Questions tagged [chess-variants]
Questions about variants of normal chess including bughouse, Chess960 (Fischer Random), atomic chess, racing kings, crazyhouse, antichess, etc. Can be used together with a more specific chess-variant tag, like [chess-960], [bughouse], etc. (see tag wiki for suggestions).
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Variant: 1st check wins
This is a simple chess variant: Normal starting position, normal rules, except the first check wins. With the problem chess software Popeye, alas, you can verify that 1.Nc3 due to the "fork" ...
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Why is the chessboard and its coordinates the way it is?
I would like to know why the coordinates are the way they are. I know it is a made up thing but I'm curious to know if it were setup any other way, would it still work?
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Checkmate with king moves only
What is the quickest way to get a checkmate under the following conditions:
The winning side moves the king on every move
The starting position is Chess960?
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Can a Bishop and some Knights force mate on an infinite board?
Two players agree to play chess on an infinite board with no edges. White begins by placing down a bishop, a king, and some finite number of knights of their choosing, in whatever configuration they ...
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Do people play variants in chess clubs?
The club that I've gone to plays standard chess format, forty five minutes on the clock, with an increment of fifteen seconds, which seems to be the regular way of playing for over-the-board chess.
I ...
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Team chess variant where captured pieces carry over to the next round?
Inspired by team chess variants like Bughouse where capturing pieces has an impact on other games, but not everyone is a fan of tactics like waiting for pieces/stalling and time scramble aspects, ...
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Is "Pawn Pugilism" won for White or Black?
There might be another established word in English (in German it's "Bauernkloppe") for this training lesson for kids, but the rules are simple: Both sides have only the pawns at their usual ...
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Is there a Fairy Chess piece that takes up less than one square on the board?
I have never seen a piece that doesn't take up a full square. Is there any chess variant where there is a piece that can share a square with another piece?
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Is there any Chess piece that takes up more than one square on the board?
I have seen pieces that can take multiple other pieces at once, but never seen a piece that takes up more than one square.
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Is there any piece that can take multiple pieces at once?
In any variant of chess, played either online, or over the board, are there any pieces that can, and are allowed to take multiple other pieces in one move?
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Is there a Fairy Chess Piece that Combines the Gnurider and Queen?
In fairy chess a Gnu moves like both a Camel and a Knight. A Camel moves three squares in one direction (either horizontally or vertically) and then one square perpendicular to that direction. A ...
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Double move chess
Sometimes my pupil may play the game having always 2 moves. (I of course play only 1.) The exact rules vary due to strength, especially regarding checks, let's try worst case: Black may capture and ...
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What makes alternative winning conditions good or bad in chess variants?
For chess variants that keep all or most of chess movement rules but with different winning conditions (can be in addition to the normal winning condition or replacing it), what properties/...
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Why was this recent Chess960 match of mine considered a stalemate?
So recently, I participated in a Chess960 tournament because I wanted to try and improve how I strategized, because that seemed to me to be what had been killing my Chess960 rating on Lichess. However,...
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Chess Variant Idea: Every piece can move on each turn [closed]
Imagine a chess variant where you could make 1 move for each of your pieces on the board during your turn. There is no mate in one on the first move so far as I can see. Also, things that would ...
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When can legions of knights on an infinite chessboard checkmate a lone king?
On an infinite (perhaps only in one direction?) chessboard, what kind of configuration of (possibly a very large number of) knights could checkmate a lone king? I'm really thinking of an infinite-in-...
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Are there chess variants than involve only cooperation and no competition?
One thing I've noticed is that even the most unusual chess variants tend to involve some sort of a competition. For instance in 4 player chess teams the members of the same team cooperate with each ...
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Material value of the super-king
In standard chess, everyone knows that the king is the weakest piece, being able to move one square in any direction (diagram below), with its movement often hindered by enemy pieces and even friendly ...
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Longest *fairy* chess problem
Longest orthodox chess problem
One for the specialists. In the newest SCHWALBE I saw some titanic lengths (one problem had 2^59+2^57+3 ~ 10^18 moves!) As you see, this scales with O(2^(n^2)), where n ...
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Why does a hexagonal chess board skip the letter J?
For every Glinski's Hexagonal Chess game I see online the algebraic notation skips J for I K L. Why? What's wrong with J?
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Max number of promoted units on the board in a monochromatic game
A whimsical question just occurred to me. I think I have an answer, but I thought I would share it here as a puzzle.
What is the maximum number of promoted units that can appear simultaneously on the ...
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What are "monochromatic" retrograde analysis problems?
What does it mean when a retrograde analysis problem is qualified as being "monochromatic" ?
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Baroque/Ultima vs. Chess
Baroque a.k.a. Ultima is a chess variant in which all the pieces except the kings have quite different powers than in regulation chess. They all make non-capturing moves like queens (except the "...
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What are the Rules of Baroque chess?
I want to do an AI project implementing a Chess agent, so can anyone please let me know the Rules of Baroque chess?
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Does this chess variant exist, and has it ever been considered for official tournaments?
Inspired by this question: Why did Magnus Carlsen not play the World Chess Championship in 2023?
It's not the first time I've heard about GMs (not just Magnus Carlsen) being tired of the current state ...
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Viability of 4 player chess engines
I got into a discussion with a friend recently about the viability of 4 player chess engines. He claimed that they would be impossible to create at anywhere near the level of modern chess engines.
I'm ...
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How bad is Stockfish in Fog of War chess
Since in Fog of War chess you cant see all the board , I think that engines would suck at it.Have there been any attempts on playing engine tournaments under Fog of War chess?
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Chess Atomic Openings
I'm studying Atomic Chess. Where can I find openings at? I've found the site Vlasov's Atomic-Chess Homepage so far.
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How much is the value of the wizard?
I came up with a new chess piece called the "Wizard".What it does basically is that it can switch places with any piece(except pawns) and for 1 move it has the attributes of the switched ...
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Why can't I move my knight from d5 to c7?
I am a foreigner learning to play chess with my computer. The blue move is the last move and the red one is suggested to go.
I wonder why I can't move my knight anymore. The computer doesn't allow me ...
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Who has the edge in "gg chess"?
These days, "gg" (good game) is frequently what folks say at the end of a game.
At major chess events, at the end of a drawn game, the players & arbiter arrange the pieces in the ...
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How much would chess change if Black always had the last move?
In a hypothetical minor variant, could White's first-move advantage be compensated for by Black's right to last move?
Normally, White wins have White play N+1 plies to Black's N. How would the game ...
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How to ask an AI engine to test this chess variant?
I would like to use an AI engine to test how well the following chess variant would work: The rules are as in usual chess, except
Castling is not possible; instead, the next rule takes its place:
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What are the pros and cons of introducing chess 960 without castling as a new chess variant?
Chess 960 is a popular chess variant that can be played on many platforms. All rules are standard, except the starting position is randomly generated. Some of these 960 positions give more than usual ...
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Checkmate in ω² moves with finitely many pieces
The post Checkmate in ω
moves? has inspired a lot of discussion and mathematical research into positions on an infinite chessboard where white can mate in a transfinite amount of moves. The current ...
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Is there a crazyhouse+bughouse chess variant?
I would like to know if the following chess variant or a closely related one exists.
There are 4 players, say 1 to 4. Players 1 and 2 form a team and play aginst players 3 & 4 team. Player 1 plays ...
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Chess-like games and exercises that are useful for chess coaching
Chess 960 popularised by Fischer could be useful to teach opening principles (mainly because the players has to think about development consciously). LaPingvino asked "What other games or chess ...
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Record stockfish level 8 in atomic?
What is the shortest possible game against Stockfish at its hardest setting in
Atomic Chess? You cannot allow the computer to blunder the game on move 1 or 2, otherwise the shortest possible game is 3 ...
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How to gain a better understanding/intuition in queen races?
In antichess, queen races are when both players have their queens on opposite sides of the board, continually capturing each other's pieces.
In my experience playing antichess, queen races are very ...
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Mate-in-N problems where N scales indefinitely with board size
Motivation - Long range mating patterns
This question is inspired by my recent interest in infinite chess and the post on MathOverflow Checkmate in ω moves?. Since my chess endgame skills are quite ...
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What is the idea behind 1. nh3 h6 in atomic chess?
On the Lichess analysis board for atomic chess, it suggests for white to play 1. nh3, an unorthodox move that seems to leave the knight in a terrible spot on the side. But even more bizarrely, the ...
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King and short rook checkmate
Suppose White has a king and a range-x rook and black has a bare king on a chessboard with dimensions y times y.
What is the minimum value of x such that for all sufficiently large y, White, moving ...
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Is any research being done in penguin chess? Especially, is there a tablebase?
First here are the rules for penguin chess. Everything is the same as in normal chess, except:
Any piece, except the kings, can move to any empty square.
Pawns can't move to the 1st and 8th rank.
I ...
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When is K vs K+R in antichess winning? How to win these endgames?
Note: This is not a question on standard chess, where obviously K+R vs K is a win for K+R.
Here are two example K+R vs K positions in antichess, both having white to play and white having K+R.
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Is bughouse a win for a team with excess time?
In bughouse it is a huge advantage during the game to have more time on your clocks than your opponents.
So I wonder what happens if one team starts with a time advantage (from now on called the time ...
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Analysis of positions with only one king on the board?
Endgame positions with just one king on the board may be very rich. Has any analysis of simple positions done? Maybe even tablebases for small numbers of pieces?
There are some existing problems with ...
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Variant where White cannot lose?
I was pondering an asymmetrical variant where White's king is just a regular piece that moves like a normal king, but can be captured without consequence (and hence check for White does not exist). ...
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What are the rules of Shatranj?
According to this answer to this question (Is Chaturanga/Shatranj an early form of chess or is this altogether different?):
Chaturanga is the ancient game that gave birth to board games chess, shogi, ...
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Hourglass chess timer
Consider the following time control idea (which obviously would
not be implemented with a sand clock, but a modern
electronic clock): The hourglass starts in neutral, each
move reverses it. Thus any ...
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Is there a website that records the moves of a chess game in video or gif format, and also allows illegal moves?
I've wanted to record some chess games in 2d video or gif form from a version that I made that has different rules, but it won't allow me to import it because it has illegal moves. Is there a way to ...
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