960 Clock Anyone

[AdminX]

The first chess clock that automatically and at random will generate 960 starting positions. The display shows symbols indicating in which position the pieces have to be placed on the board.

Price: EUR 29.95

[hgm]

Nice feature. But I wonder why people do not simply use the Chess set for generating the position.

What I would do is write piece names on the bottom of all the white Pawns: K, Q, R (2x), N (2x), B, Bx, and the numbers 1-8 on the bottom of the black Pawns. Before the game, the black player would put the white Pawns on the center of the board, and vice versa. (To make as sure as they want that the other player cannot cheat by peeking and remembering what was written on the bottom of the Pawns.) The players would then set up their own Pawns on the 2nd/7th rank, without turning them upside down to look on the bottom.

After this is done, they would look at the bottom of the white Pawns, and put the piece specified on the bottom on the same file as that Pawn. If the Bishops would end up on the same color in this procedure, (which happens in 43% of the cases), they would look on the bottom of the 4 black Pawns on ranks of the other color, to see which had the lowest number. The Bishop behind the Bx Pawn would then be exchanged with whatever piece there was in that file. After that, if the King would not be between the Rooks, it would be exchanged with the Rook nearest to it.

This procedure generates all positions with equal probability, without requiring extra hardware.

[AdminX]

Nice feature. But I wonder why people do not simply use the Chess set for generating the position.

What I would do is write piece names on the bottom of all the white Pawns: K, Q, R (2x), N (2x), B, Bx, and the numbers 1-8 on the bottom of the black Pawns. Before the game, the black player would put the white Pawns on the center of the board, and vice versa. (To make as sure as they want that the other player cannot cheat by peeking and remembering what was written on the bottom of the Pawns.) The players would then set up their own Pawns on the 2nd/7th rank, without turning them upside down to look on the bottom.

After this is done, they would look at the bottom of the white Pawns, and put the piece specified on the bottom on the same file as that Pawn. If the Bishops would end up on the same color in this procedure, (which happens in 43% of the cases), they would look on the bottom of the 4 black Pawns on ranks of the other color, to see which had the lowest number. The Bishop behind the Bx Pawn would then be exchanged with whatever piece there was in that file. After that, if the King would not be between the Rooks, it would be exchanged with the Rook nearest to it.

This procedure generates all positions with equal probability, without requiring extra hardware.

Very Clever Idea!