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Home > Fischer Random Chess

is a chess variant created by Grandmaster Bobby Fischer (who was world chess champion from 1972 until 1975). It was originally announced on June 19, 1996, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Fischer's goal was to create a chess variant in which chess creativity and talent would be more important than memorization and analysis of opening moves. His approach was to create a randomized initial chess position, which would thus make memorizing chess opening move sequences far less helpful.

1 Starting position

The starting position for Fischer random chess must meet the following rules:

• White pawns are placed on their orthodox home squares.
• All remaining white pieces are placed on the first rank.
• The white king is placed somewhere between the two white rooks.
• The white bishops are placed on opposite-colored squares.
• The black pieces are placed equal-and-opposite to the white pieces. For example, if white's king is placed on b1, then black's king is placed on b8.

Note that the king never starts on file a or h, because there has to be room for a rook.

There are many procedures for creating this starting position. Hans L. Bodlaender has proposed the following procedure using one six-sided die to create an initial position; typically this is done just before the game commences:

• Roll the die, and place a white bishop on the black square indicated by the die, counting from the left. Thus 1 indicates the first black square from the left (a1 in algebraic notation), 2 indicates the second black square from the left (c1), 3 indicates the third (e1), and 4 indicates the fourth (g1). Since there are no fifth or sixth positions, re-roll 5 or 6 until another number shows.
• Roll the die, and place a white bishop on the white square indicated (1 indicates b1, 2 indicates d1, and so on). Re-roll 5 or 6.
• Roll the die, and place a queen on the first empty position indicated (always skipping filled positions). Thus, a 1 places the queen on the first (leftmost) empty position, while a 6 places the queen on the sixth (rightmost) empty position.
• Roll the die, and place a knight on the empty position indicated. Re-roll a 6.
• Roll the die, and place a knight on the empty position indicated. Re-roll a 5 or 6.
• Place a white rook on the 1st empty square of the first rank, the white king on the 2nd empty square of the first rank, and the remaining white rook on the 3rd empty square of the first rank.
• Place all white and black pawns on their usual squares, and place Black's pieces to exactly mirror White's (so Black should have on a8 exactly the same type of piece that White has on a1).

This procedure generates any of the 960 possible initial positions of Fischer Random Chess with an equal chance; on average, this particular procedure uses 6.7 die rolls - an optimal procedure would use on average somewhere between 4 and 4.45 die rolls. Note that one of these initial positions is the standard chess position, at which point a standard chess game begins.

It is also possible to use this procedure to see why there are exactly 960 possible initial positions. Each bishop can take one of 4 positions, the Queen one of 6, and the two knights can have 5 or 4 possible positions, respectively. This means that there are 4×4×6×5×4 = 1920 possible positions if the two knights were different in some way. However, the two knights are indistinguishable during play; if they were swapped, there would be no difference. This means that the number of distinguishable positions is half of 1920, or 1920/2 = 960 possible distinguishable positions.

2 Castling

2.1 Rules for castling

Once the starting position is set up, the rules for play are the same as standard chess. In particular, pieces and pawns have their normal moves, and each player's objective is to checkmate their opponent's king.

Fischer random chess allows each player to castleKingside castling: O-O Queenside castling: O-O-O Castling is a special move in the game of chess involving the king and either rook. Castling consists of moving the king two squares towards a rook, then moving the rook onto the square over which the king once per game, a move by potentially both the king and rook in a single move. However, a few interpretations of standard chess games rules are needed for castling, because the standard rules presume initial locations of the rook and king that are often untrue in Fischer Random Chess games.

After castling, the rook and king's final positions are exactly the same positions as they would be in standard chess. Thus, after a-side castling (notated as O-O-O and known as queen-side castling in orthodox chess), the King is on c (c1 for White and c8 for Black) and the Rook is on d (d1 for White and d8 for Black). After h-side castling (notated as O-O and known as king-side castling in orthodox chess), the King is on g and the Rook is on f. It is recommended that a player state "I am about to castle" before castling, to eliminate potential misunderstanding.

However, castling may only occur under the following conditions, which are extensions of the standard rules for castling:

1. Unmoved: The king and the castling rook must not have moved before in the game, including castling.
2. Unattacked: No square between the king's initial and final squares (including the initial and final squares) may be under attack by any opposing piece.
3. Vacant: All the squares between the king's initial and final squares (including the final square), and all of the squares between the rook's initial and final squares (including the final square), must be vacant except for the king and castling rook. An equivalent way of stating this is that the smallest back rank interval containing the king, the castling rook, and their destination squares contains no pieces other than the king and castling rook.

These rules have the following consequences:

• If the initial position happens to be the standard chess initial position, these castling rules have exactly the same effect as the standard chess castling rules.
• All the squares between the king and castling rook must be vacant.
• Castling cannot capture any pieces.
• The king and castling rook cannot "jump" over any pieces other than each other.
• A player may castle at most once in a game.
• If a player moves his king or both of his initial rooks without castling, he may not castle during the rest of the game.
• In some starting positions, some squares can stay filled during castling that would have to be vacant in standard chess. For example, after a-side castling (O-O-O), it's possible for to have a, b, and/or e still filled, and after h-side castling (O-O), it's possible to have e and/or h filled.
• In some starting positions, the king or rook (but not both) do not move during castling.
• The king may not be in check before or after castling.
• The king cannot move through check.

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Fischer Random ChessFischer Random Chess (also called Chess 960 Fischerandom chess FR chess or FullChess is a chess variant created by Grandmaster Bobby Fischer (who was world chess champion from 1972 until 1975). It was originally announced on June 19, 1996, in Buenos Aires Fischer BlackFischer Black ( 1938 August 30, 1995) was an American economist. He was one of the authors of the famous Black-Scholes equation. He also was a co-author of the Black-Derman-Toy option-valuation model. Fischer Black received a Ph. in Applied Math from Harv Fischer groupIn mathematics, the term Fischer groups usually refers to the three finite groups denoted Fi Fi and Fi all of which are simple groups, and constitute three of the 26 sporadic groups. Sometimes the term encompasses the automorphism groups of these groups. FischerThe following people whose family name is Fischer have entries in Wikipedia: Andrea Fischer (born 1960), German politician Bobby Fischer (born 1943), American chess player Edwin Fischer (1886-1960), Swiss pianist and conductor Eugen Fischer (1874-1967) Na Fischer projectionExample: Fischer projection of D- Glucose In biochemistry, a Fischer projection is a representation of an organic molecule by projection. The carbon chain is depicted vertically. Fischer projections are most commonly used to represent monosaccharides, but Fischer esterificationFischer esterification is the process of forming an ester by refluxing a carboxylic acid and an alcohol in the presence of an acid (catalyst). Acid catalysts Commonly used acid catalysts for a Fischer esterification include: Sulfuric acid Mechanism #Proto Fischer's Chameleon Fischerspooner Fischer-Tropsch synthesis Fischer von Erlach Fischer indole synthesis