Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

There is most certainly a set numbering system for identifying Fischer Random Chess positions. See:

http://frcec.tripod.com/fischerrandomchessstartingpositions/

While I'm on the subject, does anyone know where the name Chess960 came from? This game was invented by Bobby Fischer; has he accepted or acknowledged this new name?

Sorry Greg, but that is only one of *several* numbering systems I've seen.
 What I said was that there was no *standard* number system I was aware
of.

To show a mirror position in order to explain why there are technically
only 480 positions if Orthodox Castling is used.

The term 'Chess960' was invent by Hans-Walter Schmitt (chairman of the
Frankfurt Chess Tigers e.V.) after debate over a new name that did not
include Bobby Fischer's name.

There is of course a numbering scheme for Chess960 (Fischer Random Chess).
I invented it some years ago, and it is widely accepted. For details see
e.g. in my (German) book on Chess960
http://www.chessbox.de/Compu/fullchess1_e.html or see at the two page
document I gave (first page with table) to the Chess Tigers
http://www.chesstigers.de/download/chess960_regeln.pdf .

With best regards, Reinhard Scharnagl.

CHESS960 top ratings:

   1     Svidler,Peter                      2755
   2     Aronian,Levon                      2752
   3     Bacrot,Etienne                     2746
   4     Leko,Peter                         2735
   5     Adams,Michael                      2735
   6     Shirov,Alexey                      2723
   7     Morozevich,Alexander               2719
   8     Ponomariov,Ruslan                  2716
   9     Dreev,Alexey                       2711
  10     Sokolov,Ivan                       2687
  11     Grischuk,Alexander                 2682
  12     Kobalija,Mihail                    2679
  13     Almasi,Zoltan                      2676
  14     Jussupow,Artur                     2670
  15     Zvjaginsev,Vadim                   2670
  16     Rublevsky,Sergei                   2667
  17     Landa,Konstantin                   2660
  18     Motylev,Alexander                  2657
  19     Sasikiran,Krishnan                 2656
  20     Nielsen,Peter-Heine                2652
  21     Bologan,Victor                     2650
  22     McShane,Luke-James                 2645
  23     Gurevich,Mikhail                   2643
  24     Sargissian,Gabriel                 2635
  25     Milov,Vadim                        2632
  26     Harikrishna,Pentela                2628
  27     Nisipeanu,Liviu-Dieter             2626
  28     Gyimesi,Zoltan                     2625
  29     Vallejo Pons,Francisco             2624
  30     Sutovsky,Emil                      2622

Rather than thinking of 2 sets of 480 positions, perhaps it's better to think of 480 sets of 2 positions. The two positions in each set are related by left-right reflection, and have equivalent strategy trees.

I agree with John that it's aesthetically preferable to play all 960 positions, but if you want to choose just one from each pair, how about the one where the Queen is to the left of the King in White's starting position?

Reinhard, we have used your numbering scheme to identify Chess480 starting
arrays (since these are identical to Chess960 positions) - I hope this is
OK with you?

Austin

[1]
Chess players interested in ches480 or chess960 (a.k.a. Fischer Random
Chess, FRC) may be interested to hear that a major new chess960 book has
been published (Jan 2006).  Title is:

'Play Stronger Chess by Examining Chess960:
Usable Strategies of Fischer Random Chess Discovered'

(ISBN 0-9774521-0-7)

Searching in Amazon.com or Google.com will find the book.

Or visit http://CastleLong.com/


[2]
I suspect that chess480, with its castling rule having the King move two
squares instead of to the traditional squares c1 or g1, would lead to
LESS
OPPOSITE WING castling games than would chess960/FRC.
Thus I suspect the draw rate would be higher in chess480 than in
chess960.
Generally a higher draw rate is bad.

In my chess960 book I describe a tweak of the chess960 castling rule,
designed to increase the rate of opposite wing castling.  Statistics show
that the draw rate is lower when the two players castle to opposite
wings.
 Opposite wing castling is almost rare in traditional 'chess1', which
may
be considered a flaw in the engineering of the rules (choices made when
chess1 was invented in the 1400's).  Basically, my rule would give the
second player to castle more freedom to choose the destination square of
his castling king, if but only if he castles to the opposite wing.


Thank you.
Gene Milener