offered, such as hexagonal chess, and just chess according to the usual rules, but on a very enlarged board.

A common drawback of most “radical” options is that they are, in fact, new games in which only the appearance and basic principles are preserved from chess. This does not detract from the independent significance and advantages of these games, but hinders their wide distribution among chess players and makes a massive transition to classical chess from them extremely unlikely. “Cosmetic” versions of chess reform have long been known, the developers of which sought to maintain the maximum from the existing game. In these variants, the course of the game changes only due to the non-standard initial arrangement of pieces and pawns. There are few options, the most conservative of them provide for the arbitrary placement of figures on the first and eighth horizontals behind a fixed pawn row and, possibly, some restrictions on the order of arrangement. Suggested options:

• Arbitrary arrangement of figures – it gives up to 25 million initial positions.
• Arbitrary arrangement of figures with necessarily diverse elephants.
• Arbitrary symmetrical arrangement of figures with diverse elephants.

The option of placing the figures “in the open” is possible – when the players put the figures one at a time in front of the game, observing the order and knowing where the opponent placed the figure (with a symmetrical arrangement, the player first puts his figure opposite the one set by the opponent, then selects a place for his next), and “ blindly ”- when the board before the game is divided by an opaque screen, the players arrange the pieces, after which the screen is removed. A variant with an arbitrary open arrangement and diverse elephants was proposed, for example, in the 1970s by David Bronstein.

On 19th June, 1996 in Buenos Aires (Argentina), the 11th world chess champion Robert Fisher presented his version of the modification of the rules of chess. This variant of chess got its name (Fischerandom Chess, in Russian the names “Fisher Random”, “Fischer Chess”, “Random Chess”, “Random Fischer Chess”, “SSF” are used). Features of the Fisher version are as follows:

• The arrangement of the figures does not depend on the players – it is random.
• Black and white pieces are placed symmetrically.
• Elephants are necessarily diverse.
• Added restriction on the relative position of the king and the rooks.
• Castling has been preserved, the rules of which are as close as possible to the rules of classical chess.

The number of possible starting positions that satisfy Fisher’s restrictions is 960, so this game is sometimes called “Chess 960”. As already noted, it cannot be said that Fisher was the first to propose such a transformation; moreover, it is hardly possible to determine who was the first in this direction. However, it was Fisher’s version that became popular among professional chess players, which was facilitated by both the fame of the developer and the closest proximity of the game to classical chess.

Analysis

Fisher’s chess is fulfilling its main task – to make old opening developments unfit for practice and to deprive of sense the development of new opening options. Although 960 initial positions are, in principle, not many, especially if you have a computer, even this variety is quite enough for an in-depth analysis of debut options to become useless. It is practically impossible to deeply analyze all possible openings, and it is pointless to work out options for any specific initial positions – there is no guarantee that this position will be met in a real game. Of course, over time, the initial positions will be classified and recommendations will be formulated for their various types and, possibly, some options will be calculated, but the depth of elaboration is unlikely to reach the current “classical” level. Some chess players expressed the hope that such a situation would have a beneficial effect on the development of the theory of openings, since from mechanical enumeration of the options it would be forced to go on to an in-depth analysis of more general patterns of opening wrestling and formulating more general criteria for evaluating a position.

The nature of the struggle in the opening strongly depends on the initial alignment of figures. As already shown by quite numerous Fischer chess tournaments, the “classic” initial position is optimal in terms of a wealth of options and opportunities. Many initial positions, which are very different from the classical ones, almost unambiguously determine the optimal strategy for playing in the opening, and the chess player has to choose the most effective way to implement this strategy.

In the middle game and, especially, the endgame, there is no difference between Fischer chess and classical chess. By the third ten moves, the position takes on a fairly ordinary look, and by the beginning of the endgame it is often already impossible to determine by which rules – classic or Fisher – this game is played.

An interesting result was the fact that Fischer chess retained asymmetrical castling. It clearly enriched the game, as  because of it even mirror-symmetrical positions are significantly different and lead to different continuations.