Transcendental chess

Transcendental chess is a chess variant invented by Maxwell Lawrence in 1978 in which the starting positions of the back-row pieces are randomized, subject only to the rule that the two bishops occupy opposite-colored squares. This produces 8,294,400 possible starting positions, far more than the related and later Chess960 variant, and eliminates castling entirely from the game. Two players compete as in standard chess, but each begins by choosing a single opening move that transposes any two pieces on their own back row instead of making a conventional first move, before play proceeds under ordinary chess rules. By starting every game from an unfamiliar configuration, Transcendental chess was designed to remove the value of memorized opening theory and introduce strategic complexity and novelty from the very first moves.