Hacker News Reader

Comment by NickC25 | Hacker News Reader

Chess960 would also be better if both sides were asymmetrical and there were novel positions for both players in every game.

I go to a chess event 2-3 times a month in the city where I live, and there are a few of us that are big into variants and play a lot of Bughouse, Crazyhouse, Racing Kings, etc. 960 is a bunch of fun but asymmetrical 960 is a blast, and asymmetrical Bughouse 960 / Crazyhouse 960 is the most fun and hard version of chess I've ever played. There is no theory, just pure tactics and reaction.

View on HN

> Chess960 would also be better if both sides were asymmetrical and there were novel positions for both players in every game.

Yes! I never understood why people are so much into Fischer Random when there is also e.g. Benko's Pre Chess, where the players just place their pieces on the first and eight rank at the start of the game. Every player can decide to break the symmetry or not. They can even set up the normal chess position if they desire to do so. But for some reason today only Fischer Random is played, probably because Fischer was more famous than Benko. But Benko's version is more elegant, the players have full control and there are more start positions.

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess960-chess-variants/pal...

Also interesting: Start with an empty board and let the players place their pieces and pawns however they want in their half of the board, as long as the piece does not attack an enemy piece.

Probably many asymmetrical combinations are unfair to black. Maybe running through combinations and simulated games with a chess engine could identify ones that are fair, asymmetric and fun? Then a database could be built up of these combinations and it could be randomly selected to start your game.

Maybe there are asymmetrical combinations that actually give Black the advantage? Because Black's setup is nicely harmonious and White's is clumsy. Or maybe not I'm entirely unsure.

From my understanding that is exactly what this group are doing: https://chess960v2.com/en

Similar idea is randomized openings. Checkers does this already. TCEC does chess AI tournaments using sharp preselected openings (matchups playing 2 games, one of each color)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com