This whole thing with painting Chess960 as the "future of chess" seems way unfounded and wayyyyyy too early even if it was a reasonable possibility. I agree that its just top GM's who are sick of opening preparation who mostly love the idea. Bobby Fischer came to the same conclusion years ago and that's why he came up with it. So this isn't new.
As a spectator I'm not really interested. And since Fischer Random has been around a long time and has never "popped off" I don't see any evidence at all that it will this time just because Magnus Carlsen wants it to. That being said, it will be interesting to see how the whole narrative plays out.
The way I really see it what's going on is that Magnus and Hikaru have both peaked and can sense their relevance on the edge of a steep decline especially with all these very strong and passionate youngsters around. I'm sure that isn't pleasant and I'm interested to see how they handle it over the next few years (and even months).
"The way I really see it what's going on is that Magnus and Hikaru have both peaked and can sense their relevance on the edge of a steep decline especially with all these very strong and passionate youngsters around."
My attitude towards Chess960 is similar to yours. Sure, maybe some top GMs are tired of studying theory, but why should I care? For 99.99% of chess players, theory overload isn't a problem.
Top GMs have a loud voice in the media, though, so they can make it seem like a widespread problem.
Are there any good critiques of freestyle chess that you've seen (or written)? If so, can you point me towards them. I'm very interested in this topic from a game design point of view. Thanks!
It's not that I have anything against it, it's rather that I have no interest in it as a spectator. It's very unlikely that anything that happens in the first 10-20 moves will be applicable to standard chess, so while there may be some beautiful and brilliant ideas that eventually transpire it's unlikely (not impossible!) that anything will be transferable to my games or my students' games. I'll play it every once in a blue moon as a diversion - an enjoyable diversion at that - but as my knowledge and understanding of even mainstream openings is far from exhaustive I don't need to hide from theory to get a "real" game.
I wrote a piece about freestyle recently - not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but I tried to identify some opening principles. Here it is: https://litandchess.substack.com/p/freestylin
This whole thing with painting Chess960 as the "future of chess" seems way unfounded and wayyyyyy too early even if it was a reasonable possibility. I agree that its just top GM's who are sick of opening preparation who mostly love the idea. Bobby Fischer came to the same conclusion years ago and that's why he came up with it. So this isn't new.
As a spectator I'm not really interested. And since Fischer Random has been around a long time and has never "popped off" I don't see any evidence at all that it will this time just because Magnus Carlsen wants it to. That being said, it will be interesting to see how the whole narrative plays out.
The way I really see it what's going on is that Magnus and Hikaru have both peaked and can sense their relevance on the edge of a steep decline especially with all these very strong and passionate youngsters around. I'm sure that isn't pleasant and I'm interested to see how they handle it over the next few years (and even months).
"The way I really see it what's going on is that Magnus and Hikaru have both peaked and can sense their relevance on the edge of a steep decline especially with all these very strong and passionate youngsters around."
Ouch!
My attitude towards Chess960 is similar to yours. Sure, maybe some top GMs are tired of studying theory, but why should I care? For 99.99% of chess players, theory overload isn't a problem.
Top GMs have a loud voice in the media, though, so they can make it seem like a widespread problem.
Are there any good critiques of freestyle chess that you've seen (or written)? If so, can you point me towards them. I'm very interested in this topic from a game design point of view. Thanks!
Hi Frank,
It's not that I have anything against it, it's rather that I have no interest in it as a spectator. It's very unlikely that anything that happens in the first 10-20 moves will be applicable to standard chess, so while there may be some beautiful and brilliant ideas that eventually transpire it's unlikely (not impossible!) that anything will be transferable to my games or my students' games. I'll play it every once in a blue moon as a diversion - an enjoyable diversion at that - but as my knowledge and understanding of even mainstream openings is far from exhaustive I don't need to hide from theory to get a "real" game.
I wrote a piece about freestyle recently - not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but I tried to identify some opening principles. Here it is: https://litandchess.substack.com/p/freestylin