Starting position of thematic tournaments

If I see it correctly, when setting up a thematic tournament, you can only select from a restricted set of starting positions. That's a pity, because in many cases the positions are not specific enough. For example, the position "B07: Pirc Defence" (after 1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6) is more general than Pirc, which would require that Black plays g6 (otherwise it's Philidor).

Wouldn't it be a good idea to make the choice of the starting position completely flexible, for example by allowing the user to insert a FEN code?

Good idea. Although it is also interesting to compare performance for black on Philidor vs Pirc. But for the sake of giving more life into Pirc it would be nice to start with the principal decision for black in the position: rnbq1rk1/ppp1ppbp/3p1np1/8/3PP3/2N2N2/PPP1BPPP/R1BQ1RK1 b - - 0 6

It all depends on the intention of the tournament starter. If the goal is to compare Pirc and Philidor, then, of course, the "B07: Pirc Defence" starting position is fine. Your suggestion:

is considerably more restricted to the classical variant of the Pirc. Personally, I would tend to start with the position after 1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6, leaving to White the choice between 4. Nf3, 4. Be3, 4. Bg5, 4. f4 or something else. All starting positions may lead to interesting tournaments. My point is just that the tournament starter should have full flexibility.

I'm surprised to hear that you have seen starting positions of this sort. Can you give an example from a recent tournament? When I tried to set up a thematic tournament, the choice of starting positions was restricted to a list of pre-defined openings.

Does this depend on your level of membership? I found this tournament

http://www.chess.com/tournament/ultimate-1-d4-d6-2-c4-e5-rat-defense

with the starting position

which does not seem to be from the list of standard positions. The creator of this tournament is a diamond member. So is this an exclusive feature?

Hi Rainpiper,

I have the same problem. It is irritating that a tourn creator cant select moves but only use those from the pre-defined openings.

The rat defense tournament I created is an actual opening although it is a bit weird. I dont think memebership has anything to do with it.

http://www.chess.com/tournament/ultimate-1-d4-d6-2-c4-e5-rat-defense

It helps sometimes to actually go to the game explorer, enter the moves and then see what the opening is actually called in the chess.com database. This helped me a lot to find the off-beat openings I want to create a tourament for. I dont know if free memebers can access the game explorer? If not I am sure you can ask in forums....

hope this helps....

Hi forrie,

Thanks for the clarification. So there is definitely no free choice of the starting position. Still, I'm puzzled about what is in the list of pre-selected openings. When I enter your position in the Game Explorer, it actually gives

"A41: Rat Defense: English Rat"

But I cannot find this position in the list in the tournament creator. The only A41 position in the list is "A41: Modern Defence", which is a different position. That's strange. Are you faced with a different list of positions to choose from than I am?

Now I start to get a clue about what's going on. In the tournament creator, we have the field "Starting position" with a drop-down menu. This menu contains only a selection of opening positions, including "A41: Modern Defence", but no other A41 variety. However, you can also select "Search all openings". Then a new search field opens to the right. Here you can search for the ECO code or the name. If I fill in "A41", the "Rat defense" still does not appear. You actually must know what name is given to the opening by chess.com. A search for "rat" is succesful and you can select "A41: Rat Defense: English Rat", indeed.

yes, but its a pity you cant select manually the moves.....

I just came across this tournament:

http://www.chess.com/tournament/unusual-start-ii

with a completely strange starting position:

I thought that this had to be a custom set-up, but actually, the position can be found in "Search all openings" as "A00: Formation: Hippopotamus Attack". How is it possible that this one made it into the list, whereas, say, the following reasonable variant of the Trompowsky Attack cannot be selected?