Chess variant

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A chess variant is a game derived from, related to or similar to chess in at least one respect. The difference from chess can include one or more of the following:

Different board (larger or smaller, another board form, e.g. hexagonal or circle).
Fairy pieces, different from those used in chess.
Different rules for capture, move order, game goal, etc.

The national chess variants like xiangqi and shogi are traditionally also called chess variants in western world. They have many similarities with chess and share a common ancestor.

The number of possible chess variants is unlimited. D.B. Pritchard, the author of Encyclopedia of Chess Variants, estimates that there are more than two thousand chess variants, confining the number to published ones. The creation in 1998 of Zillions of Games, a Windows compatible software program which enables non-programmers to design and playtest some types of chess variants using an AI opponent, has helped increase chess variant growth within communities that use it.

Glinski's hexagonal chess. One of many chess variants.

In the context of chess problems, chess variants are called fantasy chess, heterodox chess or fairy chess. Some chess variants are used only in chess composition and not for playing.

Contents

1 Chess-derived games

1.1 Chess with different starting position
1.2 Chess with different board
1.3 Chess with unusual rules
1.4 Chess with incomplete information and/or elements of chance
1.5 Multimove variants
1.6 Multiplayer variants
1.7 Chess with unusual pieces
1.8 Games inspired by chess

2 Chess-related national games
3 Chess variants software
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

6.1 General
6.2 Collections
6.3 Internet servers to play chess variants

Chess-derived games

These chess variants are derived from chess by changing board, rules or adding new pieces.

Chess with different starting position

In these variants, the starting position is different, but otherwise the pieces, board, and rules are the same.

Displacement chess: some pieces in the initial position are exchanged.
Chess960 (or Fischer Random Chess): the placement of the pieces on the 1st and 8th rank is randomized.
Chess480: the placement of the pieces on the 1st and 8th rank is randomized, but unlike Fischer Random Chess the castling rules use conventional chess rules.
[Chess256] (or Randompawns Chess): Only the pawns are randomized, on the 2nd and 3rd rank. Black's position mirrors white's.
King's corner chess: like Fischer Random Chess, the placement of the pieces on the 1st and 8th row are randomized, but with the king in the right hand corner. Black's starting position is obtained by rotating white's position 180 degrees around the board's center.
Transcendental chess (or Double Fischer Random Chess): similar to Fischer Random Chess, but the opening white and black positions do not mirror each other.

Chess with different board

In these chess variants the same pieces and rules as in chess are used, but the board is different. It can be smaller or larger, hexagonal, cylindrical, or with other properties. The movement of pieces in some variants is modified to account for the unusual property of the playing board.

Alice chess: played with two boards. A piece moved on one board passes "through the looking glass" onto the other board.
Circular chess: played on a circular board consisting of four rings, each of sixteen squares.
Cylinder chess: played on a cylinder board with A and H columns "connected". Thus a player can use them as if the A column were next to the H column (and vice versa).
[Doublewide chess]: two (sometimes four) regular chess boards are connected (for a 16x8 or 16x16 play surface) and each player plays with two complete sets of chess pieces. Because each player has two kings, the first king can be captured like a normal piece.
Gliński's hexagonal chess: played on a hexgrid with three colors and three bishops.
Grid chess: the board is overlaid with a grid of lines; for a move to be legal, it must cross at least one of these lines.
Los Alamos chess (or Anti-clerical chess): played on a 6x6 board without bishops. This was the first chess-like game played by a computer program.
Three-dimensional chess: several variants exist, with the most popular being "Tri-D Chess" from the television series Star Trek.

Chess with unusual rules

These chess variants have the same pieces and board as chess, but some rules for moving, capturing etc. are changed. The game goal can be also different from that in chess.

Andernach chess: a piece making a capture changes color.
Atomic chess: any capture on a square results in an "atomic explosion" which kills (i.e. removes from the game) all pieces in any of the 8 surrounding squares, except for pawns.
Checkers chess: normal rules of chess are followed, however, pieces can only move forward until they have reached the last row.
Checkless chess: where players are forbidden from giving check except to checkmate.
Circe chess: captured pieces are reborn on their starting squares.
Colour chess: A family of alternative chess games that uses the same moves as traditional chess but changed from a competitive to a cooperative game.
Crazyhouse: captured pieces change the color and can be dropped on any unoccupied location. There are two variations of this chess variant, known as Loop Chess and Chessgi. Combining Crazyhouse with Kriegspiel yields Crazyhouse-Kriegspiel (or CrazyKrieg for short).
Extinction chess: you win by "extincting" a type of piece of your opponent. That is, you win if you capture your opponent's king or queen, both his rooks, bishops or knights, or all his pawns.
[Gunnery Chess]: Cannon pawns can leap over friendly piece and explode an enemy piece on the same file.
Handicap chess (or Chess with odds): variation to equal chances of players with different strength.
Hexapawn: a simple chess variant played only with pawns.
[Hopper Chess]: Pieces in front of friendly pieces can land immediately behind enemy pawns.
Knight relay chess: pieces defended by a friendly knight can move as a knight.
Legan chess: played as if the board would be rotated 45°, initial position and pawn movements are adjusted accordingly.
Madrasi chess: a piece which is attacked by the same type of piece of the opposite colour is paralysed.
Patrol chess: captures and checks are only possible if the capturing or checking piece is guarded by a friendly piece.
Pion coiffé: you need to deliver checkmate with a pawn to win.
PlunderChess: the capturing piece is allowed to temporarily take the moving abilities of the piece taken.
[Replacement chess]: Captured pieces are not removed from the board, but moved by the capturer anywhere on the board.
Suicide chess(also known as Giveaway Chess, Take Me Chess, Losers Chess, Antichess, Must Kill): capturing moves are mandatory and the object is to lose all pieces.
Three checks chess: you win if you check your opponent three times.

Chess with incomplete information and/or elements of chance

In these chess variants, luck sometimes plays a role. Still, like in poker or backgammon clever strategy and consideration of probabilities are important as well.

Archon: success of piece capture depends on the strength of the attacking piece (with better chances for more powerful piece).
Dark chess: you see only positions attacked by your pieces.
Dice chess: the pieces a player is able to move are determined by rolling a pair of dice.
Knightmare Chess: played with cards that change the game rules.
Kriegspiel: each player does not know where the opponent's pieces are but can deduce them with information from a referee.
Stanley random chess: approximately 50% of moves are "adjusted" in a seemingly random fashion by a computer, although it is claimed to be according to a complex set of rules.
Sun Tzu chess: Starting positions are random like transcendental chess, the board is hidden as in dark chess, and you may place captured pieces as in crazyhouse.

Multimove variants

In these variants one or both players can move more than once per turn.

Avalanche chess: each move consists of a standard chess move followed by a move of one of the opponent's pawns.
Kung-fu chess: a chess variant without turns. Any player can move any of his pieces at any given moment.
Marseillais chess: after the first turn of the game by white being a single move, each player moves twice per turn.
Monster chess: white has the king and four pawns against the entire black army but may make two successive moves per turn.
Multiple move chess: players make multiple moves each turn according to a few special rules to keep the game fairly traditional.
Progressive chess: (also known as Scotch Chess) the first player moves once, the second moves twice, the first moves three times, etc.
[Twinmove Chess (compulsory):] Double move variant where a pawn must be moved first.
[Twinmove Chess (uncompelled):] Double move variant where a pawn can, optionally, be moved first.

Multiplayer variants

These variants arose out of the desire to play chess with more than just one other person.

Bughouse chess: (also known as Tandem chess, Double chess, Siamese chess, Swap chess) two teams of two players face each other on two boards. Allies use opposite colours and give captured pieces to their partner. Two-player version of the game, played with only one board is called Crazyhouse.
Djambi: can be played by four people with a 9x9 board and four sets of special pieces. The pieces can capture or move the pieces of an adversary. Captured pieces are not removed from the board, but turned upside down. There are variants for three players or five players (pentachiavel).
[Three player chess]: uses a special three sided chess board, the winner is whoever is first to checkmate one of the other two players. If more than one player's pieces contribute to a checkmate, the winner is whoever makes the final move that causes a checkmate.
Forchess: a four-person version using the standard board and two sets of standard pieces.
Four-handed chess: can be played by three or four people and uses a special board and four sets of differently colored pieces.

Chess with unusual pieces

Most of the pieces in these chess variants are taken from chess. The game goal and rules are also very similar to those in chess. However these chess variants include one or more fairy pieces, which move differently then in chess.

Baroque: (also known as Ultima) pieces on the 1st row move like queens, and pieces on the 2nd row move like rooks. They are named after their unusual capturing methods; for example, Leaper, Immobilizer, and Coordinator.
Capablanca chess: a few game variations played on a 10×8 or 10×10 board with two new pieces: Chancellor (Rook+Knight) and Archbishop (Bishop+Knight).
Capablanca random chess: permutational shuffling of the starting position of Capablanca chess (ala Fischer random chess).
Dragon chess: uses three 8×12 boards atop one another, with new types of chess piece.
[Elk chess (with Scorpions)]: poisonous Scorpion pawns combined with the restive Elk, that changes with the colour of the square.
Gess: chess with variable pieces, played on a go-board.
Gothic Chess: is a commercial chess variant played on a 10x8 board with a Chancellor and an Archbishop as new pieces. It was patented in 2002 by Ed Trice. It is similar to Capablanca Chess.
Grand chess: is a popular chess variant played upon a 10x10 board. It was invented in 1984 by Christian Freeling. It is related to Capablanca Chess.
Janus chess: played on 10×8 board with a fairy chess piece, (Bishop+Knight) named a Janus.
Maharajah and the Sepoys: black has a complete army, white only one piece - Maharajah (Queen+Knight).
[Mastodon Chess]: Standard pieces plus two Mastodons per side. The Mastodon jumps one or two steps orthogonally or diagonally. Mastodon Chess, with different setups, is played on two board sizes, 10x10 and 8x10.
Omega chess: played on a 10×10 board with a four extra squares, one per corner. Also, there are two fairy chess pieces used.
Penultima: an inductive chess variant where the players must deduce hidden rules invented by "Spectators".
Stealth Chess: played in the fictional Ankh-Morpork Assassins' Guild from the Discworld series of books; played on an 8×10 board. The fairy piece is the Assassin.
Ultima: another name for Baroque chess.
Chess with different armies: two sides use different sets of fairy pieces. There are several armies of equal strength to choose from, including standard FIDE army.

Games inspired by chess

These chess variants are very different from chess and may be considered as an abstract board game and not as a chess variant.

Arimaa: A game inspired by Garry Kasparov's defeat by chess computer Deep Blue, this game is easy to understand but difficult for computers to play well.
[ChessWar]: complex strategy game played with chess pieces and board.
Martian Chess: played with Icehouse pieces

Chess-related national games

Some of these games have developed independently from chess, while others are ancestors of modern chess. Nonetheless, they are potentially definable as chess variants (with some possible difficulties). The popularity of these chess variants may be limited to their respective places of origin (as is largely the case for shogi), or worldwide, as is the case for xiangqi which is played by overseas Chinese everywhere. These games have their own institutions and traditions.

Chaturanga - an ancient Indian game, presumed to be the common ancestor of chess and other national chess-like variants
Chaturaji - four handed version of Chaturanga, played with a dice.
Shatranj - an ancient Persian game, derived from Chaturanga
Tamerlane Chess - a significantly expanded variation of shatranj
Xiangqi - China
Jungle (or animal chess) - China.
Shogi - Japan (see also shogi variants)
Janggi - Korea
Makruk - Thailand
Sittuyin - Burma
Shatar - Mongolia

Chess variants software

Some program authors have created stand-alone applications that are capable of playing one or more variants.

Zillions of Games - supports unlimited number of chess variants. One can write his/her own rule files which helps one to play most chess variant.
ChessV - supports around 30 chess variants, including such popular variants as Grand chess, Shatranj, Three checks chess, Ultima.
[SMIRF] - supports a variety of chess variants on 8x8 and 8x10 boards.
[Gothic Vortex] - the winner of Gothic Chess Computer Championship 2004
[Sunsetter] - Crazyhouse and Bughouse chess engine
[Sjeng] - besides Crazyhouse and Bughouse chess supports also some other chess variants.

References

H.J.R. Murray (1913). A History of Chess. ISBN 0936317019.
D.B. Pritchard (1994). The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. ISBN 0952414201.
D.B. Pritchard (2000). Popular Chess Variants. ISBN 0713485787.

External links

General

Collections

In addition to individual chess variants with popularity, large collections (generally acknowledged to be of respectable quality) have been created by several inventors.

Internet servers to play chess variants

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