Welcome to the last episode of the year! We are going to do something a little different today, we are going to look at a couple of chess variants - primarily focusing on Chess960, Freestyle Chess, or Fischer Random - depending on which era of chess you played in.

Chess in its current form has been around for hundreds of years, but Shuffle chess has been around for about a quarter of a millennia.

For our game this week, we are going back to a game between two former Chess960 World Champions in 2019 - Wesley So versus Peter Svidler.

Now, since this is a 960 game, the backrow of pieces on each side are not in their traditional spots. I will read off the location of each piece now.

According to Chess960.net, we are looking at position 900.

White has a rook on A1, a light square bishop on b1, their dark square bishop on c1, their king on d1, queen on e1, their rook on f1, and their two knights on g1 and h1.

Black has the same set up - a Rook on a8, bishops on b8 and c8, their king on d8, queen on e8, their rook on f8, and their knights on g8 and h8.

Now - let’s see how we do. If we’re ready - … Let’s begin.

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1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 Ng6 4. Qc3 c6 5. O-O Nf6 6. Qxc4 Bg4 7. Ng5 Nf4 8. Ng3 h6 9. N5e4 Nxe4 10. Bxe4 Be6 11. Qc2 Qd7 12. Bxf4 Bxf4 13. Nh5 g5 14. Rad1 Qc7 15. Nxf4 gxf4 16. d5 cxd5 17. Qb3 O-O 18. Bxd5 Bxd5 19. Rxd5 Rad8 20. Rf5 e6 21. Rh5 Kg7 22. Qh3 Rh8 23. Qg4+ Kf8 24. Qh4 Kg7 25. e3 Rd2 26. exf4 Rxb2 27. Qg3+ 1-0

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_variants

https://www.chess.com/game/live/4092688154

http://cassidynoble.com/

This week, we are looking at another Indian prodigy. Someone who has not made it to the Candidates tournament yet, but he is knocking on the door with Olympiad victories, consistent wins against current and former world champions, and someone who was on a World Rapid Championship team that took home gold - Arjun Erigasi.

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1. d4 Nf6 2. Bg5 Ne4 3. Bf4 d5 4. f3 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. e4 e6 7. Qd2 b5 8. e5 Nfd7 9. Bg5 f6 10. exf6 gxf6 11. Bh6 Be7 12. O-O-O c5 13. Re1 b4 14. Nb1 Nc6 15. Rxe6 Nxd4 16. Re1 Ne5 17. Ne2 Bf5 18. Nxd4 cxd4 19. Qxd4 Qc7 20. c3 Kf7 21. f4 Ng4 22. Qxd5+ Kg6 23. Qxf5+ 1-0

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https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2553668

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arjun_Erigaisi

http://cassidynoble.com/

This week, we are looking at the president of the Chinese Chess Federation, someone who played Chinese Chess before pivoting to Western Chess at the age of 10, a Women’s World Champion, the first Asian Woman to earn the Grandmaster title, and someone who has influenced millions of people to start playing the game - Xie Jun.

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1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Nxe4 5. d4 Nd6 6. Bxc6 dxc6 7. dxe5 Ne4 8. Qe2 Bf5 9. Be3 Qc8 10. Nd4 Bc5 11. f3 Bxd4 12. Bxd4 Ng5 13. Nc3 Ne6 14. g4 Bg6 15. f4 f5 16. exf6 O-O 17. f5 Re8 18. fxg6 gxf6 19. gxh7+ Kg7 20. Qf2 Kxh7 21. Be3 Ng7 22. Qf4 Re5 23. Ne4 Qe6 24. Nxf6+ 1-0

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https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2505563

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xie_Jun

https://cassidynoble.com/