"The opening decides everything. If you get a good position, its very easy to play I mean: Its a lot of fun. Youre just enjoying it. (...) But if you get a bad position right away its very -- I mean, youre just like Why am I playing 960 instead of playing normal chess? Id much rather just blitz out 20 moves of theory." — Hikaru Nakamura in an interview with Ioan-Cristian Chirilă, September 2022"
Chess960, also known as Fischer Random Chess, is a chess variant that randomizes the starting position of the pieces on the back rank. It was introduced by former world chess champion Bobby Fischer in 1996 to reduce the emphasis on opening preparation and to encourage creativity in play. Chess960 uses the same board and pieces as classical chess, but the starting position of the pieces on the play
"The old chess is youre banging your head against the wall with this theory. (...) You were trying to find some little improvement on move 18 or 20. Its ridiculous. It gets harder and harder and harder. You need more and more computers. You need more and more people working for you." 2005"
"(In response to question: Actually i was wondering about this seeming catch-22 in 9LX. Which is it more of? A - there arent many tournaments BECAUSE people arent really interested B - there arent many tournaments AND SO people arent really interested?)"
"I love chess, and I didnt 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. Im really not interested in that. I want to keep the old chess flavor. I want to keep the old chess game. But just making a change so the starting positions are mixed, so its not degenerated down to memorization and prearrangement like it is today." Radio Interview, June 27, 1999 (see 2:18–3:03) (also see here 39:04–39:49) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2344&v=eMTbSfBvC7c"
"In my opinion, we should start moving towards Chess960, just like we started to generate energy with renewable energy sources a while ago. If we start now, then by the time it reaches a crisis point, we will have a viable alternative ready." — Srinath Narayanan, August 2017"
"Teach people to play new chess, right away. Why do you offer them a black and white television set, when there is a set in color?" in the only meeting with FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, responding to the latter advocating "step by step" changes mindful of the heritage of chessGligorić (2002), p. 71."
"This is like a dream come true for any chess player. I mean I understand that this is a chess players chess. I understand maybe for public its difficult to follow Fischer Random. But the amount of joy we get playing this, I dont know if anything can be compared." — Levon Aronian in an interview with Ioan-Cristian Chirilă, September 2022"