Introducing Placement Freestyle: A New Chess Variant

Freestyle is great! It gives 958 different maps for chess. But what if we could have 8640 unique possible maps?

Note: in this post, I will assume familiarity with the Rules of Chess and those of Freestyle Chess.

Consider the following (illegal) position:

This is, in fact, starting position 518 of Placement Freestyle (position P518, with the “P” standing for “Placement”). Both players have two rooks and a king next to the board. It’s white’s turn.

White can choose between six different moves: 1. R@a1, 1. R@e1, 1. R@h1, 1. K@a1, 1. K@e1, and 1. K@h1. Let’s say white plays 1. R@a1:

Now it’s black’s turn. Black can also choose from six moves: 1. …, R@a8, 1. …, R@e8, 1. …, R@h8, 1. …, K@a8, 1. …, K@e8, or 1. …, K@h8. Black decides on 1. …, R@h8:

The game continues:

1. (R@a1, R@h8)

2. K@e1, K@a8

3. R@h1, R@e8

The placement state has now concluded. White has retained full castling rights. Black doesn’t, because his king is not inbetween his rooks. It’s white’s move. Surely this benefits white, right?

Wrong! Stockfish actually gives a -0.64 advantage to black! After 4. e4?! e5!, White is already close to losing!

Here is why I’m so excited about Placement Freestyle:

1. More maps = more possibilities! Already the above position looks super interesting to me: I am forseeing a massive attack on the white king! Placement chess gives 8640 unique positions once the placement moves have concluded.

2. Placement Freestyle introduces asymmetry to the game without unfairly disadvantaging either player. The kings can start on opposite sides of the board, leading to spectacular attacks. With Placement Freestyle, “grandmaster draws” are further away than ever.

3. It seems very fair. Players can determine themselves if they want to place their king in the center and retain full castling rights or “pre-castle” by placing their king on one of the edges.

4. It doesn’t add any rules to Freestyle, besides three initial special placement moves, for which the dropping (“@”) notation from Crazyhouse can be used. All starting positions have the same three-digit number as in Freestyle (prefixed with “P”).

5. There is no need to exclude positions P518 and P534! Even though P518 *could* lead to the classical chess starting position, it’s up to the players! And as the example above shows, trying to obtain the standard position backfired almost immediately for white!

I’m really curious how top chess players would evaluate Placement Freestyle! Could it be the exciting twist on classical freestyle that this author envisions it to be?