Chess960

Chess960, also known as Fischer Random Chess, after its inventor, former World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer, provides a new variety of chess opening positions, thus obviating in most cases reliance on opening theory. There are 959 possible positions, plus the classical one, hence the name.

Setting up the board

As in normal chess, the pieces begin on the first rank and the pawns on the second, and the positions of black and white are arranged to mirror each other, with queen opposite queen, and so on.

What is different is that the queen, bishops and knights are distributed randomly according to an agreed method, with provision made for the bishops to occupy different coloured squares. This leaves three empty squares on each side: the king is placed on the central one, and the rooks on the other two, so that castling is possible.