<The esthetic element, for the player, is expressed through his joy in finding and successfully executing over the board beautiful and hard-to-find ideas. The spectators (and most of us find ourselves on both sides: sometimes we play, sometimes we watch) gain enjoyment from the players’ discoveries, usually after the fact when they play over already played games. Then they can enjoy not only the moves actually played, but also the sharp ideas that remained behind the scenes, yet were noted in commentaries. The best examples of chess creativity are retained for many years, examined repeatedly in the pages of magazines and books, giving joy to new chess enthusiasts, increasing their love for our game, and their respect for its leading specialists, capable of creating such beauty over the board. Here, I see a most important distinguishing feature of chess, separating it from any other form of sport in which the most interesting part of the game is over when the tournament concludes. This is one of our trump cards, and we must not, under any circumstances, devalue the creative element of the game of chess.

One of the main criteria of beauty (along with subtlety and originality) is the soundness, the correctness of the moves, of the individual ideas, or of entire games. And here is where I have some doubts about the future of chess-960.

Recall our examination of Zvjaginsev’s novelty [1 e4 c5 2.Na3!?]. Into the standard Sicilian position one fresh element is introduced, and immediately we have problems not easily solved over the board. But there, we could at least give a qualified assessment of the plusses and minuses of this or that way of continuing the game, since we could refer to a known setup of the remaining pieces, and tested plans of action in similar situations.

But in Fischer chess, where the majority of the pieces – if not all of them – are standing in unusual positions, we must deal with many new and unknown elements. As a result, a chessplayer has almost nothing to refer to in looking for a move; he’s playing “without line or compass.”

I can assure you that even leading grandmasters play a weak game of chess-960, full of both strategic and tactical errors. Some of these blunders are immediately evident; others are not easily uncovered, even during analysis, in view of the absence of reliable and proven positional benchmarks. Fine, deeply considered decisions, close to the level of the best achievements of traditional chess, become practically impossible. True, somewhere in the midst of the middlegame, the position usually begins to look something like “normal” – that is, familiar to us. But by that time, the players already have no thinking time left, because they had to use it all resolving the hugely complex problems of planned development from the very first moves. So these games almost never show us any aesthetic value.

If we remember how hard it can be to discover the secrets of a position even in traditional chess, where we can refer to many generations’ worth of experience, what I’m saying becomes logically obvious. Nonetheless, I shall illustrate my idea with a concrete example.>

<Grandmaster Yusupov showed me the opening of two games from the Mainz tournament of 2005, both played in the same round. On that day, the game began with the following position:

click for larger view

Aronian – Bacrot

1 e4 e5 2 Nd3 Ng6?! 3 f4! Bf6? (3…Nf6) 4 Nc5 Rd8 5 Qb5 Nd6 6 Nxd7+ Rxd7 7 Qxd7, and White parlayed his exchange plus into a win.

What’s to be said about this? Levon Aronian spotted one of the tactical peculiarities of this starting position: the weakness at d7. He chose a developmental scheme, allowing him to mount a quick attack on this weakness in his opponent’s camp (while simultaneously attacking another one at b7). His opponent, meanwhile, brought out his pieces with no suspicion of the danger threatening him.

The same motifs appeared in the following game, where it was Black who exploited the weakness at d2:

Hertneck – Morozevich

1 d4 This move looks weaker than 1 e4, since it doesn’t open any lines for White’s pieces. Evidently, Hertneck intended to develop the knight at d3, but did not wish to place it in front of the pawn. This is a positional consideration taken from classical chess, laid down as a rule back in the 18th century, as far back as Philidor. But is it correct to follow it in this situation? Nobody knows. 1…f5 2 Nd3 Nf6 3 f3 g5 Strange. Instead of developing his pieces and fighting for the center, Alexander Morozevich advances a wing pawn – apparently for the same reason that I used to explain Gerald Hertneck’s opening move: he wanted to develop the knight on g6. 4 e4 fe 5 fe? Nxe4! The queen is untouchable, because of the mate on d2. Clearly the German GM overlooked an elementary tactical shot, although after 6 Qe1, he definitely had compensation for the pawn in the form of Black’s lagging development (Morozevich went on to win the game).

White should have played 5 Nc5, with threats of 6 Qb5, 6 Nxb7 and 6 fe. Black would probably have had to protect his queenside with the “non-standard” 6…c6 7 fe Rc7 (without fear of 8 e5? Ne4!), but the position looks better for White. On the other hand, I wouldn’t stake my life on any of my evaluations so far.

<In the early days of chess, many such naïve games were played. As experience grew, so did the understanding of the principles of opening play; new schemes of battle appeared and were worked upon, and those that didn’t work out were tossed aside. For example, it became clear that certain gambits were not too promising; others, by contrast (like the Queen’s Gambit), were positionally well-founded. Some excessively categorical statements (such as Tarrasch’s thesis that it’s wrong to accept the Queen’s Gambit, because the white bishop can then get to c4 in one move, without loss of tempo) appeared, and then lost their power. The conception that one need not occupy the center with pawns, but could attack it with pieces instead, proved viable. And it was this kind of idea-filled development of views on the opening that undoubtedly aided the progress of chess – it was a positive thing, until the time came when the process had grown into an enormous mass of purely concrete information, needing daily absorption by generations of modern chess players.

But in chess-960, there will be practically no accumulation of experience: there are too many opening positions, and too many differences between them. And thus, the concept of the opening phase will find itself frozen, for a long time, at a childhood level.

Let me summarize, briefly: Playing Fischer-random is undoubtedly interesting (and probably even useful: overcoming routine, and developing an unfettered approach to the position). But studying played games is of no interest, because it’s almost impossible for anything creatively important to come from them (when measured against the level that both amateurs and experts in classical chess have grown accustomed to). So switching to this new game involves a serious risk that we may lose the aesthetic element of chess – and consequently, a great number of its adherents.> (http://www.chesscafe.com/text/dvore...)

Opening "principles" are a different subject than whether this or that particular opening "gambit" (usually a pawn sac) works. Indeed, some of the 9 chess opening "principles" that Reuben Fine wrote about are not really principles at all. Some are more about particular tactical sequences that are esoteric to the hyper-analysis of the same one start position that is endlessly reused in traditional chess.

I have three arguments that I couldn’t find in previous discussions so let me share my view.

1) In chess1 castling has a clear defensive purpose. “Move your king to safety” is a rule of thumb for beginners and GMs. Centuries of chess1 games serve as a good proof that c1/g1 are indeed a safe place for the king to reside (away from the center). On the other hand, the variety of initial setups in chess960 most definitely changes the “safe-status” of c1/g1 squares and makes them a questionable destination for the king (in many setups). It doesn’t make sense to have a fixed final KR-position of castling while almost every other characteristic of the board-position has changed.

2) In chess1 castling has never had an offensive purpose. Sure, castling-long can bring the rook to activity but the king always plays a passive role. On the other hand, in chess960 we can perform a long-and-dangerous castling that moves the king from b1 to g1 (five squares away). By itself alone that may not be automatically a bad idea. The problem is that castling is not an equal opportunity move and when White castles it quite often restricts Black from castling in the same direction. My point is that castling should be fairly available to both sides and making it a powerful/offensive move doesn’t help black.

3) Everybody seems to agree that the move-king-2-squares (MK2S) rule wouldn’t make sense in cases where the king is to get closer to the center. We conclude so by applying our current chess1 skills but that could be wrong. As <Gene M> points out, the role of the center in chess960 might not be the same as in chess1. If that’s the case, I can imagine central squares to be a safe place for the king. Even in chess1 that's quite possible so let’s not rule out an option based on intuition only.