Sunday, April 12, 2009

Crackpot Chess in Doeberl

Last night for the first time in Doeberl, and hopefully the last time, the organisers put on a crackpot variant called Chess960. It was totally ridiculous! I think they attracted only about 47 players. That is way, way down on the usual 60+ or so who often front up to the annual lightning that's been around for years. While a couple of masters turned up, it was nothing like past blitz events that normally have the usual sharks. Frankly, I characterise last night's Chess960 as the biggest blunder in the recent history of the Doeberl Cup.

My informal polling also indicated that most folks there, even including those who actually played in the Chess960, would have preferred the standard blitz. So I think that is that: Chess960 or Fischerandom is out the window!

Not to be deprived of our annual lightning fun, Richard Voon and I continued our contest from Queenstown. We considered it our own little world championship. I won 10 games to 9.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Agreed. Bring back blitz! Perhaps have it Moscow style 4 minutes to start and 2 second increment.

Anonymous said...

5 minutes.

Macauley Peterson, ChessBase.com said...

Dude, did you try it CG? Chess960 is da bomb! You should see the Germans go at it in Mainz sometime!