Chess960
The back-rank pieces start in one of 960 arrangements; castling still lands on the usual squares.
The idea
The pieces behind the pawns start in one of 960 arrangements.
- The bishops stand on squares of different colours.
- The king stands somewhere between the two rooks.
- Castling still ends with the king on g1 or c1, the rook on f1 or d1.
In a game: From the first move, look for undefended pawns and bishops aiming down the long diagonals.
How the lesson begins
Chess960 is chess with the pieces behind the pawns shuffled. Bobby Fischer put it forward in 1996, so it is also called Fischer Random Chess. The pawns stand as usual, and Black’s pieces mirror White’s: here both sides have a bishop in each corner, the rooks on the b-file and the f-file, and the king on the c-file.
Every rule of chess stays the same, except where the pieces start and how castling moves them. Opening lines learnt by heart are no use, so both players must think from the first move.
The start is not quite random. Two rules always hold:
1. The bishops stand on squares of different colours, one light and one dark.
2. The king stands somewhere between the two rooks, so that it can castle on either side.
There are exactly 960 arrangements that keep both rules, which gives the game its name. The ordinary starting position is one of them.
A question
Which of these could be White’s back rank at the start of a Chess960 game? The pieces are listed from a1 to h1.
Show the answer
Bishop, rook, knight, king, rook, queen, knight, bishop.
Right. The bishops on a1 and h1 stand on a dark and a light square, and the king on d1 is between the rooks on b1 and e1.