Counterplay / Readers Respond
CASTLING IN CHESS960: ANOTHER APPEAL FOR SIMPLICITY
Chess960 is a noble, but flawed attempt to force players to start thinking from the very first move of the game. The biggest problem with Chess960 are the bizarre castling rules. For anyone not familiar with Chess960, consider the following, which is just one bizarre aspect of “castling.” Depending on the opening setup, when castling, the king can move anywhere from five squares to zero squares to minus one squares (yes, the king can actually move in the opposite direction than it normally would). It would be diffi- cult to teach this maneuver to anyone not familiar with standard chess. A variant called Chess480 seeks to simplify these castling rules, but in doing so creates some of its own issues. I propose a variant which achieves the
goal of eliminating memorization of open- ings while avoiding the failings of both Chess960 and Chess480. This variant, which I have dubbed Chess18, has a ran- domized opening setup just like its “predecessors.” The difference is that the rooks and the king start on the same squares that they do now so that castling remains exactly the same as it is now— problem solved! An additional benefit of Chess18 is that
it avoids the situation in Chess960 where with some opening setups White can attack an undefended black pawn with her first move. When Bobby Fischer met with former
FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov to pro- pose the switch to Chess960, Ilyumzhinov advocated “step-by-step” changes mindful of the heritage of chess. Well, here is such a step.
David Couture via e-mail
Chess Life asked Damian Nash, a two-
time Utah state champion who ran small Chess960 tournaments at the U.S. Opens in 2010 and 2011, and also conducted small break-out sessions on the topic, to reply:
David Couture hits the nail on the head.
Bizarre castling rules are a serious problem with Chess960 (Fischer Random). His solu- tion is novel: Leave the rooks and king on
6 July 2013 | Chess Life
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the same squares as classical chess, thereby keeping familiar rules intact. Chess18 is a logical first step toward the evolution of the world’s greatest game, expanding opening books by a factor of 18. Another interesting alternative is “Moab Random,” a form of pre-chess that replaces castling (already a bizarre move in classical chess) with the much simpler ‘evacua tion’ of the king to any empty back-rank square. Kudos to Mr. Couture and other game the-
orists who attempt to wrestle chess out of the grip of the brilliantly obsessive memo- rizers at the top, who hold Ph.D. equivalents in opening theory. Consistent with Bobby Fischer’s hope for the future of the game, Chess18 could help return chess to the vastly larger audience of brilliant tacticians and strategists worldwide; at least for a lit- tle while, until opening jargon catches up. In classical chess, opening experience usu- ally trumps raw talent. But in ChessX, as X increases, natural ability and sound strategy will yield progressively better results.
THE EAGLE HAS LANDED At the end of her game with Anna
Ushenina (“Eagle Hunting in Kazakhstan,” May 2013 Chess Life), IM Irina Krush poses the question, “Why did Black resign, instead of trying 41. ... Qf7?” Perhaps Ms. Ushenina saw the mate in 3: 42. Qxg8+! Qxg8 43. Nxf6+ Kh8 44. Rxg8 mate.
Chuck Bass North Highlands, California
Thank you Mr. Bass; we should have listed this at the end of the article. ~Ed.
CORRECTIONS
In the April 2013 issue’s “Yearbook” the U.S. Masters was inadvertently omitted. Here is the full item:
U.S. MASTERS (AKA MID-WEST MASTERS PRIOR TO 1990)
1982 Leonid Bass, L. Kaushansky, Michael Brooks • 1984 L. Kaushan- sky, Michael Brooks, Paul Kuroda • 1985 Igor Ivanov, Vince McCambridge, Bruce Leverett • 1986 Joel Benjamin, Yehuda Gruenfeld, Sergey Kudrin • 1987 Joel Benjamin, Sergey Kudrin, Leonid Shamkovich • 1988 Victor Frias • 1989 Michael Brooks • 1990 Tony Miles • 1996 Dmitry Gurevich • 1997 Suat Atalik, Alex ander Sha- balov, Dmitry Gurevich • 1998 Boris Gulko • 1999 None • 2000 Jaan Ehlvest, Alek Wojtkiewicz, Nick de Firmian, Alexander Ba burin, Alexan- der Shab alov, Pavel Blatney, Rashid Ziatdinov • 2002 Gregory Kaidanov, Alexander Onischuk, Daniel Fridman, Leonid Yudasin, Alek Wojtkiewicz • 2003-2005 Not held • 2006 Daniel Ludwig • 2007 Jaan Ehlvest • 2008 Not held • 2009 Not held • 2010 Craig W. Jones • 2011 Not held • 2012 Giorgi Margvelashvili
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