Firscher was right about FischerRandom

[Uri Blass]

I never understood why FRC/Chess 960 needs to be symmetrical.

A man who knew Bobby Fischer well (sorry - forgotten his name) expressed the view that FRC is designed to Bobby's strengths. His argument was:

* he was good at opening theory

* he didn't like memorising a large number of particular lines

His adaptation was a game that kills the value of memorising particular lines, but results in a game which, after a few moves, gets you back into standard chess opening theory.

My judgement: this man was very credible, and he's probably got it about right.

I think a good memory was a relative strength of Bobby Fischer so I do not know the basis for the claim that he did not like memorizing a large number of particular lines.

Note that I memorized the word memorize with z and not with s so I searched in google to see and I found that both are correct.

https://sapling.ai/usage/memorizing-vs-memorising

[lkaufman]

To be more precise, the problem is not that it is drawn with perfect play, but that the drawing margin is too wide. GO with the proper integer Komi (6 or 7 maybe depending on rules) is also theoretically drawn, but the margin is so slim that it is fully playable even with today's super engines. Chess could also be like this with some changes, either to rules or to initial position (and Armageddon rule).

Very well put!

There are many differences between chess and go - but regarding the draw margin, the key difference is that the branching factor is much higher in go than it is in chess: the lower the branching factor, the easier it's going to be to find the optimal solution, especially for computers - but also for humans as well.

In the end, if you want computer chess to have fewer draws, you'll need bigger boards. This would solve the problem, but would make the games too long for most people to be willing to play the game - or even watch it. Cricket has an event called "5 day test match", but the game has mostly been moving to shorter formats in recent decades. Maybe leisure time will start increasing, and events will start lengthening again - but there's no sign of that right now.

I can think also about different ideas except bigger board.
1)What if you change the rules to allow 2 moves in a row for every player in their turn when in case of choosing to play 2 moves the first move cannot be a capture or a checking move?

Definition of checkmate remain the same because when the king is in check the first move must get the move out of check.

Assuming computers cannot prove a forced win for white this game has a clearly bigger branching factor than chess.

2)what if a move can be also a sequence of 2 moves when the first one of them is a legal chess move and the second one is replacing the squares of 2 pieces that you have so first move can be 1.e4 and replace between bishop f1 and knight b1?

The first option above is a well-known chess variant, and a rather good one I believe (I think White only starts with a single move to make it roughly fair). Actually I use this idea to teach chess to my 6 year old granddaughter, she gets two moves for every move I get, which makes the game roughly balanced (she is not quite Magnus Carlsen level yet!). But this double move variant cannot be called chess, it is a very different game, one of thousands of variants that are fundamentally different from standard chess. The topic here is alternations to chess that still leave it feeling like chess, where the same skills work, where chess principles built up over hundreds of years still apply, even if some minor details (like the initial position or some draw rules) are changed. If you want a chess variant with hardly any draws and don't care if it is fundamentally different from chess, just play Shogi! Note: just in the last year computers are showing that "probably" shogi is a win for the first player, which may depend on which set of draw rules is used, but in practice it's just a 52-48 edge.

[lkaufman]

We in the chess engine community just have to find the best way to participate in 960.

With crowd computing the chess engine community can build opening books for each of the 959 non-standard opening positions that rival current opening theory in depth

Yes, but that's not the problem. Eventually games will differ from books (given that dissimilar engines are playing), and if the draw margin is small enough or we start near the win/draw line the result will still be in doubt. For humans the books are even less of a problem, human memory is limited. The issue with 960 for engines is how do we get around the gigantic draw margin of the current rules of chess, without making a totally new game?

[chesskobra]

Note that I memorized the word memorize with z and not with s so I searched in google to see and I found that both are correct.

https://sapling.ai/usage/memorizing-vs-memorising

Fischer was American, so he didn't like to memorise.

[towforce]

Note that I memorized the word memorize with z and not with s so I searched in google to see and I found that both are correct.

https://sapling.ai/usage/memorizing-vs-memorising

Fischer was American, so he didn't like to memorise.

You'd think we'd be allowed to set the rules for the language that bears our name!

[CornfedForever]

Apparently, you are including Rapid games. After today's games (2 wins and 2 draws), it still remains true that there has not been a single classical time limit game (out of 20) which was drawn without either player reaching a likely won position at some point (per stockfish 16), as both of today's draws involved missed wins (in one case multiple wins by both sides!). With allocating the first missed win to the side who missed it, the score would now be 10 to 10 (White vs Black!). I'm sure this is a fluke, in the long run it should be a clear White plus.

Two things to remember when simply going on 'results' in a tiny sample size - these tourneys are 'matches' where the winner of the match goes on.

1. If one loses the first game (lets say black since when has decent edge in most games), he may 'push' more in the 2nd because he has to equalize....introducing a uniquely human factor into the result.
2. 'Results' themselves are not terribly reliable as humans 'err'....particularly when given choices and under pressure.

So, it may be best to stick to trying to judge the actual edge one gets in having white to a tuned computer evaluation at say moves 10 or 15 at every possible (reasonable) position resulting from every opening set up.

This would seem doable currently with enough VERY fast computer vs computer time control games. Just thinking out loud, in tournaments contestants are not required to both play the same position as white and black, organizers could simply lop off the, say, 20% (or whatever) of positions where White starts with too much of an edge...this to balance out the fairness factor.