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Which is the ch960 setup that guarantees equality between White and Black?

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panderson2

In classical Chess White is slightly advanced because it has the initiative. I've red somewhere that in Fischerandom there are setups that favour White a lot and others that favour Black. I'd like to ask to the knowgeable forumnites which are the setups that empirically give equality to both sides (50%/50%)

Thanks in advance

mirage

Wikipedia had the following to say:

"It has been argued that two games should be played with each initial position, with players alternating as white and black, since some initial positions may turn out to give white a bigger advantage than standard chess. For example, in some Chess960 positions it is possible for white to attack an unprotected black pawn after the first move. In standard chess it takes two turns for white to attack and there are no unprotected pawns at the start. Thus, white can make a threat immediately, causing a greater advantage for white than in standard chess."

The position chess.com gives you is random (within 960's rules).  If you were concerned about it you could play 2 games vs. the person, one as white and one as black- although you couldn't get the same position, so this wouldn't fully solve the problem of the positional unbalance but just the white/black starting tempo difference.  My guess is the advantage if any is small though and it's still pretty even unless you're a big 960 veteran.

panderson2
Gonnosuke wrote:

The sample sizes are pretty small but there's good anecdotal evidence that there are a number of 960 starting positions that are extremely unbalanced.

I've spent some time analyzing a few of the more difficult starting positions and feel that black is probably busted in a few different scenarios. The worst, by far, is QBBRKRNN - the QBB triumvirate is incredibly powerful and it doesn't take much for the knights to mount a full scale cavalry charge. Despite the imbalance, it's a great position to analyze and play because there's no other position that demonstrates the first-move advantage quite as vividly!


Thank you for the link and the info !

The samples are small, but there are 26 setups with same number of victory for White and Black. From wikipedia the regular chess victory ratio is 1.45 for White

It can be wondered if these setups have something in common ...

setups                                                      games   White     Draws    Black     Ratio   

           
NRBBKQRN 68 23.50% 52.90% 23.60% 1.00
NRKRQBBN 68 23.50% 52.90% 23.60% 1.00
QRBBKNRN 66 24.20% 51.50% 24.30% 1.00
RNBBNKQR 90 24.40% 51.10% 24.50% 1.00
BRKNNRQB 94 25.50% 48.90% 25.60% 1.00
RKBNNQRB 74 29.70% 40.50% 29.80% 1.00
NQBNRBKR 98 20.40% 59.20% 20.40% 1.00
BBNRQKNR 80 20.00% 60.00% 20.00% 1.00
RNKBBQNR 70 25.70% 48.60% 25.70% 1.00
QBNRBKNR 80 25.00% 50.00% 25.00% 1.00
RQNBBKRN 96 25.00% 50.00% 25.00% 1.00
RQNKBNRB 96 25.00% 50.00% 25.00% 1.00
BRQNKBRN 82 24.40% 51.20% 24.40% 1.00
RKRNBBNQ 74 24.30% 51.40% 24.30% 1.00
QRNBBKNR 92 23.90% 52.20% 23.90% 1.00
RKBNNRQB 86 27.90% 44.20% 27.90% 1.00
NNRKBBRQ 78 23.10% 53.80% 23.10% 1.00
NRBKRBQN 78 23.10% 53.80% 23.10% 1.00
BRNBQNKR 80 22.50% 55.00% 22.50% 1.00
NRNKBBQR 72 22.20% 55.60% 22.20% 1.00
NRQNBKRB 90 22.20% 55.60% 22.20% 1.00
RNBKRQNB 72 22.20% 55.60% 22.20% 1.00
BBRKNNRQ 86 23.30% 53.50% 23.20% 1.00
NRKQNBBR 70 22.90% 54.30% 22.80% 1.00
RBBKNNRQ 70 22.90% 54.30% 22.80% 1.00
RBBKNNQR 82 22.00% 56.10% 21.90% 1.00
         
         
panderson2
mirage wrote:

Wikipedia had the following to say:

"It has been argued that two games should be played with each initial position, with players alternating as white and black, since some initial positions may turn out to give white a bigger advantage than standard chess. For example, in some Chess960 positions it is possible for white to attack an unprotected black pawn after the first move. In standard chess it takes two turns for white to attack and there are no unprotected pawns at the start. Thus, white can make a threat immediately, causing a greater advantage for white than in standard chess."

The position chess.com gives you is random (within 960's rules).  If you were concerned about it you could play 2 games vs. the person, one as white and one as black- although you couldn't get the same position, so this wouldn't fully solve the problem of the positional unbalance but just the white/black starting tempo difference.  My guess is the advantage if any is small though and it's still pretty even unless you're a big 960 veteran.


Thank you for the answer: my point was that if empirically certain setups are found even for both sides, this would be a substantial plus Fischerandom chess has over standard chess provided only those setups are adopted.

Regards