Perspectives
by Burt Hochberg

THE CHESS OF THE FUTURE
PART TWO

Last month I mentioned a few of the evolutionary changes that
chess has undergone, and showed that further changes are being
suggested even today by players of the highest rank. The
persistence of suggestions to "improve" chess and the preeminence
of the gentlemen who have made them (including no fewer than
three of the greatest world champions of the century: Lasker,
Capablanca, and Fischer) indicate an enduring and
widespread--though hardly unanimous--dissaffection with the
game that has been handed down to us.

Taking the long historical view, we may say that modern chess is a
game in transition. We know what it was and what it is, but we
can't yet know what it will be. I'd like to hazard a guess anyway,
based on a quite perceptible trend.

In November 1978, as editor of "Chess Life," I published a
controversial article by GM Pal Benko, entitled "Pre-Chess: Time
for a Change," and an accompanying article by GM Arthur
Bisguier. Benko described a chess variant in which the pawns are
set up on the second and seventh ranks as usual but the first and
eighth ranks are vacant. To begin each game, players place their
pieces, alternately one at a time, anywhere on their first rank (with
bishops on opposite colors). No piece or pawn may be moved until
all the pieces are in place. In preparation for the articles, I had
organized a short Pre-Chess match between Benko and Bisguier in
the Manhattan Chess Club (a few patrons of the Manhattan and
Marshall clubs provided a small prize fund) to demonstrate that,
despite the unorthodox opening array, all the principles of chess
still applied.

"The continual refinement of technique and assimilation of
knowledge, particularly in the openings," Benko wrote, "will
gradually lead to the extinction of the game--it will be solved,'
played out.... Most of the blame--if that is the word--must fall on
the vast store of opening information that is available to every
player (and every computer). The amount of study a master has to
do to remain up to date in the openings would suffice for a college
education. If he neglects his studies his score suffers. I think this
corrupts the essential nature of chess, which is a fight between the
creative ideas of two individuals. The vast array of predetermined
opening variations and theories is, in my view, so much dead
weight that should be discarded to save the true values of
chess...The task, then, is to find a minimal change in the rules that
would retain as much of the present game as possible and yet
eliminate its worst feature, the overanalyzed starting position."

Benko's solution was Pre-Chess. Although he credited the idea to
David Bronstein, I learned later that it dates back, in somewhat
different form, to the early 19th-century chess writer Aaron
Alexandre (who, ironically, was the compiler of one of the first
systematic collections of chess openings, the forerunner of such
compendiums as "Modern Chess Openings"). Benko had shown
the variant to former world champion Max Euwe, who thought it
was "an interesting idea," "very good," and "worth considering."
Benko had also played some games of Pre-Chess with the teenaged
Joel Benjamin, a future GM and U.S. Champion, who in 1979 won
a Pre-Chess tournament.

More recently, Bobby Fischer, no less, proposed a different form
of the idea that he called Fischer Random Chess. David Pritchard,
in "The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants," reports that in 1994
Anatoly Karpov challenged Fischer to a Random Chess match "on
the argument that the American would not be disadvantaged
through lack of modern opening analysis." In 1995 and 1996
Fischer tried unsuccessfully to organize various Random Chess
events in Argentina involving himself, GMs Manuel Illescas,
Eugenio Torre, and Pablo Ricardi.

In 1995, Illescas gave a simultaneous exhibition on 30 boards, of
which 11 were Random Chess games. Significantly, his Random
Chess result of 6 wins, 1 loss, and 4 draws (8-3) was much worse
than his orthodox chess result of 17 wins and 2 draws (18-1). Can
it be that his superior knowledge of the openings, which
undoubtedly served him well in the orthodox games, was useless in
Random Chess? If so, the result validates Benko's assertion that
"the impossibility of opening preparation is probably advantageous
for the less knowledgeable or less experienced player."

Pre-Chess, like Random Chess, Baseline Chess, Shuffle Chess, and
other methods of establishing a variable opening array, negates
virtually all opening theory (not opening *principles*, an
altogether different animal). There are other ways of doing this, of
course, such as switching the positions of the kings and queens or
the bishops and knights (a category of chess variants known as
Displacement Chess). But this merely substitutes a new opening
position for the traditional one and doesn't solve the essential
problem.

Pre-Chess and Fischer Random Chess attempt to solve the problem
of the unvarying opening position in significantly different ways.

Fischer proposes using a computer to decide where the pieces are
placed. Placement is the same for both White and Black, the
bishops are on opposite colors, and the king goes between the
rooks to permit castling, which is done by moving the king to
either c1/c8 or g1/g8 and the rook to the other side of the king.
Calculations show that this procedure can produce 960 different
opening positions. The choice is random and completely without
the intervention of either player. 

In Pre-Chess the players alternate placing their pieces anywhere
they like on their first rank. The positions for the two sides can
be--and almost certainly will be--different. Bishops must still go on
opposite colors, but the king need not be placed between the rooks.
Castling is allowed only if the king is on e1/e8 and a rook is on
a1/a8 or h1/h8. Euwe, a professor of mathematics in addition to
being a world champion and the president of FIDE, calculated that
the number of possible positions in Pre-Chess exceeds four
million!

Far be it from me to take issue with Bobby Fischer, but I see no
reason why players should not be thinking strategically even
during the placement phase instead of obeying the whim of random
chance. It is quite possible--even likely--that some of the randomly
generated positions in Fischer Random Chess are strongly
disadvantageous for the first or second player. In Pre-Chess, the
fate of the players is in their own hands. Of course, players are
free to place their pieces in their traditional positions.

"The placing of the pieces has a strategy all its own," Benko wrote.
"It is clear that neither player, if he is alert, can get a serious
disadvantage in this phase.... Although White still has the first
move, this gives Black the potentially important first clue as to
how to place his own forces. It seems to me that for this reason the
chances of the two sides are more nearly equal in pre-chess than in
the standard game and that this will have the effect of producing
not more draws but more exciting chess."

This issue will become clearer after much experimentation and
experience with different systems. But considering all the heavy
hitters who have in recent years proposed or at least endorsed some
kind of variable opening array (Fischer, Karpov, and Euwe, to
mention only the world champions), and mindful of the theoretical
and practical advantages of breaking our addiction to the current
unchanging opening position, I think the variable opening array
could well be the chess of the future.