💡📝John Lewis wrote on Tue, Apr 18, 2006 11:32 PM UTC:
I was thinking of some of the Chess960 starting positions and I realized that some have pretty funny castling in them. For example:
rknnbqrb/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RKNNBQRB w KQkq - 0 1
I picked this from random selection. (Position #747)
In Chess960, you need at least five moves to castle to the right from this position:
rknnbqrb/pppppppp/8/8/8/3NNPB1/PPPPPQPP/RK4RB w KQkq - 0 1
The resulting castle would have the King move 5 spaces and the rook 2. I suppose that's okay. I see Kings make these kinds of moves all the time...wait I mean I see Rooks make these kinds of moves all the time. That's odd. Kings shouldn't be moving so far should they?
Rooks are meant to slide long distances. It's what they do. In Standard Chess Castling provides a unique extra move for the King. In Chess960 that extra movement can result in remarkable rearrangement of pieces, and rather than looking like the King is jumping over a Rook which just made a 'normal' move next to it, it looks like the Rook is jumping out of the way of a speeding King.
rknnbqrb/pppppppp/8/8/8/3NNPB1/PPPPPQPP/R4RKB w kq - 0 1
Ok, so what if you happen to be castling the other direction?
rknnbqrb/pppppppp/8/8/8/3NN3/PPPPPPPP/RK2BQRB w KQkq - 0 1
In this case you only need to move two pieces to give you the space to castle. But what's this? The King moves one space to his right and the Rook jumps three spaces. Why in the world would a rook be jumping three spaces? And why is the King moving right to castle left??
rknnbqrb/pppppppp/8/8/8/3NN3/PPPPPPPP/2KRBQRB w kq - 0 1
Granted, castling is the only time you can move two pieces simultaneously, so it kind of odd anyway, but all this Rook jumping business is very strange! In Standard Chess the only pieces that can jump are Knights and Kings... and Kings only get to do it on their first move as part of a castle.
It really seems more like these pieces aren't Castling so much as teleporting to pre-defined spaces. Which, of course, is exactly what they are doing.
In a bid to keep the game backwards compatible with Standard Chess, castling was restricted to the castling squares found in that game. It wasn't the only way to keep the game backwards compatible, but it was the one chosen by Bobby Fischer.
It also had the effect of putting the Castled pieces in familiar places to Standard Chess players. On the surface this might seem like a very good thing. Standard Chess players would be familiar with how such positions are defended and how to attack them. But I think this is counter to Bobby's own intentions. He was looking for something unfamiliar. Something where you're previous (extensive) knowledge of Standard Chess wouldn't give you an advantage. A game to put those who haven't studied endlessly in books a better chance of playing tactically with those that have.
So much for that, I guess.
In the end, a game can only be as good as it's rules.
rknnbqrb/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RKNNBQRB w KQkq - 0 1
I picked this from random selection. (Position #747)
In Chess960, you need at least five moves to castle to the right from this position:
rknnbqrb/pppppppp/8/8/8/3NNPB1/PPPPPQPP/RK4RB w KQkq - 0 1
The resulting castle would have the King move 5 spaces and the rook 2. I suppose that's okay. I see Kings make these kinds of moves all the time...wait I mean I see Rooks make these kinds of moves all the time. That's odd. Kings shouldn't be moving so far should they?
Rooks are meant to slide long distances. It's what they do. In Standard Chess Castling provides a unique extra move for the King. In Chess960 that extra movement can result in remarkable rearrangement of pieces, and rather than looking like the King is jumping over a Rook which just made a 'normal' move next to it, it looks like the Rook is jumping out of the way of a speeding King.
rknnbqrb/pppppppp/8/8/8/3NNPB1/PPPPPQPP/R4RKB w kq - 0 1
Ok, so what if you happen to be castling the other direction?
rknnbqrb/pppppppp/8/8/8/3NN3/PPPPPPPP/RK2BQRB w KQkq - 0 1
In this case you only need to move two pieces to give you the space to castle. But what's this? The King moves one space to his right and the Rook jumps three spaces. Why in the world would a rook be jumping three spaces? And why is the King moving right to castle left??
rknnbqrb/pppppppp/8/8/8/3NN3/PPPPPPPP/2KRBQRB w kq - 0 1
Granted, castling is the only time you can move two pieces simultaneously, so it kind of odd anyway, but all this Rook jumping business is very strange! In Standard Chess the only pieces that can jump are Knights and Kings... and Kings only get to do it on their first move as part of a castle.
It really seems more like these pieces aren't Castling so much as teleporting to pre-defined spaces. Which, of course, is exactly what they are doing.
In a bid to keep the game backwards compatible with Standard Chess, castling was restricted to the castling squares found in that game. It wasn't the only way to keep the game backwards compatible, but it was the one chosen by Bobby Fischer.
It also had the effect of putting the Castled pieces in familiar places to Standard Chess players. On the surface this might seem like a very good thing. Standard Chess players would be familiar with how such positions are defended and how to attack them. But I think this is counter to Bobby's own intentions. He was looking for something unfamiliar. Something where you're previous (extensive) knowledge of Standard Chess wouldn't give you an advantage. A game to put those who haven't studied endlessly in books a better chance of playing tactically with those that have.
So much for that, I guess.
In the end, a game can only be as good as it's rules.