Great content as always lex. Even though Magnus' camera died, I noticed you have live footage from other perspectives, when Magnus was showing the moves on the chess board. That view would be great to see for the conversation, as seeing facial expressions add an extra dimension to the conversation.

audi overlays were great, thank you

They are, we're all pawns after all.

Brilliant

mind blown

Brilliant

@@odin8298 yes

It's just a lot more fun too. Ever since I started playing chess 960 I refuse to play the original way.

I'm a big fan of this variant too, but the big downside of it is that certain opening positions are imbalanced.

It also creates some very awkward and boring positions that are no fun to play.

@@matttondr9282 every fischer random game was more fun to watch and to play than 100% of classical matches at the top levels. People studying moves in front of a computer for weeks to show who is the more mindless drone is never entertaining. Fischer random should replace classical chess.

Castling is its downside.

@@matttondr9282 and for this reason, creativity in necessary.

Memorization is not a problem for majority of the players.

Not really, Capablanca was already saying the same things earlier in the century. That’s why he invented Capablanca chess. Fischer’s variant is definitely better though because it doesn’t require any additional pieces and can be played with a regular set.

@@matttondr9282 lol. Well yeah he was ahead of his time. Not because of Fischer random. Though you could say relatively he was still ahead because of it, only since the rest of the chess world moved so slowly and should have come up with it sooner.

what about "mixed chess" all pieces are randomized but in the same starting points.

He was, and now someone very disrespectful wants to erase his name from Fischer Random and give it the dumb name, chess 960. I hate that stupid name.

Yeah... it is more appropriate to call it fischer random instead...

yes pls

its not a surprise 2 of the top 3 greatest of all time really enjoy it

yes, I don't like professional chess because some games are won by theory, not by the player.

With 15 minutes time to look at the engine ... I dont think so ...

this is why miniature skirmish wargames are more interesting than chess to me, the variability of the initial setup, as well as varied victory conditions makes for an infinitely more interesting strategic and tactical experience.

Definitely, and let's call it Fischer random.

I think the perfect board game isn't chess it's Go much simpler to explain and significantly harder to solve

@@bobbysnobby Go doesn't have as many exciting elements as chess--things like asymmetry of the pieces, crazy positional sacrifices, the concept of a checkmate to end the game at any time, etc. Abstract strategy games are all cool with me though!

Lol, Call of duty isnt even the best multiplayer shooter, or what? ... Though some of their campaigns are pretty good. Counter strike has the more minimal classics small maps shooter gameplay, with a lot of possibilites, Battlefield as the literal better mass battling with a lot of vehicles and enviroment changing, Rainbow six siege spins the formula and evolves it further 5 vs 5, but also goes more arcade and fighting game like with all its characters and special abilities and weapons. What makes call of duty multiplayer so special? Also as long as their is money and property, monopoly will exist.

@@FirstNameLastName-bt9cv No, it is not. First which power are you talking about ? 5 hand or poker hold them 2 card hand. Further, though poker is a cool game and has some strategy to it, it has to much luck involved to be compared to Chess, even 960.

@@bobbysnobby How is go simpler to explain than chess ? Giant board, different countries China, Korea,etc. have different rules, very many different situations .

fischer chess; throws out the memorization. you can't memorize anymore strategy when the pieces are mixed up. now its "you" vs "me"

The issue isn’t that the skill floor rises. It’s that skill and creativity is replaced by memory

I had a friend who knew way more basic chess move sets, and would generally win because of his memory background with the basic setup. He straight up refused to play 960, because he thought he'd be at a disadvantage in such an improv game. Shame! I prefer to play 960 when I can because I don't put too much time into chess itself

@@slomnim chess960 is amazing. Standard chess relies too much on memorization of moves, which has 2 main issues :

1) New players are facing people with years or decades of time spent memorizing opening positions, so big disadvantage for new players 2) long term players aren't willing to play chess960 because they spent so much time and effort memorizing openings theory that they will feel they wasted their time, even though they might secretly know that chess960 is a superior game

@@Nata-ch2bk regular chess is still way more popular online than chess960 amongst all rating levels. And your point about beginners being at a disadvantage because of not knowing theory is solved by playing players at your own level who also don’t know theory. And now supergms cant even draw against an engine with white. So the game is still very rich. Hikaru has pawn odds against Komodo and he lost 10-0 😂 and look how alpha zero proved that there are so many possibilities of long term piece sacrifices that we can’t even comprehend lol.

@@liamweinberg4902 "And your point about beginners being at a disadvantage because of not knowing theory is solved by playing players at your own level who also don’t know theory" -> That doesn't really solve the problem I was talking about, because if you want to improve in standard chess, you will not have a choice but to go through the tedious work of learning openings by heart, because you if you want to climb, you will face people who've spent years/decades learning those openings by heart. So the only way is to spend years/decades learning openings yourself. I'd say this is a disadvantage if you're not a fan of spending so much time memorizing stuff. Even if you get to the point where you understand endgame and strategy better than let's say the average 1200 elo player, as well as have a better tactic level than they do, you will still lose tons of games against them just because of opening tricks that you are not aware of. And the only way to not fall for those tricks, is to do tons of opening theory study. This issue doesn't exist in chess960. If you understand chess better and you have strong potential for tactics, you won't face the wall of opening tricks that needs years of study to catch up. "So the game is still very rich. Hikaru has pawn odds against Komodo and he lost 10-0 😂 and look how alpha zero proved that there are so many possibilities of long term piece sacrifices that we can’t even comprehend lol." -> This is a legitimate opinion, but I personally do not share it. I do not think comparing humans with machines shows any richness to the game of standard chess. And even if that was the case, those details would apply for chess960 as well, meanwhile chess960 can offer a lot more freedom and creativity. Nowadays, GMs prepare tournaments by reviewing opening lines based on what their opponents usually play. They need full teams of support, in addition to machines, to help them do that very tedious work. In chess960, GMs will prepare tournaments by just trying to get better at the game. As well as getting a better understanding of chess960 or chess in general. Can't get an advantage by memorizing lines anymore, so it makes for a much richer gameplay.

This doesn't apply to all possibilities as many setups if you mirror you lose right off. So not necessary

Hmm. Good point.

Clever, mating would be tricky in that chess variant

I had assumed Magnus was going to speak about plowing through pieces that were in the way, and not necessarily part of the attack. Then I thought he was going to talk about how it can help for defense as well. I guess he just wanted to give a quick example of why you may want to a lose a significant piece.

Alpha Zero team published a paper on these chess variants and allowed their system to learn them at a super human level. You can read it online, with analysis of many games played. It should be interesting to see how these new rules change the battle. They even estimate the piece values as the rules change. One variant allows pawns to move twice any time, or to move sideways... becoming very powerful pieces.

Not if the knight was defended by a bishop. (As it was in the example)

It’s too chaotic for me to seriously enjoy. Every once in a while I enjoy watching the top guys play. Eg Magnus vs Hikaru. But the fact that humans can’t even draw against super engines with white anymore proves to me that the game is still so rich. And there are thousands of amazing games documented over the years that is so interesting to look through. Chess 960 won’t allow that because every position is different, so we can’t really compare games like we can in chess. And the rate of draws at the highest level in classical is stable at around 65%. If it ever gets near 80% then it’s time to change.

Its Bobby Fischer

I believe he had technical issues when filming this particular episode

​@@user-vz9yi3mv3dthe only issues he had was deciding not to show the broad camera simply because the individual Magnus camera died. It was a stupid decision by Lex most probably spurred on from his perfectionist outlook on content.

you take those positions out or you make players play the same positions in reverse until one of them breaks the tie not tha thard to think of solutions to that

There are wars where one side is outmatched 1 to 50. Also you can just play each set-up twice, so both players play it with black and white. You seem to be pretty small-minded to not see that possibility.

​@@edgarh7879nah your logic is wrong

Is it worth the effort?

Except that the human brain cannot memorize deep lines for 960 possible starting positions. It's hard enough for just one. Players are only told the starting position 15 minutes before the game, so they are forced to use their own wit, not rely on pre-solved positions.

960 is already solved. Deep Mind only used four hours to reach WC level. Without opening database.

Yes, go memorize 20 moves of theory for like hundreds lines of every single 960 possible combinations. Good luck.

never happen. basic chess would take over. activate all your pieces, control center, castle, connect rooks etc. you would never be able to memorize more than 3-4 moves for 960 setups, and those 3-4 moves would almost always be basic chess

This is interesting. Do you have any examples?

@@freedbyyeshua533 look into games like Malifaux, Infinity, Warmachine, Bushido, SAGA, Guildball.

@@anab0lic Gotcha, thanks

Very good point, but at the end of the day I think chess is still better because of the artistry involved.

@@anab0lic I looked up some of those games, and infinity seems similar to the Advance Wars series. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with it, but I think you might enjoy it

You just put some pieces differently, I don't see where it's obnoxious, am I missing something ?

@@captainnoyaux because first you have to agree to the order in which to place things, which has to be random so ppl don't have preparation... just saying it's not as easy as just playing c hess

You could alternate positions for the setup with a pawn draw to elect the first selector.

Irrelevant

this

thats insane

Why

@@jorgejim28 because you actually need a brain and not just memory to play it which apparently this dude lacks

@@NoobPlayMC lol my thought exactly! Kane should be a little more opened minded here.

lmao let’s bully kane

Surely that makes 960 more appealing? It levels the playing field between those who have spent a lot of time memorising moves and those who haven’t