I don’t personally think reducing draws would improve the game at all
Isn't the argument something about how grandmasters are incentivized to play it safe to a draw much of the time, which results in less interesting games?
Chess324 – A Chess Variant to Reduce Draws
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Re: Chess324 – A Chess Variant to Reduce Draws
#22I don’t personally think reducing draws would improve the game at all
This is primarily for computer chess, where the draw rate is even higher than in super-GM level chess. It's an alternative to having engines play from a preset position where one side starts with a significant advantage, which is what usually happens in computer chess tournaments. It's essentially the subset of Chess960 positions that don't need modifications to the castling rule, and thus should work on all engines…
It's not quite a subset of Chess960 positions, because Chess324 allows different piece layouts between white and black and Chess960 does not.
Edit: A comment further down points out that only 18 of the 324 positions are symmetrical, so the vast majority of Chess324 positions could not happen in 960.
Re: Chess324 – A Chess Variant to Reduce Draws
#23Has anyone thought/experimented of a variant that works a bit like the starting phase of Risk: pawns are as they are classically, but players take turns in the beginning phase placing their other pieces in their respective bottom/upper file.
I've heard this referred to as either Placement Chess or Bronstein's Chess (after the GM who reportedly suggested it). It's available to play on https://pychess.org, where it's called Placement Chess.
Re: Chess324 – A Chess Variant to Reduce Draws
#24I don’t personally think reducing draws would improve the game at all
This is primarily for computer chess, where the draw rate is even higher than in super-GM level chess. It's an alternative to having engines play from a preset position where one side starts with a significant advantage, which is what usually happens in computer chess tournaments. It's essentially the subset of Chess960 positions that don't need modifications to the castling rule, and thus should work on all engines…
An alternative is just to stop bending over backwards solely for the sake of supporting castling, which is an inelegant hack in the first place.
Re: Chess324 – A Chess Variant to Reduce Draws
#25Chess and Go are very different in that one is for points and the other is for annihilation. However, Go solved the draw (and first player advantage) with 'komi'. Giving white (the second player) some extra points, I think it's usually around 6.5 points right now. The amount that komi should be is still up for debate and changing, though I think everyone agrees the half portion is good.
Though stronger players can no longer give 'presents', where you force a draw on a weaker opponent by ensuring both players end up with the same amount of points.
Is there amendment to chess that could work similarly? Nothing is coming to mind, but Chess is not my domain.
Re: Chess324 – A Chess Variant to Reduce Draws
#26So, this website introduces Chess 744 and addresses the confusing castling issues of Chess 960. Basically, we removed the Chess 960 setups with rook and king in a corner and then used the exact mechanic from standard chess. Rool moves to king (if not already adjacent) and then king swings behind the rook. Here is the site - along with a designated setup for each calendar day.
Re: Chess324 – A Chess Variant to Reduce Draws
#27[deleted]
Re: Chess324 – A Chess Variant to Reduce Draws
#28Chess960[0] aka Fischer Random aka "Freestyle Chess" (the last is a name chess.com has been using") is a fairly popular variant with 960 possible starting positions. The way I'm interpreting this, 324 is different in that the rooks & kings are fixed, but the position is asymmetric. Is it called 324 because there are 324 possible starting positions? Also, I'm inferring that this is popular in computer chess specifical…
> Is it called 324 because there are 324 possible starting positions?
Yes, each side has 18 possible setups. The bishops have 3 x 2 possible opposite-color placements among the 5 squares, and then the queen and 2 knights have 3 ways to occupy the remaining 3 squares. 18 x 18 = 324.
Re: Chess324 – A Chess Variant to Reduce Draws
#29The idea of an asymmetric Chess starting position is very interesting, although it does introduce more risk of one side starting with a big advantage (perhaps this has been analyzed). I also like that in this variant, castling works like normal -- that is one of the most unintuitive aspects of Chess960.
We fixed the castling issue with Chess 744. Thoughts?
Re: Chess324 – A Chess Variant to Reduce Draws
#30Chess and Go are very different in that one is for points and the other is for annihilation. However, Go solved the draw (and first player advantage) with 'komi'. Giving white (the second player) some extra points, I think it's usually around 6.5 points right now. The amount that komi should be is still up for debate and changing, though I think everyone agrees the half portion is good. Though stronger players can no…
Actually komi in go solves the problem that black won nearly all the even games between strong players, except when white was an exceptionally strong player.
Hence the original 4.5 points komi about 100 years ago. The half point is the part that turns a draw into a win for white, that starts playing after black. But it's not strictly necessary: we could state in the rules that white wins draws.
Black started playing less conservatively and komi was soon adjusted to 5.5 points. It became 6.5 points at the turn of the century. It's 7.5 with Chinese and area rules.
This variant of chess seems to me potentially unfair to the player that gets a bad starting position, one that loses most games or that could even be winning but only with a narrow and difficult path to find. It could work in a tournament if all players have to play all the initial configurations. In thnk