June 16, 2005

Fairy Chess When someone changes the rules.
posted by Skrik 19 years ago
  • I like chess variants. Some of those sound pretty fun.
  • One variant I particularily like was 4-person Chess. You need two boards and four players. You play black on one board, and your "ally" plays white on the other board, and he or she sits next to you. Whenever you capture an opponent's piece on your board, you take the piece and hand it to your ally, and he can drop the piece on his board as a legal move. Play ends when either game gets checkmate. It's a lot of fun. The rules of regular chess are preserved, but there's a lot more randomness that can happen when queens start falling from the sky.
  • When i used to play in high school we did "Battle Chess". At the start of the game, put up a barrier in the middle of the board. Each player is now free to rearrange his pieces wherever he likes on his part of the board. Then remove barrier...play....
  • We used to play several chess versions, all based on variations of how pieces could move: Superking -- King has added capability of moving like a knight. Superpawn -- Pawns move like the king, but can only capture diagonally. Naked Chess -- No pawns except for king's and queen's. Those can move like the king and capture in any direction. Dynasty -- Any piece reaching the opponents baseline may be promoted to the next higher value piece providing that higher value piece has already been captured. If a king is in checkmate, the queen moved to the opponent's baseline may be promoted to king unless the baseline move would put her in check. Assassin -- Once a game, any single piece can move like any other piece provided the move produces a check. After the opponent moves, the piece must be removed from the board. Traitor -- Once a game, you may replace any of your opponent's pieces (excluding the king) with one of your own providing the exchange doesn't place your opponent in check. The exchange counts as a move.
  • Don't forget reverse chess - where the object is to lose all of your pieces first, and if you can capture a piece, you must capture a piece.
  • Wow. Turns out I am very accomplished at reverse chess without even trying and have been for a while. Awesome! Thanks Rorschach!