Question: I am interested in “Fischer chess” In it the starting positions of the pieces are decided by lot and in this playing mode classical opening theory is of no help. I wanted to take it up and play through games with ChessBase and Fritz. But the very setting up of the pieces brought me problems. Is there a program which supports this playing mode? Or does Fritz know a trick to help it come to terms with this?
Answer: Fritz16 and the other recent chess programs support this mode. From Classic Menu you must select "Home – New Game – 960”.
In the follow-up dialog you then pick a number for one of the pre-defined Fischer-Random positions.
You can then play or also analyse a game. Alternatively you can also access and load from a database games which have been played in this mode. That works normally with “File - Open – Database”.
Games you have played against the program are saved in the file Autosave-960.cbh in the users folder.
Saved Chess 960 games in a database are given with the number of the pre-defined position with which they were played.
Note: not all chess engines support this playing mode. Engine which have mastered the mode are Stockfish, Komodo and Houdini. Stockfish is included in the Fritz16 package.
