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Check out Janggi (Korean Chess), our featured variant for December, 2024.
Check out Janggi (Korean Chess), our featured variant for December, 2024.
I find Mr. Reinhard Scharnagl's preferences interesting, and I'll address each one in turn. Remember, I am biased for the 480Chess method of castling.
a) The Chess960 castling rule is consistent, in Chess480 there are small variations, when the king is near to the borders: then he will move castling one step 'shorter'.
Consistency is in the eye of the beholder. It's true that in Chess480, the king on the 'b' or 'g' file can't make a two square leap to the near side. However I find this highly preferable to similar situations in Chess960 where the King doesn't move at all. Castling without the King moving seems rediculous to me. In Chess480 the King consistently moves and normally two spaces, unlike Chess960 where the King might travel anywhere from 0 to 5 spaces. From my perspective it's Chess960 that's inconsistent.
b) As reflected in the name, Chess960 preserves the natural asymmetry of the chess game supporting 960 different starting arrays. In Chess480 mirrored positions lead to equivalent situations (thus SMIRF proposes only such randomized positions for Chess480, where the white Kings is on white Queen's right side).
It's true that there are only 480 starting positions in Chess480 (hence the name). While you can still play the game from all 960 starting positions of Chess960 for variety, strategically there are only 480 that matter.
Having said that, the stated goal of both Chess960 and Chess480 is to open the game of Chess from it's years of studied opening play. Both games do this. I personally find the asymmetry of Chess960 to be a hinderence to introduction of the game to new players. (Which leads to your final point.)
c) After castling Chess960 positions are looking more similar to traditional chess games after the opening stage. Maybe that is the reason, why the masters will stay with Chess960.
If the masters gain some advantage from the board looking similar to traditional chess after the opening stage, then I think something has been lost from the inspiration of the game. Chess960 was intended to remove the advantage that is enjoyed by those very masters who have studied endless openings. Quoting David Wheeler 'Fischer's goal was to create a chess variant in which chess creativity and talent would be more important than memorization and analysis of opening moves.'. Liberating Chess from the book openings might also require removing from possible opening transpositions to similar openings. Chess960 is much more likely to have this happen as you've noted.
I understand why some who have invested so much time in Chess960 might view Chess480 is some kind of threat. The variant is easier to understand for novices and has many advantages over Chess960. Even hardcore 960 fans admit that the castling rules are overly complicated (they take up the majority of the rules themselves)... but none of them want to leave the rich history of games played in Chess960. I can't blame them. I'm sure players of regular chess didn't want to lose their history either.