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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Bizarre pin rule: pinned pieces do not attack
I found this guy who likes playing chess, but not enough to bother reading the rules; he only plays using a physical board with his sister (she doesn't know the rules either).
The made up rule was ...
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How does FIDE define slow rapid & fast rapid?
I don't think I've ever heard these terms 'slow rapid' and 'fast rapid' outside chess960. Just now I tried looking up "slow rapid" "chess" "fast rapid" and "slow ...
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Formal rules for two-player bughouse without a clock
I would like to know what are the formal rules for two-player bughouse without a clock. I'd like to think of each team as a single player.
It seems to me that bughouse chess works primarily because of ...
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Why didn't Wesley So get full championship privilege in the 2022 WFRCC unlike Magnus and Vishy did since 2008?
Wesley So didn't get full championship privilege in the 2022 WFRCC unlike Magnus and Vishy did from 2008 to 2021. They got only 1 opponent to defend against, namely the unique winner of a candidates ...
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The Chess960 analogue in shogi, xiangqi, etc
Bobby Fischer said
In chess so much depends on opening theory, so the champions before the last century did not know as much as I do and other players do about opening theory. So if you just brought ...
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Winning percentage (white win/draw/black win) in chess960/9LX in 2021?
How does the winning percentage (white win/draw/black win) in chess 960 (Fischer random) compare to that of regular chess?
The above was asked here: Winning percentage in chess 960. I would like to ...
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How many Chess960 positions exist in which castling on one side does not require moving the rook on the other side?
Update: It's chess870 (or chess869). See answer.
Context/Motivation/Goal: In regular chess, you never have to move a rook (on 1 side) to castle (on the other side). My aim is to see how much of 9LX ...
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Why was the 2019 WFRCC called 'slow rapid' when it's actually classical (45+15=60)?
I'm asking about the '45 minutes for 40 moves plus 15 minutes for the rest, without increment' portions of the matches (for the quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals), which consisted of those and ...
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Chess960 or Chess959?
Once in 960 times, Chess960 should just be the same as regular chess. Are there any known instances of this? Or is this selection automatically excluded, after which they just roll the dice again? So ...
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What are the best scoring openings in Chess960?
I don't play Chess960, or Fischer Chess as it is also known. I've seen a lecture or two about it, but I was never interested.
Last week I was a bit bored so I decided to participate in a tournament ...
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Why Chess960/9LX and not Chess959?
This question asks if Chess960 is really Chess960 and not Chess959, i.e. the dice are really not re-rolled (positive, instead of normative). The answer is yes, it really is.
However, why is Chess960 ...
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How to determine the value of a piece from scratch?
Assume we have a standard chess set setup, but we make a slight change so that (for example) pawns can now move two squares forward on any move rather than just on their initial move. Even assuming ...
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What other games or chess variants are useful to improve your chess skills?
I know about Chess960, and you can play that online at lichess.org. Furthermore, I like playing Go as well. But are there any good variants and other ways to train that you use, and you know to work ...
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Resources on chess variants
While posting this question, I stumbled on this list of variants from Wikipedia, which I must admit is totally awesome.
I know a few online servers allow a few variants, but am not aware of places ...
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Is the result in mini-chess known with perfect play?
I do not know, if "mini-chess" is the official name of the game I am talking about.
In mini-chess, the players only start with the pawns (In particular, there are no kings!)
The players ...
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In Hand and Brain chess, is the stronger player generally preferred to be the hand or the brain?
Exactly what it says on the tin, as the British say:
In Hand and Brain chess, is the stronger player generally preferred to be the hand or the brain?
And secondarily:
Is the answer to the previous ...
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About the 3D chess they play on Star Trek
They play a type of 3D chess on Star Trek ( the 60's series) not on a 8x8x8 3D board but on some smaller variation. Yet the game as they have it is supposed to be complicated. Are there real rules and ...
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Has loser chess been solved?
Loser chess has a benefit of sorts. There are many turns where moves are forced. So my question is, has it been solved? I'd say that the move tree is much smaller than chess. If not:
How much would ...
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Did Indian systems really have fianchettos?
Wikipedia quotes:
The Indian Defences by g6 coupled with d6, or b6 coupled with e6, were
largely taught to European players by the example of Moheschunder and
other Indians, to whom the ...
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Chess variation where the goal is to lose all pieces
A friend challenged me to a chess variation I have never heard of.
All chess rules apply.
If you have an opportunity to take a piece, you must take it, you cannot avoid or block exchanges.
The only ...
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Is 1. Nf3 good for white in bughouse?
When my friends and I play Bughouse, a very common opening we play is 1. Nf3 Nf6, 2. Ng5 Ng4, 3. Nxf7 Nxf2, 4. Nxd8 Nxd1 .
[FEN ""]
1. Nf3 Nf6 2. Ng5 Ng4 3. Nxf7 Nxf2 4. Nxd8 Nxd1
Is this ...
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Winning percentage in chess 960
How does the winning percentage (white win/draw/black win) in chess 960 (Fischer random) compare to that of regular chess? Are there more white wins, fewer draws,...?
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What were all the chess960 armageddon games played in St Louis Chess 9LX and the WFRCC, and which colour won in each?
Well I think I know for
2019 WFRCC 3rd qualifying round and onwards
2022 WFRCC qualifiers quarter-finals and onwards
Every Chess 9LX
If anyone knows and has bothered to check the previous rounds, ...
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Armageddon: How much more desirable is black in chess than chess960 based on airthings masters 2023 vs 2022 WFRCC?
All games in question are 15 minutes.
In the 4 armageddon games in the 2022 (inaugural rapid, not the real, classical) WFRCC (both qualifiers and final 8), the Black winning bids are: 13,13,11:10,11:...
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In the 2019 WFRCC, did anyone catch up in a match after losing in the 'slow rapid' (classical?) portion?
From Wikipedia
Each match of the quarterfinals consisted of two “slow” rapid games (45 minutes for 40 moves plus 15 minutes for the rest, without increment), two “fast” rapid games (15 minutes plus 2 ...
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Patterns in Chess960 positions
I have two questions.
Where can I find more studies like this Lichess one, please? I got it from this answer elsewhere on this site.
The Lichess study is talking about this position
[White "...
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Why don't these statistics disprove white's supposed larger (practical?) advantage in chess960?
I've read that, at least theoretically, white has a larger advantage in 9LX as compared to chess. (See appendix.) This seems to be assumed in practice to the point that in some 9LX tournaments, such ...
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What are the rules of Quantum Chess?
The game Quantum Chess, as seen in the video where Paul Rudd defeats Hawking, has no "set of rules" written down. You either have to do the in-game tutorial, watch a video on the game and pick them up....
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On an infinite board, which pieces are needed to checkmate?
Most of the winnable endgames require cornering the opposing king to checkmate, often using zugzwang. However, if you have an infinite board (infinite in every direction), you won't be able to corner ...
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Is there any position where not promoting (illegally) would be the best move?
Is there any position, where moving a pawn to last rank but not promoting it to any piece would be the best move?
By the way, I know this is an illegal move. Assume it is legal.
Edit: Now we have a ...
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Crazyhouse/Bughouse openings
Are there any known or "standard" openings in bughouse or crazyhouse chess? Obviously, as soon as pieces start coming off the board things get less predictable, so this question is less about the ...
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Can one side force a loss in regular chess?
Chess is unsolved, so there is no known optimal strategy for one side to force a win or a draw.
However, is there an optimal strategy to lose? Consider a variant where checkmate results in a loss, ...
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Is the pawns only variant a draw?
In the pawns-only variant of chess, each side starts with 8 pawns and a king on the usual squares, no pieces,
with other rules being the same as in regular chess, including promotion.
While general ...
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Tactical difference between chess and Chinese chess
Is there any difference in tactics between chess and Chinese chess? If so, which one is the most fun? What are the important things to learn from it?
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How many moves of head start does white need for a guaranteed win?
As we all know, it is not known whether white can always win in chess with optimal play. If, however, white got to make two moves before black made their first move would they be able to win with ...
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How likely is it that a non-orthodox promotion is optimal?
Underpromotion is an interesting aspect of chess, but there are other possibilities that aren't allowed under modern rules.
One is the so called "dummy pawn" as this question discusses:
When (if ever)...
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Chess variant where king is captured
While trying to teach my 4 year oldson the rules of chess, I found it difficult to explain the rules of check, checkmate and stalemate. Having already explained the moves of each piece and how ...
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Major Chess 960 tournaments?
Does anyone have any information about upcoming Chess 960 tournaments at the top level (i.e. GMs and IMs)? Even links to/information about past, major tournaments would be appreciated. I recently ...
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A fun game (for problem composers, mostly...)
A game leading to a given position is called a proof game. Of course any proof game can be prepended with 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Ng1 Ng8, so we defined a shortest proof game as, duh, the shortest possible proof ...
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Could two kings force checkmate against a lone king?
I was looking at minimal combinations of material needed to force checkmate (K+R, Q+B, R+N+N, etc). You end up with a sort of threshold of how much material is needed, and that sort of assigns a ...
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Is there a variant in which any piece can be taken 'en passant'?
The en passant rule for pawns can be thought of as an 'attack of opportunity', such as in D&D - the attacking pawn would have been able to take the moving pawn as it passed through the first space....
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About retrograde analysis
Raymond Smullyan wrote some great books with Retrograde Analysis chess puzzles. I know of two, are there others?
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Mate Prevails - Chess Rule
Is "Mate Prevails" not an FIDE rule? I couldn't see it in the FIDE website but I heard about it from many players.
UPDATE:
"Mate Prevails" is a claim some players make that they win the game after '...
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Chess engine - Losers variant
I often use the Pulsar engine to analyze my Atomic games for better play (post-mortem). I definitely learn something, since I am not as smart as Pulsar. I am interested in doing the same thing for ...
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Variation of chess where winner has to capture all pieces?
Is there any variation of chess where the winner has to take all of the opponents pieces rather than just force the capture of one of them ?
I guess sacrifices wouldn't work well in this variation of ...
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Gyula Breyer joke composition cooked?
I recently bought the delightful book Outrageous Chess Problems by Burt Hochberg, which among other things contains some interesting joke compositions. I have a question about Problem 102 (diagrammed ...
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Losers Chess variant engine [duplicate]
Is there a strong Losers chess variant engine?
I had a look at stockfish, but it doesn't support Losers chess, seemingly.
(to be used on a Linux platform)
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Relation between ratings for Chess960 and standard chess
Is there any relation or any attempt at discovering a relation between Chess960 ratings and standard chess ratings? This can be for GMs, for (any)M's, for pro players, or for all players on lichess/...
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Chess480: Why 480?
From wiki:
Lewis has named this chess variation "Chess480"; it follows the rules of Chess960 with the exception of the castling rules. Although a Chess480 game can start with any of 960 ...
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How different would chess be if a stalemate was a win? [duplicate]
Historically stalemate has been handled in different ways. I wonder how different chess would be if it was a win for the stalemating player.
Has enough thought been put into this so that it's ...
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