Hand on heart, isn't it slightly....stupid...or a sign of mental
poverty, to play the same initial position over and over again in the
entirety of one's chess life, and in every blitz game, too? Typically,
the average chessplayer would try to attain one of his favourite
patterns before the middle game. Isn't this unnecessarily
anti-creative and unadventurous? In Anglo-Saxon checkers they randomly
decide the three first half-moves before tournament play begins, by
the use of so called ballot cards.

Comparatively, in the beginning, chess was most often played with long
dice. People had a different view on life back then, and were more
acceptant toward chance events. Unlike today, they weren't always in
for total control. I think that most chessplayers should begin to
loosen up their rigid standpoint toward chess, and perhaps life
overall.

Today's chess is strongly dependent on encyclopaedic knowledgeability,
which follows from the computerization and the scientific study of
chess. A a consequence the world elite becomes younger and younger.
The average age in today's elite is below 25. At this low age
people are capable of stuffing their brains with knowledge, especially
about openings. Undoubtedly, the average age will continue to decrease.

Clearly, chess has become too dependent on preparation. It can now be
defined as a form of information science, with the addition of an impressive
calculating ability.

Looking back, world champions Tigran Petrosian and Boris Spassky had a
strong wish to liberate themselves from the tedium of monotonic variations.
Petrosian played just about any opening. As black against 1.e4 he
played 1...e5, 1...c5, 1...g6, 1...d6, 1...c6, 1...e6, and probably
1...b6 and 1...Nf6, too. Of course, he constantly got into problems,
but he also solved them by a truly creative defensive play.

Evidently, there existed a wish to break away from the anal and
robotic aspect of chess. But this would involve a psychological struggle,
and often these masters preferred to play an early draw rather than to
suffer the tedium of the machinelike facets of the game.

Comparatively, an anal attitude takes the expression of a wish to be in
total control. The ideal would be to turn oneself into an automaton that
needn't be creative, only applying its own knowledge and exacting
calculative ability on a well-known concrete position. In today's collectivity,
a form of neurosis has taken root that expresses itself in a wish to develop
into a perfect machine.


"Chess holds its master in its own bonds, shackling
the mind and brain so that the inner freedom of the
very strongest must suffer"
(Albert Einstein)

Mats

So how can this tragic situation be remedied? A good way of training
is to avoid opening monotony, and to avoid getting stuck in opening
studies, thus to improve overall technical ability. Also in regular
tournament play it ought to be possible to introduce Chess256.
This method implies that the opening setup for the pawns is chosen
randomly while satisfying the condition that the pawns must be placed
either on the second or the third rank. The sides mirror each other.
Unlike Chess960, this is practically the same as standard
chess.

From a theoretical point of view, while some pawns are already placed
on the third rank, the resultant positions should give black a
slightly easier game than in the standard position. Read more here:
Chess256

A very interesting alternative, also suitable both for training
purposes and tournament play, is my suggestion of relocation variants.
The following article contains diagrams and links to email presets and
programs that can play the variants.
Relocation variants

Mats

"Chess and mental inanity?"

I stopped reading the Usenet chess newsgroups many years ago (thank God)...

None of us on this board have mastered openings to the point where we can claim that playing the opening is simply a tedious chore. People who truly understand opening play know that it is much more than memorization. It is a battle of ideas about controlling the center.

Ofcourse changing the game into something else changes things, but I don't think it's for the good. Changing to chess960 is as ridiculous as adding another base to baseball.

The people who want to change the rules are often the ones who lack the will or power to study new ideas. Selfishness to the max!

its debatable whether avg age will go down in result. The older players usually have more theory to hide behind than the younger counterparts. I think 960 will lower the strenght of top players instead making the rating field more like the 1920's.

That allegation is illogical. If they have the power to invent new variants, write articles about them, implement them as programs, and play them on the chessvariant server and elsewhere, why should they lack the capacity to study new ideas in orthochess? My TascBase is filled with my own ideas in orthochess. Most of it is hardly any good, but it is challenging for the the opponent.

Moreover, I have proposed several ideas which don't deviate much from orthochess. One is Chess256 which I mentioned above.
I suggest that Chess256 is ideal for matches between chess programs.
In this way the opening library plays no role at all. What counts is
an understanding of pawn chains, etc.. Of course, all chess programs
can already play Chess256, although they lack the random function to
generate the positions. Instead, the initial position can be generated
by any method, and the programs' position can then be altered by the
set up function. On the below link is an online program that generates
Chess256 positions randomly. Just press 'Move' and a position will be
randomized:
http://tinyurl.com/mq87yf

By the way, check out the chess variant site (link below), and the enormous creativity that has taken place there, during the years, while you have been involved in a peripheral variation of the Petroff, or whatever.
http://chessvariants.org/Gindex.html

Mats