Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izido...) lists 6 works by Izidor Gross but some are not chess related and none published in 1910. Only one book, 'Rochade und Notation bei Ibn Esra [Ezra?]"' ('Rochade and Notation by Ibn Esra') was published before 1910 (1900). I didn't know what "Rochade"meant and one meaning in Croatian is "castling." But another meaning of "Rochade" (from the French "Rocade"), used in business, government, and organizations is "reshuffle:, a swap of roles or positions. So it seems to me that this is a good candidate for that book even though its date is earlier than 1910.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to find any description of what Gross' shuffle consisted of, so I don't know how close it is to FischerRandom / Chess360.

One funny variaton I once tried with my son
is to replace all the pawns with knights.

Well, I suppose that great (and perhaps not so great) minds think alike. I also thought of that variant since it was the logical extension of starting with all the White pawns on the 3rd rank and all the Black pawns on the 5th rank but I thought it would result in an early bloodbath without too much to redeem it. Kind of like a clash between two ancient Greek phalanxes composed of hoplites but the proviso that they alternate blows, and of necessity one side would go first.

click for larger view

And it looks like I was right, at least as far as Stockfish 13 is concerned. At d=35 it considers White as likely winning or at least getting a slight advantage as long as he refrains from non-pawn moves.

This was Stockfish's evaluation of its top 10 moves, I won't bother giving the lines:

(1) 1.hxg5 [+2,56]
(2) 1.cxd5 [+2.36]
(3) 1.dxe5 [+1.69]
(4) 1.fxe5 [+1.33]
(5) 1.bxc5 [+1.25]
(6) 1.axb5 [+1.11]
(7) 1.gxf5 [+1.05]
(8) 1.dxc5 [+0.92]
(9) 1.exd5 [+0.10]
(10) 1.exf5 [0.00]

Again, it seems that White's advantage of the first move will likely be decisive. I wonder how long it took ICC players who tried that variant to figure that out? Although I should add that it highly depends on which pawn capture White starts with, and that's certainly not obvious. So if computer analysis is not allowed (yeah, try to enforce that one), it might have taken a while.

I should also say that Stockfish's top move alternated between 1.hxg5 and 1.cxd5 for many plies, 1.hxg5 just happened to come out on top at d=35. But 1.cxd5 was Stockfish's top choice at d=34 and d=33, with 1.hxg5 being Stockfish's top choice at d=32. Either move likely wins, so as far as deciding which move to play I suppose it depends whether you prefer center pawn clashes or wing pawn clashes.

Now, the complementary position with all <White> pawns starting on the 5th rank and all <Black> pawns starting on the 4th rank could be interesting, what with 8 connected passed pawns for each side:

click for larger view

And it was, even though with for the most part the pawns become cannon fodder, but at least Black appears to have a chance if White does not play accurately. At d=31 Stockfish indicates that White has a likely winning advantage (evaluation > [+2.00]) after (surprisingly) 1.d6 (but after all, passed pawns should be pushed), 1.Qxd4, and 1.Bxc4; the chances are likely even after 1.Qxg4 and 1.e6 (evaluation = [0.00]) and 1.Rxh4 (evaluation = [-0.07]); <Black> likely has a slight advantage (evaluation = [-0.65]) after 1.h6 (well, maybe passed pawns should not always be pushed); a likely significant advantage (evaluation between [-1.00] and [-1.99]) after 1.Bxf4 and 1.b6 (ditto); and Black likely winning (evaluation = [-2.39]) after 1.a6 (and ditto).

Yes, this is exactly what I'd like to ascertain. To tell the truth, I'm a little skeptical about the L. Polgar story without it.

<But I suspect that, given your user name, you would be a fan of "my" Chess000101101000. But shouldn't your user name have one less zero so that it would fit into one byte?>

I'm actually more of a triplet-octet kind of guy, and it's not clear that a byte is sufficient for my needs. Just in case -- nudge, nudge, wink, wink. As Tom Lehrer said, "Don't be nervous, don't be flustered, don't be scared. Be prepared!"

Highly recommended !>

I actually set up the starting position:

click for larger view

Oh, how "quickly" one forgets. In my first job after graduating from college (1970) I worked in a company programming Data General Nova minicomputers. They used octal notation. But it was byte-oriented so you typically dealt with bytes (for data) or 16-bit words (for instructions). So I typically dealt with either 8 bits (2 octets) or words (4 octets) but never with 3 octets. Oh well, nobody's perfect.

The tennis variant: White makes 1 move, Blacke makes 2, White 2, Black 2....

https://youtu.be/QxvnEwvgfeI?t=202

"How far ahead?"

< " sometimes ... 20 moves ... sometimes ... 2 or 3 moves ... ">

* * * * *

You HATE Bobby.

Yet you post on here loike. lol lol lol lol

Fischer's secretary paid for their stay with the money earned in the chess match at Sveti Stefan, says Ferenc Agošton: - Fischer liked that "red food" with tomatoes and peppers and he would stain the sheet every time. We had a waiter Gezu who was furious when he saw that and cursed. And we tell him, "Ignore that, man. Every day a hundred sheets he can pay for you. Shut up! ” Due to hyperinflation, and since we charged in dinars, they settled their obligations every day. One day, when we recalculate, it cost about $ 400. In half a year, that was more than $ 50,000. I jokingly say that Fischer supported our entire staff of 250 people, if we know that in 1993 the salaries were between five and ten German marks.

(and much more)