Chess

CHESS saw centuries of naive oversights in the openings before players learnt to avoid known mistakes. But the increasingly popular variant Chess 960 (or FischerRandom) involves multitudes more in the way of potential pitfalls, since each of the 959 new set-ups has its own complexities.

The opening play in Chess 960 develops around specific details in each initial position. Sometimes, the play is sharper than in classical chess because more squares are underprotected. Often play seems "amateurish", since even strong GMs can easil...