Chess is a very old game, so old in fact, we don’t exactly know of chess’ genesis. What we do know is that chess has not suffered any change in the last 500 years. This standardization makes vast the amount of accumulated knowledge, especially when considering the openings.

Some years ago, German Grand Master Robert Rabriega told me that the first nine were the most important moves of the game since very few people could perform them flawlessly.

Nowadays, mastering openings proves much easier. Even a low‑level player can execute the first 15 moves as a Grand Master. New computer programs allow the aficionado to achieve great familiarity with different systems of openings. At the Grand Master level, the opening does not normally take more than a few minutes because the masters know all the moves by rote, having played the same positions thousands of times.

This is the main reason why new variations of chess were created: to avoid preparation for the standard opening. As early as the 1930s, the Cuban World Champion José Raul Capablanca began to concoct new styles of chess, though unfortunately, he didn’t fare too well.

In the 1990s American World Champion Robert Fischer brought forth a compelling idea: to change the order of the pieces in the starting position. He called this modality Fischer Chess, but it is also known as Random Chess or Chess960.

Fischer Chess is not difficult to play. Players simply need to raffle the pieces for the starting position. The pawns begin in their usual row, and the black player gets the symmetrical order of the pieces. There are only two rules. The king has to fall between the two rooks to allow the castling and the two bishops have to occupy different coloured squares. Apart from this, players follow the same rules as in normal chess.

The first moves usually bring very strange positions, but the middle game and the end game frequently fall into standard chess arrangements. Surviving the opening is the rub, and ofttimes proves meddlesome.

Today we present the final game of the Clerical Medical Chess960 World Championship, played during the Chess Classic Mainz 2006. Russian Peter Svidler with black, opened disastrously againstArmenian Levon Aronian and had to concede after 11 moves.

Aronian, Levon ‑ Svidler, Peter Clerical Medical Chess960 World Championship, Mainz, Germany, August 20, 2006