Why are you guys choosing to play chess instead of Fischer Random Chess/Chess960?

@ThunderClap said in #79:

@Prophiscient ... You said I was Right at first (Chess is the greatest game ever invented) then said something else' to keep responding to queries about your Chess 960 Post , Obviously Chess 960 is a variant of Chess . It will always remain so . So play the variant but please don't respond when I declared case closed . Chess 960 will always be a variant of Chess as that is what it is ,,, Just a matter of Fact . Just in case you don't know why people play Chess it's because they Love Playing Chess & we don't have to play variants if we choose not to or can play them at our own discretion & amounts ... However Chess is Chess & Chess 960 is a variant

I didn’t say you were right. I said, “right,” as in acknowledging what you said, not agreeing with it.

Chess960 is currently a variant of chess until it takes over. The way chess was a variant of chaturanga until chess took over.

Chess will die because people will realize that playing with 960 possible positions is more fun and allows for more creativity than playing the same position over and over again. Obviously.

It's just your ill-informed opinion as Chess is 1400 years old & is part of the CULTURE of the World & Chess960 is a Variant

@ThunderClap said in #82:

It's just your ill-informed opinion as Chess is 1400 years old & is part of the CULTURE of the World & Chess960 is a Variant

All games start off as variants when rules are slightly changed. Chess started as a variant of chaturanga.

Chess is a part of culture, but the game has serious defects due to opening theory and repetitive structures. 960 is a variant of chess the way chess was a variant of chaturanga. But eventually 960 will replace chess, because it’s a better game that rewards creativity.

Chess is a good game and it’ll exist. But we need to be honest about the issues with it and how 960 resolves those issues.

Again ... It's JUST Your ill-informed opinion ... Try to have a good day

@ThunderClap said in #84:

Again ... It's JUST Your ill-informed opinion ... Try to have a good day

That’s not an argument.

Opening theory and repetitive positions are killing chess. Chess960 brings back the old spirit and creativity of chess.

@Prophiscient wrote in #80:

(..) the beauty of chess is navigating pieces through positions so that their function can best be used to achieve your goal (..)

Some of the beauty of old chess is in its starting position.

Chess is a game. It’s arguably a sport. Acknowledging this doesn’t preclude what chess is in any meaningful way. Unless you think chess isn’t a game which is absurd.

What if chess turns out not to be a game? If chess proves to be no game, because when there is too much knowledge to be had there is not enough play. Is it maybe missing it, then, to produce 960?

The story in chess does not depend on different starting positions. Random starting positions bring you away from the story, focussing on the biggest possible number of ways it can be playing out. If chess really were no game, the story should have the focus.

You want to play out the same story over and over again with only minor changes. What’s the fun in that?

We would be content to focus on the story. Our fun and joy would be to make part of the knowledge- a little, because even with SP518 alone it is too much- and to play wherever we can't know. We would not conclude from our limited informability that truth should only be findable otb.

When chess was first created, there was no opening theory. It was a pure game of creativity.

Creativity doesn't happen in a void. It relies on abilities, you create by combining what you know. You are applying theory or you just stumble around. So in as far as you are creative in 960, you apply theory. You don't want to create things but things happening to you, stumble and fall on your feet. You want to be smith of your own luck.

So basically, we should just accept that people who waste their lives on chess will always win in virtue of memorization? That’s depressing for a game as amazing as chess.

We should thank them for showing us the win. Memorizing makes no sense and does not work without understanding. You can't want to advertise 960 because there is less understanding- I mean, not per se. Of course it means more adventure, but these structures will have to be understood in the same way as in SP518.

You’re basically accepting that you either lose or waste your life on the game.

The lesson of chess is don't work so much that you win but have no fun. Play and work so that you have fun when you lose, even. You play "against" one another, but really, you are a team. As a human, you ARE lost in chess. But with fellow humans you can compete in the fields of knowledge and understanding. I find it strange to favour- I mean to favour outright- that game of chess, Chess 960, where the ability to aquire knowledge is not rewarded any longer, as the situation will likely not arise again before it's forgotten? I see that there will be a different form of learning happening. You probanly favour it because it will have to rely more on heuristics and less on concrete analysis, as the exact same situation will rarely concretize again. So you do want chess to be more of a life lesson, to resemble it with its random shufflings and be tackled that way.

So basically, chess has to be given up at the competitive and professional levels? We need to just let theory dominate? The only people who can have fun are the people who don’t take the game seriously?

I see what you mean. Computers (souled) would laugh at your solution,. But it works for humans, who can know variants in standard chess but in 960 throw in the memory towel. Not taking chess seriously will let you find like-minded players. In competitive chess,there used to be a quest for truth, now it is how can we best filter and apply engine knowledge. The problem is being the best human is idle, we cannot explore critical lines better, any more. In the old days, opponents could focus on the common goal, the quest for truth. Now the truth faced can be 20 moves deep opening traps. Mankind is serving itself bits of alpha zero and stockfish at the pace of tournament calendars. But it is not wrong to follow the engines, the progress of the pros must be wearing Siebenmeilenstiefel (7-mile-boots).

The ancients were innovators in unexplored territory. They didn’t have opening theory or engine evaluations to study to tell them what to play. They didn’t play pre-planned moves based on books and engines. They saw a fresh position that was recently created and used their own thinking and creativity to bring order to the chaos.

They recognized the starting position from game one. The game was set up to be recognized and explored. They liked the common cause, or they would have applied random a little earlier. Now many go for Fischer Random for its freshness and freedom. But not many switch completely.

In chess, you don’t use your own creativity to bring order to chaos. If you want real chess success, you study games other people played, copy them to get familiar positions you’ve had multiple times before.

That's correct.

In chess960 you think from the very first move. Your own creativity is present in every move. That’s way more beautiful than rote memorization based on games other people already played.

It's two different projects, one focussing on the story and one on the action. Play both :)