Chess Variants are games related to, derived from or inspired bychess. Such variants can differ from chess in many different ways. There are a lot of chessvariants, in my opinion the most popular are Chess 960, Bughouse and SuicideChess.
Fischer Random Chess, also known as Chess960, is a variation of thegame of chess. It was invented by former world chess champion Bobby Fischer onJune 19, 1996 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It employs the same board and piecesas standard chess, but the starting position of the pieces on the players' homeranks is randomized, following certain rules (see below). There are 960 chessinitial positions that’s why it is called chess960.
In random setup, the playersmust rely on their talents and creativity than memorizing long theoreticallines and eliminates the possibility of opening preparation against hisopponent as in normal chess.
In 2008, FIDE added Chess960to an appendix of the Laws of Chess bringing more prominence to the variant. Thefirst world championship officially sanctioned by FIDE, the FIDE World FischerRandom Chess Championship 2019, was held on October 27 – November 2, 2019 inBaerum, Norway and won by Wesley So.
Let’s look at the startingposition of normal chess and chess960.
Chess 960 placementof chess pieces.
1. Pawns are place on the 2nd and 7thranks.
2. All officials are placed on the 1stand 8th ranks
3. King is placed between to Rooks
4. Bishops are placed on opposite coloured squares.
5. The Black pieces are placed equal andopposite to the White pieces.
6. White King can’t be placeon a1 or h1.
The Objective of Chess960 is the same with normal chess tocheckmate the opponent King. Movements of Chess pieces are the same, but there are clarification about Castling. For more information seeFIDE laws of chess appendix F.
Let’s see one of the games ofChess960.
By Coach Gerald Ferriol