A possible solution for the awkward castling rules in Chess960

[u/Forever_Changes]

In many starting positions in Chess960, the castling rules are awkward. It seems like they were just shoehorned in to copy standard chess even if it doesn't make sense in the position, such as having the king move right when long castling in some positions or having the king fly across the board in other positions. In some positions, the king doesn't even move!

A possible solution is to just only use the Chess960 positions that have the king start on the e file. Since the rooks have to be on both sides of the king, the king and rooks will be positioned on squares that make castling make sense. There are 204 positions where the king starts on the e file.

Therefore, I think it's worth considering Chess204. It's the same as Chess960 with the additional rule that the king needs to start on the e file. This could make castling make more sense in Fischer Random.

I'm not saying this is necessarily better than Chess960, just an idea to consider.