That’s an interesting idea! It would make for some wild and creative opening battles. In a way, what you’re describing sounds a bit like Fog of War chess (where you don’t see all of your opponent’s pieces) or even Horde chess, where the sides have asymmetric setups.
The symmetrical starting position in traditional chess ensures fairness and balanced competition—it’s like both "armies" starting on equal footing. But if players could place their pieces however they wanted, it might lead to heavily optimized setups where certain positions become dominant.
That said, custom setups could be a cool variant! Maybe something like "Free Placement Chess," where players secretly choose their starting positions before the game begins. I’d be curious to see what kind of strategies would emerge from that!
Would you play a variant like that?
A better way would be for each player to pick their own starting positions, regardless of what their opponent has.