Talk:Chess960

Castling rules inaccuracy

In Observations, it states: "In standard chess, a rook can castle out of and through check but cannot castle into check because that would mean its king passes through check since, when castling, a king always passes its castling rook's destination square." This is incorrect and inconsistent with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess#Castling but I'm very new and busy at work, so not sure what I would update it to. Just thought I'd bring it up! AnnoyingScience (talk) 12:42, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

I took some time to rewrite this to clear up any ambiguity. While you are correct about the rules, standard chess still prohibits rooks from ending up on a threatened square owing to the fact that the castling king will move through the square the rook ends up on and kings cannot castle across check.

Here is the rewrite (which I published a moment ago): "In standard chess, a rook can castle out of and through a threatened square but cannot castle into a threatened square. While there are no rules specifying that a rook cannot castle into a threatened square, they are naturally unable to. This is because a castling king will pass through the square the castling rook ends up on and the rules prohibit a king to pass through threatened squares during castling. In Chess960, however, the relative position of the King and Rooks sometimes allows for a rook to legally end up on a threatened square." FlamingFabrication (talk) 07:12, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

new edits after the move to "Chess960"

Daniel Quinlan seems to deem my edits as "controversial"

I edited the first paragraph a bit

is stating that it is originally known as Fischer Random Chess controversial? because, in my opinion, that is a fact, and no mentions of both the name Chess960 and Fischer Random Chess were moved around or removed--I just rephrased the first part to add that it is also originally known as Fischer Random Chess--that's all regarding "controversy"

have I misunderstood something? is there anything that I missed? what are other people's opinions on this?

I'm just trying to understand how it's still "controversial", despite of the changes I made not making any change on the viewpoint reflected in the article KevinPaoloZero (talk) 21:38, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Two different editors have reverted your changes and I'm not the person that described them as "controversial". I would say, however, that they were going against the consensus to change the article title. Also, as explained in Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, it's time to discuss.

Regarding "originally known", the variant is still known by both names although the Chess960 name is more common now. The way the lead sentence is phrased right now seems accurate: it starts with the current title and notes that the variant is "also known as Fischer Random Chess". Using "also known as" is a common phrasing for articles on a topic where the subject is known by more than one name (e.g., Cotton candy, Glasses, Coriander, and Egyptian Ratscrew). For consistency, the article should generally use the common name too, which it does, except for several places where it wouldn't make sense or it's part of a proper name such as the name of the FIDE tournament.

Also, I just rephrased the first part to add that it is also originally known as Fischer Random Chess--that's all regarding "controversy" does not seem like an accurate summary of those edits. It looks like the edits were restoring the old version of the article based on the previous title with several additional changes.

If you have any specific concerns at this point, perhaps you could enumerate them? Daniel Quinlan (talk) 22:28, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

@Daniel Quinlan about the first thing you said here, yeah, I misread, sorry

I know very well that the variant is known by both names and that Chess960 seems to be more common now

1. I would like to make it clear once again that my intention is to not go against the consensus--if some of my prior edits haven't reflected that it's clearly because I forgot something and it's definitely fixed in my current edit

all mentions of both names are intact, have not been moved or removed

"also known as" to "also originally known as" is the closest thing I have done, all of this elaborated further in my second point

2. Ches960 is the common name but it's also originally known as Fischer random chess (and the name is still used, which is already strongly implied here just like how it is the original name, even in the template where it's shown as a synonym, even in the rest of the article), so there is no need to tell me that

the intended meaning, obviously, is that it's also known as Fischer random chess, and that Fischer random chess is also the original name (the original being fischer random chess is a fact and is not subject to controversy, rather, the controversy is how it should be called in the current days)

3. and, yes, I believe my summary of those edits is accurate

the problem with what you're saying here is that you're deeming it inaccurate just because of you seeing only one part

because what you're citing here from me is just my clarification of one specific point about "controversy"

it isn't my full description of all of my edits

you're not considering the other parts in my prior edits (of which my current edit is clearly based on) that inform about other changes in my edits--at some point I wrote far more than "cleaning up" because of what you said earlier

in that specific case I just needed to elaborate on one part, and you're deeming that one part like if it is the full explanation of all of my edits and not clarification to deliver a point KevinPaoloZero (talk) 04:06, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I am against adding in "originally known as" in the lede. I believe the lede should be clean and to the point and I believe the inclusion of the adverb "originally" weakens it. The naming convention in question is discussed in the Naming section of the article and references Fischer Random Chess as one of the original names, so the removal of the adverb from the lede does not affect the integrity of the article. FlamingFabrication (talk) 07:45, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Fischer Chess as an original name

This is a little bit of a rabbit hole, but bear with me.

So I noticed there wasn't a source in the "Naming" section for calling it Fischerandom Chess or just Fischerandom. I did a rough look over some of the sources we use in the article, but wasn't satisfied. I tossed the question into ChatGPT to see if it could come up with some sources. It sent me to a reddit post discussing this, which cited this blog: https://chess960frc.blogspot.com/2011/12/can-i-use-this-name-fischer-chess.html

That blog quotes dialogue from a video, though they admit to editing it slightly, but preserved the meaning. That quote indicates that Fischer was considering licensing the name "Fischer Chess".

Naturally I was skeptical, so I looked for the source of this quote. It references another blog post: https://chess960frc.blogspot.com/2011/12/when-vishy-met-bobby.html That blog post references a video on the now defunct blip.tv: http://blip.tv/macauley/fischer-remembered-615028

Blip.tv shutdown in 2015. I checked archive.org (I'm not super familiar with using it) and could not find an archive of the video playing. I checked youtube hoping there might have been a reupload, but Youtube search is hot garbage and returned nothing. However, in a google search I found: http://www.chessdryad.com/articles/mi/381.htm This page discusses the video referring it as "ICC's special "Fischer Remembered" video filmed and edited by Macauley Peterson".

I looked into Macauley Peterson, apparently he's a chess journalist and I found his personal website. https://www.macauleypeterson.com/Bio.htm

I am a little burned out on this search, but if someone is interested in contacting him and/or the ICC to see if they have a copy of this video, then we could use it as a source (the chessdryad site mentions it was released under creative commons) and we could include the name Fischer Chess as an original name.

FlamingFabrication (talk) 08:09, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

The first entry in the Bibliography is Gligoric's book, Shall We Play Fischerandom Chess? Would this not be suitable as a source for that name? We are already citing it for other things. Bruce leverett (talk) 16:52, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

I gave the book a rough look over. I didn't see any references to the term "Fischer Chess", only "Fischerandom". FlamingFabrication (talk) 21:22, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

You wrote, I noticed there wasn't a source in the "Naming" section for calling it Fischerandom Chess or just Fischerandom, so I'm saying the book could be just such a source. As for "Fischer chess", this is the first I ever saw that, so I can't be much help. Bruce leverett (talk) 23:12, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Ah I see. I've cited the book source you mentioned (and verified that it was in the book) for those two names. Fischer Chess though still needs to be investigated. FlamingFabrication (talk) 02:34, 4 March 2025 (UTC)