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It'd be interesting to know what their rankings are. Is it just to pass the time at a weak level or do a lot of them become quite strong?

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There is one picture [0] where the board isn't set properly (the square at the the bottom right corner is black instead of white), so I suppose they some of them are not too strong.

[0] http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/wm/live/624_351/images/li...

Or perhaps it doesn't matter to them? The orientation of the colors bears no effect on the play of the game.

It might be confusing to people very used to the "traditional" rotation, but maybe breaking free of it is a good mental exercise? ;)

It's not only the rotation of the board. Look where those bishops are placed. There's bishop on b1 with pawns on a2 and c2.

Maybe they are playing Fischer Random...

not that random considering the position of K & Q.

Swap bishop and knight starting is a common displacement chess variant.

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