Chess 921600

Ovyron · Post by **Ovyron** » Mon Nov 04, 2019 5:42 pm

I just had this thought about a chess variant that would solve all my problems with FRC. It's called Chess 921600 because with this method you can start games up to 921600 different opening positions.

My biggest problem of FRC is that the opening positions that you get are random, and they can be really contrived, you can't really check what kind of development you should have done in the game, because maybe you won't play from that position ever again.

You were forced to play them, and you had no choice.

In Chess 921600 you propose 8 different starting positions that you would have, and your opponent proposes 8 that they'd start with. Then you inspect them, and in secret you choose one of them for your opponent, while your opponent chooses one of your 8 for you.

The selections are revealed and the positions are set on to the board, resulting in Asymmetrical Chess where each of you would have one of the Chess960 positions, but white and black's starting pieces don't mirror each other.

The key part here is that when you selected your own 8 starting positions, you already did some kind of "curation", where you picked ones without weaknesses, from where you could easily develop and carry out your plans, and then you pick one of the 8 that the opponent selected for them, you can choose one that would be the weakest against any of your 8.

And you only need to do it once, and show your 8 to any opponent (unless you play one and you find it doesn't work out, so you swap it for another after the game), which would be faster than having to roll positions.

This has all the advantages of Chess960 without the disadvantages brought in by randomness, because if the game starts in a very unfair situation, it'll be the fault of the person that put the bad position in their 8 potential starting positions. Instead of randomness we have skills that can be developed to pick 8 starting lineups that could showcase your chess abilities, and give an edge to players with the skills to pick for the opponent, from their 8, one that would give them trouble, no matter what piece arrangement they pick for you.