Playing WolfRandom

Hello, guys!

Both Atomic and Atomic 960 heavily favour white on move 1, thus making you drill the opening theory or, in 960, flounder about in a weird claustrophobic position in desperate hope of staying alive. But I have just tried a new cool Atomic variant which circumvents these issues and brings new life to the old explosion game.

What is WolfRandom?

@Wolfram_EP, the creator of this variant:

It is similar to Atomic 960, but randomization works in a different way: instead of shuffling the pieces on the back rank, the bot gives sequence of first 3 random moves for white and black, after which we play a normal atomic game. It is aware about engine evaluations so it can be set up to give only balanced positions.

My Match vs @Wolfram_EP

I was so excited that I failed to convert totally winning positions in games 1 and 2... Missing simple wins here, for example -

This is what we got in game 3:

I immediately blunder (4. bxa3) but the win is not easy and Wolfram misses it! He blunders and I win me first WolfRandom game!

Here's the kind of position you get in this variant:

I can never resist a fancy move (and drawing arrows!):

from Game 4.

Another cool starting position (game 7):

In game 8 I butcher a nice position and the sneaky Wolf beats me:

All our games are in this study.

How to Play WolfRandom

@Wolfram_EP:

It is freely accessible, just in a bit weird basically dead discord server. My friend from discord agreed to add this function to his bot.
Instructions: join discord.gg/NbdDfJ4m22 and type ".wr" in #atomic channel, the bot will generate a line. If you want a line with evaluation limit you can do for example:
".wr :6.0" (only lines from -6 to +6)
".wr 3.0:5.0" (only lines from +3 to +5 or from -3 to -5 - not too equal)
By default lines from -9 to +9, although there are even worse lines in the bot.
One of players generates the line using the bot and posts it in game chat for another player (if they are not in that discord).
[alternative method of generation] - @qwertychess90411 implemented the generator on his site: https://honey-motel.bnr.la/wolfrandom/ Currently it does not support eval customization, so you just get position from +9 to -9, but it's good enough to play in my experience. [Now it does! - Elio] This way you can generate positions without Discord.

What do you think of this variant? Feel free to leave a comment!