Playing with wrong placement of the Queen • page 1/3 • General Chess Discussion • lichess.org

A purely curiosity-driven question:

In OTB chess between beginners and occasional players, it's a common mistake to put one of the Queen / King pairs on the wrong squares - for example, the white King may be placed on d1 and the Queen on e1. [EDIT to clarify: you get an unsymmetrical position, with Kings on d1 and e8, and Queens on e1 and d8, respectively].

Obviously this is totally against the rules, but is there any theory for this "illegal" variant of chess? I think it's quite intriguing as short castles go to opposite sides of the board - maybe you get interesting, sharp games with this setup?

Or maybe this is just a silly Saturday-night-after-two-beers kind of thought...

A purely curiosity-driven question: In OTB chess between beginners and occasional players, it's a common mistake to put one of the Queen / King pairs on the wrong squares - for example, the white King may be placed on d1 and the Queen on e1. [EDIT to clarify: you get an unsymmetrical position, with Kings on d1 and e8, and Queens on e1 and d8, respectively]. Obviously this is totally against the rules, but is there any theory for this "illegal" variant of chess? I think it's quite intriguing as short castles go to opposite sides of the board - maybe you get interesting, sharp games with this setup? Or maybe this is just a silly Saturday-night-after-two-beers kind of thought...

greysensei

#2

In this setup. d4 openings would be equivalent to e4 and vice versa. Not too much difference.

It's very different, if only one side has the wrong placement, thus making the starting position unsymmetrical - i.e. Kings on d1 and e8, Queens on e1 and d8. Sorry, I should have made this clearer.

@pkill
I don't think so. You get short castles to opposite sides of the board.

@greysensei It's very different, if only one side has the wrong placement, thus making the starting position unsymmetrical - i.e. Kings on d1 and e8, Queens on e1 and d8. Sorry, I should have made this clearer. @pkill I don't think so. You get short castles to opposite sides of the board.

#5

Panagrellus

#6

@pkill
Haha, good idea with the Lichess analysis board. I tried to play around a bit with your setup, following engine lines - until it dawned on me that there's a problem. The engine doesn't consider castles as a legal move for white - which makes sense, as according to the rules of standard chess you'd have to assume that the king had moved before.

But if you see this setup as a "variant" of chess it should be possible for both sides to castle, of course.

It's amazing that despite this apparent unfairness (Black is allowed to castle, White not) the engine appears to give white a slight advantage coming out of the opening, at least in the line I followed (around depth 20-something).

@pkill Haha, good idea with the Lichess analysis board. I tried to play around a bit with your setup, following engine lines - until it dawned on me that there's a problem. The engine doesn't consider castles as a legal move for white - which makes sense, as according to the rules of standard chess you'd have to assume that the king had moved before. But if you see this setup as a "variant" of chess it should be possible for both sides to castle, of course. It's amazing that despite this apparent unfairness (Black is allowed to castle, White not) the engine appears to give white a slight advantage coming out of the opening, at least in the line I followed (around depth 20-something).

Panagrellus

#7

@pkill

This is getting hilarious. I was doubly mistaken, the engine allows (long??) castles with a King on D1 after all?

https://lichess.org/analysis/rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBKQBNR_w_KQkq_-_0_1#10

Did you tweak the settings in the analysis board somehow? I assume this must be Chess960 rules?

@pkill This is getting hilarious. I was doubly mistaken, the engine allows (long??) castles with a King on D1 after all? https://lichess.org/analysis/rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBKQBNR_w_KQkq_-_0_1#10 Did you tweak the settings in the analysis board somehow? I assume this must be Chess960 rules?

#8

edot12345

#9

its +0.4 instead of 0.3 :D. big difference

Panagrellus

#10

@pkill

Strange, the link to the position doesn't work, but on my screen it does suggest some kind of weird 0-0-0 to the right side of the board... maybe Lichess is becoming a sentient being, messing with the brains of users.

screenshot:
https://imgur.com/a/sLX6FOk

@pkill Strange, the link to the position doesn't work, but on my screen it does suggest some kind of weird 0-0-0 to the right side of the board... maybe Lichess is becoming a sentient being, messing with the brains of users. screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/sLX6FOk