Author: Tord Romstad
Date: 08:19:54 08/01/05
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On August 01, 2005 at 10:30:29, F. Huber wrote: >On August 01, 2005 at 10:18:44, Tord Romstad wrote: > >>On August 01, 2005 at 10:07:49, Andreas Stabel wrote: >> >>>Chess 960 is really chess 480 since half the positions are mirror images of >>>other positions and therefore funtionally identical. >>> >>>I do not understand why these mirror positions have not been eliminated. >> >>Because they are *not* functionally identical. Castling is not symmetrical. >>When castling queenside, the king ends up on c1/c8, when castling kingside, >>the king ends up on g1/g8. >> >>Tord > >Well, I would say it _is_ identical, if you simply swap the meaning of O-O and >O-O-O. It´s almost the same as e.g. 1.a4 would be 1.h4 in the ´mirror´ game, >so it´s only a matter of naming conventions. No, it is not. O-O and O-O-O cannot be considered equivalent, no matter how you look at it. The king ends up on the knight file in one case, on the bishop file in the other. All the 960 different starting positions *are* fundamentally different. There is no way to reduce it to 480 positions. >What I am really wondering about is, why the restriction "king between rooks" >has been kept? Without this restriction (and by simply making a little >modification to the castling moves) there would be much more starting positions. Don't ask me. I didn't invent the game, and I've never really understood the point of it. I suspect maximising the number of starting position wasn't considered an important goal (and why should it be?). Tord
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