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- Proposed by former world chess champion Bobby Fischer in 1996 to avoid the increasingly deep memorization of chess openings
- Materials required: A chess set and two opponents
- There are 960 possible starting configurations; the traditional start position (RNBQKBNR) is one of the 960
- Other than setup and castling, all standard chess rules apply
- A book about Fischer and the game, entitled Shall We Play Fischerandom Chess? was written by GM Svetozar Gligoric in 2002
- Related to: Shuffle Chess and Prechess
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Fischerandom Chess, often called Chess960, is a variation of chess in which the pieces on the back row are arranged randomly at the start of each game. The White pieces start with each piece facing the equivalent Black piece on its column: the Kings start on the same column, the Queens are on the same column, and so on. Players may roll a die, use an online position generator, or use their own discretion to set up the pieces randomly.
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Setup
- The White pieces are usually arranged first
- The row of Pawns is the same as in the traditional start position, all Pawns on a player's second row
- The Bishops start on opposite colors
- The Rooks are placed at least one square apart
- The King is placed anywhere between the two Rooks
- The Queen and Knights are placed randomly
- The Black pieces are arranged equal and opposite to the White pieces
To Get a Random Position Using a Die
- Work on the back rank, roll a die for each piece to be placed randomly, and reroll if the number is too high (like greater than four for a Bishop)
- Place one Bishop at random on the four light squares, then place the other Bishop at random on the four dark squares
- Place the Queen and Knights at random on the six empty squares
- Place the King and Rooks on the three empty squares so that the King is between the two Rooks
