In the book Chess Stories, by Prof. Christian Hesse and me, one of the chapters is about my contact with Bobby Fischer. I tell about how the American chess legend contacted me a couple of decades ago, when he was planning a return to chess. The Kindle eBook version is incidentally available for Rs.799 ($9.47 or €8.98).

Bobby wanted to stage a "Fischer-Random Chess" match, using a form of chess he had invented some years earlier. He proceeded to describe the rules to me in detail: in the starting position the pawns are placed in their usual positions on the second and seventh ranks. The pieces are placed randomly on the first and eighth rank, with black pieces mirroring the white pieces. The kings must be between the rooks, and the bishops on different coloured squares. 

We spent many evenings discussing this (and many other things described in the book), in hour-long phone conversations. "Old chess", as Bobby called it, consisted largely in memorizing opening variations and springing surprises on your opponent. His goal was to "restore creativity and talent" to the game. From the very first move players "must think instead of remember." They have to apply general chess principles, work out strategies, calculate the consequences of their moves.

The original reason for Bobby's calls was that he knew I was close friends with Viswanathan Anand and that the World Champion was often in my house. He wanted to challenge Anand to a match in Fischer-Random, and was consulting me, as co-founder of ChessBase and editor of the company's news page. ChessBase, he thought, would be the ideal sponsor and organizer of the event. The match would be worth about two million dollars, he thought. But I had to tell him that ChessBase would not be able to sponsor it. My advice: you have to announce your intention, issue a challenge, and wait until some random sponsor reaches out to you. I even wrote a possible press release for him, describing the rules of Fischer-Random, why it was important for it to replace the regular game, and the rules of the match. 

In the early 1990s Fischer visited the Polgar family in Budapest and worked on the rules of Fischer-Random with them and Pal Benkö. Above he is seen starting a game against Zsuzsa.

I invited Bobby to come to Hamburg, where we could do a story together for Der Spiegel, Europe's premium news outlet. But it was a bit dangerous: his recent public violently antisemitic interviews could have led to his arrest in Germany. In the end, nothing came of his plan, no sponsor was found.

Discussion of the rules

We continued discussing Fischer-Random, or "New Chess," as he liked to refer to it. In my conversations with Bobby, I agreed with him that openings theory was a real problem: "Imagine a world championship in a few years from now," I said. "The two players reel off the first 28 moves in just a few minutes — and then one of them plays a novelty. His opponent thinks for an hour and then resigns the game! He congratulates his opponent for the wonderful winning move." Bobby liked this, it was exactly what he was thinking.

We had some differences regarding the rules of Fischer-Random. The main was my objection to castling, which I said needed to be dropped from the game. "That way you can explain the rules to someone and start playing in one minute. With the castling rules you take a month to master exactly how it works." Bobby thought I was was exaggerating, and insisted that castling was needed for "dynamic" (and other) reasons. But I suspect it was needed to differentiate Fischer-Random from an earlier variant known as Shuffle Chess, which was played in the late 18th century. That did not have castling or insist on opposite coloured bishops.

Garry's idea

I discussed Fischer Random with Garry Kasparov. He came up with the following suggestion: we select ten interesting and exciting positions to be used in tournaments and allow players to prepare in advance. Immediately before the start of each round, the audience in the hall (or on the Internet) selects one of these ten positions for all games. This provides spectator participation, which is never a bad thing. Players have done some basic preparation for all ten positions — they do not have to start the game with a long think about "can I move the c-pawn?" And commentators can come prepared as well.

I discussed the ten-position idea with Bobby. He found it quite interesting, and we spoke for maybe half an hour, discussing all kinds of details. But then he said: "It is quite a good idea, Frederic. When did you come up with it?" I confessed it was not me but Kasparov, and the tide immediately turned. "No, there's a trick. He has preparation for special positions or something." And that was the end of discussion of "Kasparov10" chess with Bobby.

Chess960

Fischer-Random was introduced to Germany by Hans-Walter Schmitt, chairman of the Frankfurt Chess Tigers e.V., who staged a number of rapid chess events in Mainz. Hans-Walter looked for a new name, and in a brainstorming session, we came up with "Chess960". The explanation was that with the Fischer rules there are 960 possible starting positions. Initially Bobby was upset: "They believe my image is so bad that they have given it another name?" Later he admitted he liked "Chess960" and often referred to it as that. Main thing was that the variant was being used. In a radio interview he said:

I didn't invent Fischer-Random chess to destroy chess. I invented Fischer-Random chess to keep chess going. Because I consider the old chess is dying, it really is dead. A lot of people come up with other rules of chess-type games, with 10×8 boards, new pieces, and all kinds of things. I'm really not interested in that. I want to keep the old chess flavor. I want to keep the old chess game. But just by making a change so that the starting positions are mixed, it's not degenerated down to memorization and prearrangement like it is today.

• Listen to Magnus Carlsen explain Fischer Random Chess:

• Also read: FIDE's History of Chess960
• Here are all 960 Fischer-Random starting positions (518 is rather special)