Fischer Random rounds 1 and 2

Rounds 1 and 2 played on 7-Apr-09
Round 1 position

Round 2 position
Fischer Random is not quite random. First of all the bishops have to be on opposite coloured squares. Secondly, the King must sit between the 2 Rooks so that he can castle on either side. Nic Croad wrote a program last year to generate positions which conform to these 2 rules.
Fischer Random is not to everyone's taste. It certainly takes you out of your comfort zone, and you cannot rattle off 20 moves of theory before you have to think. From that point of view, it is probably very good brain therapy for those of us worried about the onset of Alzheimer's disease!
People like me, who find it all a bit weird, attempt to get the position to look as normal as possible as quickly as possible. An additional difficulty is the rather fast 25/5 time limit.

Generally, though, the people who are good at standard chess are also good at the Fischer Random kind. After 2 rounds, the players on 100% scores were all very familiar - Anthony Ker, who won the inaugural event last year, Russell Dive, Nic Croad, Mark van der Hoorn and Brian Nijman. I did spectacularly badly in this event last year, and also started badly this year losing on time to Brian Nijman after enjoying a distinctly favourable position earlier on.

Full results:

Round 1
Ker 1 Jackson 0
Farrington 0 Croad 1
Dive 1 Brockway 0
Sellen 0 Nijman 1
Palmer 0 Drinkwater 1
Theodosiou 0 Hill 1
Aldridge 1 Grkow 0
Forster 1 Jhurani 0
Van der Hoorn 1 Nyberg 0

Round 2
Hill 0 Ker 1
Croad 1 Aldridge 0
Nijman 1 Forster 0
Drinkwater 0 Dive 1
Grkow 0 Sellen 1
Van der Hoorn 1 Jackson 0
Brockway 1 Palmer 0
Jhurani 1 Theodosiou 0
Nyberg 1 Farrington 0