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Relocation Chess. Swap a pair of your own pieces before you begin. With Fischer Random castling rules.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝M Winther wrote on Thu, Apr 30, 2009 05:10 AM UTC:
Greg, it is exactly such reflections that are valuable. My standpoint is the following. It is necessary to maintain the first move advantage in order to retain the  strategical tension. For a variant to compete with orthochess there must be  a gradient, or a flow, in play. The standard position in orthochess holds very good attacking prospects for white. The setup is an attacking position. In Relocation Chess we give black the chance to disrupt this ideal position. Hence I recompence white by giving him the last word in the setup of the pieces. I believe that this gives white a slight possibility to maintain an advantage. Of course, I am not certain, but I think that black can improve his defensive prospects if he relocates his king. It is immediately protected. Another important factor is that long castle will occur more often while the king can remain protected for a long time before deciding which side to castle on. The foremost reason why short castle is much more common in orthochess is because the players have to get the king out of the way. In Relocation Chess this problem can be avoided. 
There is a bug in my zrf, however. The pawn can capture by moving forward to the last rank, while promoting. I have fixed it but I cannot upload it while there is some problem with my FTP.
I have also invented relocation variants that are mirrored, etc. But I cannot upload them.
/Mats