4 ms·

I think no-castling just generates a different opening theory, and Chess960's 960 starting positions are also not enough: it should be possible to memorize at l

by devit 7y ago

I think no-castling just generates a different opening theory, and Chess960's 960 starting positions are also not enough: it should be possible to memorize at least the best white move for each of the 960 positions, and probably the main variation and even more. The only way to be sure is to have a random chess variant with at least a billion different possible opening starting positions: the conceptually simplest way seems to be to place all pieces completely randomly in the first three ranks (in the same way for each color), while rejecting any position that allows white to make a capture, check or threaten to capture a non-pawn piece on the first move.

have_faith 7y ago
> it should be possible to memorize at least the best white move for each of the 960 positions Seeing how there is no consensus on "best opening" for the normal game of chess, introducing 960 more variations is not going to be a simple case of memorising the "best opening". I would go as far to say that simply introducing 10 new standard opening positions would introduce more than enough complexity to shake up high level play. There's only so much a human can remember once the computer is turned off and you are over the board.
- devit 7y ago
  Just run the most sophisticated chess engines available 960 times and publish the results. Even if not the "best" in an absolute sense, the moves those engines find are going to better than the move that an human comes up on the spot. This means that memorization will still be necessary in Chess960 to be competitive at the highest levels and in fact it's probably going to be worse because memorizing those 960 starting moves sounds far more tedious than memorizing classic opening theory. Scrabble players can memorize 10K+ word dictionaries in languages they don't know, and since (starting position, move number, chess move) triples can be encoded as words, it should be possible to memorize the main variation found by chess engines for each Chess960 position.
  - have_faith 7y ago
    But this hinges on there being a computable best opening, which there isn't for standard chess and there won't be for most(all?) starting positions in 960 (chess isn't a solved game). It's also not just an enum of [starting position, move number, chess move], there's also "why is this move strong in this position" which isn't something scrabble players have an equivalent of with just memorising lists of words. I personally can't imagine any of the current top chess players memorising hundreds of opening lines for all 960 starting positions and then being able to remember them over the board. Only a few players have a mastery of current known chess theory that's just one starting position. I am happy to be proven wrong though when some new chess savant presents themselves.
    - devit 7y ago
      All you need is a method to compute the first white move that produces a significantly better win rate than thinking about it during the match, and then memorizing them becomes advantageous, if doing so is feasible. It doesn't have to be chess engines (although that seems the best approach), it can also be 100 people each spending 10 days analyzing one position per day, or it can be win-rate stats from high-level tournaments once Chess960 is widely played and there is enough data.
      - slau 7y ago
        I’m not sure you understand opening theory. It takes years to learn a single opening, and I don’t think any serious player would claim they know all variations/sidelines of a given opening. There’s no single “best” opening because you can always employ a defence for a specific opening. For example, there’s a trap against the London which is to play 1. d4 d5 2. Bf4 h5. 3. e3...
  - pmoriarty 7y ago
    "Just run the most sophisticated chess engines available 960 times and publish the results." Ok. You've got your first "best" move, and then what? You still have pretty much a random position after that, and it'll be up to you to think on your feet to win.

by devit 7y ago

have_faith 7y ago

> it should be possible to memorize at least the best white move for each of the 960 positions Seeing how there is no consensus on "best opening" for the normal game of chess, introducing 960 more variations is not going to be a simple case of memorising the "best opening". I would go as far to say that simply introducing 10 new standard opening positions would introduce more than enough complexity to shake up high level play. There's only so much a human can remember once the computer is turned off and you are over the board.

devit 7y ago
Just run the most sophisticated chess engines available 960 times and publish the results. Even if not the "best" in an absolute sense, the moves those engines find are going to better than the move that an human comes up on the spot. This means that memorization will still be necessary in Chess960 to be competitive at the highest levels and in fact it's probably going to be worse because memorizing those 960 starting moves sounds far more tedious than memorizing classic opening theory. Scrabble players can memorize 10K+ word dictionaries in languages they don't know, and since (starting position, move number, chess move) triples can be encoded as words, it should be possible to memorize the main variation found by chess engines for each Chess960 position.
- have_faith 7y ago
  But this hinges on there being a computable best opening, which there isn't for standard chess and there won't be for most(all?) starting positions in 960 (chess isn't a solved game). It's also not just an enum of [starting position, move number, chess move], there's also "why is this move strong in this position" which isn't something scrabble players have an equivalent of with just memorising lists of words. I personally can't imagine any of the current top chess players memorising hundreds of opening lines for all 960 starting positions and then being able to remember them over the board. Only a few players have a mastery of current known chess theory that's just one starting position. I am happy to be proven wrong though when some new chess savant presents themselves.
  - devit 7y ago
    All you need is a method to compute the first white move that produces a significantly better win rate than thinking about it during the match, and then memorizing them becomes advantageous, if doing so is feasible. It doesn't have to be chess engines (although that seems the best approach), it can also be 100 people each spending 10 days analyzing one position per day, or it can be win-rate stats from high-level tournaments once Chess960 is widely played and there is enough data.
    - slau 7y ago
      I’m not sure you understand opening theory. It takes years to learn a single opening, and I don’t think any serious player would claim they know all variations/sidelines of a given opening. There’s no single “best” opening because you can always employ a defence for a specific opening. For example, there’s a trap against the London which is to play 1. d4 d5 2. Bf4 h5. 3. e3...
- pmoriarty 7y ago
  "Just run the most sophisticated chess engines available 960 times and publish the results." Ok. You've got your first "best" move, and then what? You still have pretty much a random position after that, and it'll be up to you to think on your feet to win.