Chess 960--Chess

Will chess960 be separated from chess rating in the future? Games are different from one another, yet chess960 stats are being placed with chess rating.

Aaron, I made the same sort of comment about 10 posts earlier. We all agree (those that posted).

I'm HOPING that at some point, Richard will change the software so that ratings are kept separately between Chess and Chess960.

For the moment, I've decided for myself that I won't play any more rated 960 games - I'll only play the unrated kind; strictly for the fun of it!

One might make the argument that the talents are the same - I mean, the world Chess960 champions (folks like Aronian, Kosteniuk, etc.) are not exactly slouches in the Chess world. Certainly I'll grant that the skill set is very similar (I won't say identical).

But the creators of Chess960 (and it wasn't just Fischer; this type of proposal goes back to Capablanca) felt that opening theory was 'played out' - and wanted to remove the part of the game involving opening preparation. However, to my mind - it's not just the SPECIFIC OPENING MOVES that are involved with the understanding and skill of Chess - but the correct ways to formulate plans arising OUT OF the opening, with a view to playing the middlegame and endgame - and that is certainly OUTSIDE the scope of the memorized opening lines.

That's a skill set that I, for one, have worked very hard to develop. Chess960 basically throws all that out the window.

It's a fun game. But it is not Chess.

(meow)