Why Shuffle the Pieces?

Allow me to be frank: in classical chess, strong players memorize the first fifteen or twenty moves by heart, like a poem. Victory in the opening goes not to the one who thinks better, but to the one who has read more. Chess960 solves this elegantly: before every game the pieces on the first rank are arranged anew, and all that memorized theory turns to dust. A typical beginner mistake is to think that playing without theory is scarier. On the contrary: your opponent is exactly as lost as you are.

Here you have to think from the very first move — and understanding wins, not memory. A memorized opening is a crutch; in 960 there are no crutches, but there is a head on your shoulders. The principles, meanwhile, are eternal: develop your pieces, protect your king, fight for the centre. Only the scenery changes, not the logic of the game. Incidentally, this variant is also known as Fischer random chess.