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Castling in Chess 960. New castling rules for Fischer Random Chess. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Mark Thompson wrote on Thu, Apr 20, 2006 02:40 AM UTC:

'But clearly, Fide chess is approaching a crisis. It could soon be renamed
'Opening Study Chess'. It's becoming ridiculous. I think there are two
ways of meeting this challenge. (1) Follow Capablanca's proposal and
increase the board size, or (2) introduce a form of drop-chess along
Burmesian lines, as my own proposal Swedish Chess.'

I think there is an option (3), or at least (2b), which is what I've
called 'Mercenary Chess'. Let us start a world CV organization that
maintains a catalog of pieces, perhaps a bit less inclusive than the
Piececlopedia, but with a price for each piece, measured in points. (The
organization should have some system for monitoring the empirical value of
different pieces based on their observed usefulness in tournament play, and
adjusting prices periodically based on what they learn.) Each player starts
with 1000 points, or perhaps it should be 100 points per file on the
rectangular board chosen, and the players start the game by alternately
purchasing their starting pieces and dropping them on the board. Such a
system would be amenable to handicapping, by giving one player a few more
points than the other. Equal players might decide to give Black a few more
points to compensate for moving second.

This idea has been proposed in various forms by several people. I think I
heard that Bob Betza was first, calling an idea very much like this one
'Generalized Chess.'