@AllSpeedNoSkill 1..R@h8.
Let's try to set it up so black can castle if I put the king at e8. I think the board editor may allow it under Fischer random rules.
Bronstein Chess, aka Placement Chess or PreChess, is the most free-spirited, strategically rich, and fairest form of chess. There is no logical or mathematical argument that can refute this. When I call it the fairest form of chess, I mean it naturally balances white's first-move advantage, because it is a disadvantage to place the first piece!
@boorchess I like the original rules regarding castling. Mixing fischer random rules to Bronstein chess just eliminates its simplicity IMO.
Anyhow, thx for the game!
@gbtami Yes. Let's follow the idea of Bronstein. It is also neat that you are rewarded by placing your king only at e1 (in the center of the battle field) with the option of castling, encouraging players to have more classical type positions I suppose.
@flaretactics agreed. Over 8 million starting positions!
Pal Benko:
“The continual refinement of technique and assimilation of knowledge, particularly in the openings,will gradually lead to the extinction of the game – it will be solved, played out… Most of the blame – if that is the word – must fall on the vast store of opening information that is available to every player (and every computer). The amount of study a master has to do to remain up to date in the openings would suffice for a college education. If he neglects his studies his score suffers. I think this corrupts the essential nature of chess, which is a fight between the creative ideas of two individuals. The vast array of predetermined opening variations and theories is, in my view, so much dead weight that should be discarded to save the true values of chess… The task, then, is to find a minimal change in the rules that would retain as much of the present game as possible and yet eliminate its worst feature, the over-analyzed starting position. … The placing of the pieces has a strategy all its own … It is clear that neither player, if he is alert, can get a serious disadvantage in this phase… Although White still has the first move, this gives Black the potentially important first clue as to how to place his own forces. It seems to me that for this reason the chances of the two sides are more nearly equal in Pre-Chess than in the standard game and that this will have the effect of producing not more draws but more exciting chess.”
By the way, can we put both Bishops on the same coloured square?
@finlip "The pieces may occupy any square as long as the bishops are on opposite colors. The kings do not have to be placed between the rooks."
