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Castling in Chess 960. New castling rules for Fischer Random Chess. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Reinhard Scharnagl wrote on Mon, Feb 27, 2006 12:21 AM UTC:
There have been some quarrels on what currently is named Chess480 and had
first been intended to propose a modification to Chess960. I welcome, that
now it has lead to an own, different variant proposal. Chess480 also has
been implemented e.g. in the multivariant GUI + engine SMIRF. Nevertheless
I personally prefer Chess960 because of following reasons:

a) The Chess960 castling rule is consistent, in Chess480 there are small
variations, when the king is near to the borders: then he will move
castling one step 'shorter'.

b) As reflected in the name, Chess960 preserves the natural asymmetry of
the chess game supporting 960 different starting arrays. In Chess480
mirrored positions lead to equivalent situations (thus SMIRF proposes only
such randomized positions for Chess480, where the white Kings is on white
Queen's right side).

c) After castling Chess960 positions are looking more similar to
traditional chess games after the opening stage. Maybe that is the reason,
why the masters will stay with Chess960.

Best regards, Reinhard.