Bishops... (Question or Puzzle)

Here's a question: because Bishops begin on opposite colors - your black bishop vs. my white - is it possible to have an unfair or unequal starting position because of this? Especially if it favored the white player?

This is either a question or a puzzle (?) Can you create an unfair starting position for 960?

Pretty good question. You have to play or simulate (monte carlo it) a whole bunch. Figuring out the best strategies would take the best chess players and the latest technology to even begin to find the most advantagous positions.

I like 960 because:

There is a possible luck factor in the openings.

Requires more active thinking and less reliance on rote-robotic strategies.

I love to see a 960 round-robin tourney featuring several grand masters and see how quick/well they adapt to new situations.

This would make the game more fun again as we are always discovering new tactics that can be reapplied to normal chess with a different point of view. 

Almost for sure. Some 960 positions can be sharper and give white a bigger advantage and vise-versa, which is why you generally want to play each 960 position from both sides in a match or tournament.

A 960 tourney would be awesome to play in. I rarely ever play live chess, but this would make wanna play a tourney.

can anyone explain what 960 is?

Chess 960/Fischer 960/Fischer chess  are all names for the same thing. The game itself works like usual, however the peices on your home row are in a random order, with only a few rules. These rules are simple, your king has to be between your rooks and you have to have one bishop on each color. The number 960 comes from the fact that following those rules there are 960 possible combinations. However you should note that the two sides do not mirror each other, they are equal and opposite. For instance, if white has a rook on A1, then black's corosponding rook is placed on A8, NOT H8. If you want more information about it check out the wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960 

 I've asked this before, and while it is assumed that there are unfair positions, I haven't seen any data to support it, with one exception.  In position 518 (RNBQKBNR), white is known to have an advantage, and it tends to be drawish, but these problems usually only show up among master players.