It is not freestyle, it is "play a random position chosen by an algorithm" style. This is boring. Let the players freely place their pieces in the start position, that would be of interest.
You were allowed to use engines, opening books and tablebases. You were allowed to play in teams (GMs were part of some). You were even allowed to bribe your opponents into losing! But it died out fairly quickly and now the name has been reused to mean Chess960.
I think that pretty much ruins the whole point of Fischer Random. The point is to not be able to open prep at all, and have to deal with a wide variety of opening possibilities. Too many to reasonable predict and prepare for past the first few moves.
With being able to place your own pieces, you can much easily dictate your opening beforehand. And I have little to no doubt top players would converge towards certain optimal placements. And then you'd be back to playing the same positions over and over, just like standard chess. Which is what Fischer Random attempts to stray from.
Also, on a more subjective note, quite the crazy opinion to call this format "boring". I haven't looked at these games yet, but the 2022 World Championship had some absolute crazy games. With crazy openings and positions that you just never get in standard chess.
I wouldn't say it's "boring" (hence the downvotes, I imagine) - but this does seem like an interesting idea, to let the players choose their positions. Does such a style exist?
Apparently also called Bronstein Shuffle (which also sounds like a fun dance)
A key part seems to be alternating turns placing pieces. I wonder if this would result in top level gameplay converging on certain opening placements? If so, I wonder how not taking turns but deciding on placement privately beforehand might affect gameplay.
Anyway, maybe when the pros get sick of Chess960 they'll give this a shot :)
It would be effectively be the opposite of Chess960 -- instead of reducing the impact of studying openings, it would add a whole genre of placement meta you'd need to study to be competitive.
