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Two Move Chess. Designed to alleviate the first move advantage for White using double moves, while retaining the tactics of international chess.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Aug 27, 2021 12:23 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

This is an interesting and logical approach to tackling how to have a double-move variant addresses pesky rules like check and en passant.  They always require special-case rules to address, and how it is addressed here "feels" right to me.  Marseillais Chess handles the check thing fine, but falls down on how en passant is handled.  You seem to have neatly solved that, too.  I also like how you are limited to one capture per move and cannot move the same piece twice.  This also helps to preserve the strategical similarity to orthodox chess. I guess Marseillais is more of a "let's make double moves and we'll end up with an interesting but totally different game."  Originally, it wasn't even "balanced" (white started with two moves.)  This is an ambitious attempt to add the property of double moves games being "balanced" while changing as little else about the game as possible.

Extra Move Chess also provides similar benefits.  You can make a second move, but don't have to, as long as it doesn't capture or move a piece that just moved.  If you make a second move, it can be a two-space pawn move (which a first move can't, except for white's first move of the game.)  This also neatly solves check and en passant.

I'd like to add this to ChessV.  I think it's doable but I need to think some things through.  The thing I see that most concerns me is this:

Each position created by a two move turn is included in the count toward a draw by threefold repetition, or toward a draw by the Fifty move rule (or the Seventy-five move rule)

If I understand this, it would be difficult to implement and doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  Are you saying that any move in a single move turn or responsive move turn should not count towards the 50-move rule, nor should they be counted toward any potential repetition?


Beautiful Beasts. A new team for Chess with Different Armies based on the Roc.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Andrew L Smith wrote on Sat, Aug 28, 2021 01:16 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

This is a great concept for an army! I like how the Vouivre encourages tactical play with its forking capabilities and ability to do nasty smothered mates, while the Geese are more focused on strategic pawn play in the endgame; similar to how the tactical Knights and the strategic Rooks provide a variety of viable playstyles in the Fabulous FIDEs.

In your opening line, 2.Vg5 doesn't work because of Qxg5.

PS: If you're willing to upload this army to ChessCraft, I'd be happy to playtest them alongside my own Starbound Sliders.

Edit: Upon closer inspection, this army is actually very weak.

  • Ouroboros: 2x5pts Although the Ouroboros is about Rook strength, it's the only one that's as strong as its claimed to be.
  • Roc: 2x3pts+0.5pts colorbound pair bonus The Roc is colorbound and has limited range, making it weak and finnicky even by minor piece standards. Complicated maneuvres are less viable when the board is full of pawns, which further highlights the Roc's difficulty in movement. It is definitely not as strong as a Rook, though its ability to reach 12 squares means it may be slightly stronger than a Knight.
  • Flying Goose: 2x1.5pts The Flying Goose has very little value, and also gives the Beautiful Beasts the very annoying trait that they can't castle without moving one of the three Pawns that will be in front of the King (unless they castle queenside and mave the a pawn). Granted, the Flying Goose is little more than a slightly stronger pawn anyway, but still.
  • Vouvire: 9pts The Vouvire is reasonably strong for a Queen equivalent and it's great for tactical play, the problem is that there's nothing to play tactically against. Knights are fun to use because they're the weakest piece in the army (so when they fork something, you're in business!) while the Vouvire is the strongest piece so it can't fork anything that's protected. Also, it can't go to any of the 8 adjacent squares, which makes maneuvering on a crowded board surprisingly difficult.
  • Total: 28.5pts CwDA armies typically range from 31.5 (Fabulous FIDEs) to 33.5 (Nutty Knights) with more complicated armies needing more value.

Bear Chess. A popular Russian game; bears leap to second perimeter.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Kevin Pacey wrote on Fri, Oct 22, 2021 03:10 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

This appears to be a fine variant, in spite of the 2 unprotected pawns per side in the setup (that kind of helps make up for the 6 ranks distance between the initial pawn ranks, actually).

@ Greg:

Hi. One player mentioned to me that this preset doesn't seem to work perfectly. Namely only two-square K move to castle either side (i.e. not three-square K move to the queenside) has been allowed by it. Also, capturing by en passant isn't always allowed, I guess meaning if a 3-step pawn move is made by the opponent. Has this preset been tested for either of those possible problems? If not, please fix if you can, at your leisure.

K


Grand Riders Chess. Members-Only Chess with cross over between Cavalier Chess and Shogun Chess and use the normal riders.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

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Musketeer Chess. Adding 2 newly designed extra pieces. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Wed, Nov 3, 2021 11:30 PM UTC:Poor ★

The quality of the page has not been improved in more than one year. If everyone is happy with that, fine.


Simple Mideast Chess. Members-Only Game with simple rules, no promotion, no nonstandard move or capture, no asymetric pieces, and no check, checkmate or stalemate.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

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Opulent Chess. A derivative of Grand Chess with additional jumping pieces (Lion and Wizard). (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Eric Silverman wrote on Mon, Nov 22, 2021 04:48 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

I've played the heck out of this via Ai Ai, and I absolutely adore this game. I prefer the greater piece density and the more interesting piece mix here to those of Grand Chess. The resulting play is interesting and nuanced both tactically and strategically. In my opinion Opulent Chess is one of the finest 10x10 variants.

My one complaint is the presence of Pawn promotion by replacement, but that's not particular to this game, I just dislike it everywhere. Promoting stuff is fun and interesting, so I prefer just being able to promote to any piece without restriction. After all I'm a Shogi player, and what can I say, we like promoting stuff! I also dislike some of the weird effects the rule can produce in rare circumstances, but that's more of an aesthetic objection. I do like the extended promotion zone though.

On the whole, a delightful game. Strongly recommended to anyone with an interest in decimal variants.


Terachess II. An unrealistic summit on a very large board of 16x16 squares and 128 pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Eric Silverman wrote on Sat, Nov 27, 2021 09:08 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

I've been playing a lot of this game recently (via Ai Ai), partly for my own enjoyment and partly as inspiration for my own 16x16 experiments. There are relatively few modern Chess variants played on 16x16, and for me, this game is the best example thus far.

The variety of pieces presented here is at first intimidating, but one soon realises there is a logic to everything presented here, and shortly thereafter you'll find the piece movements become natural. The balance of the initial position is excellent, with every piece finding its way into the fight without too much awkward development. Games are long -- against AI at 2 minutes/move my games take at least 400 plies, with my longest so far at 695 -- but as a large Shogi variant fanatic this doesn't bother me at all. Throughout those long games one will find drama, excitement, and plentiful opportunities for subtlety and subterfuge.

If I were very picky, I might say that I'd like to see the Rook + Camel/Bishop + Camel compounds in here, which I find really fun on a large board. Also the basic leapers -- Camel, Giraffe, Knight -- feel less impactful in a game this size. Having said that, everything works well together, and I enjoy this game tremendously.


Capablanca Random Chess. Randomized setup for Capablanca chess. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Thomas wrote on Thu, Dec 2, 2021 06:04 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

But why the limitation to set up queen and archbishop on different coloured squares, when they can change the square colour by moving like rook resp. knight?


Kriegspiel. With help of a referee, two players move without knowing the moves of the opponent. (3x(8x8), Cells: 192) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
chesspro24 chesspro wrote on Fri, Dec 10, 2021 03:40 AM UTC:Poor ★
What If They Castle Do they Tell you?

Jupiter (Revised). Missing description (16x16, Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Ruei Ching Hong wrote on Fri, Dec 31, 2021 01:57 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
Is there any .ZRF file for this game?

Baseball Chess. Missing description (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Baseball Chess Baseball Chess Set wrote on Tue, Feb 8, 2022 11:43 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
great article , this is definitely one of the best for young chess players to read and learn strategy.  If you intend on writing more similar content on this site be sure to check out our page with more inspiration for future posts

Hero and Superhero Chess. The King's Pawn is replaced by a Hero (moves like any other piece on your side on the board) or a Superhero (improved Hero). (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Baseball Chess Baseball Chess Set wrote on Wed, Feb 9, 2022 03:34 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

great article, this is definitely one of the easiest strategies for young chess players to skim through and learn. Might also interest for more Superhero Chess Sets see this page [spam url deleted].


Dou Shou Qi: The Battle of Animals - The Jungle Game. Simulated conflict between animal kingdoms. (7x9, Cells: 63) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Anon wrote on Wed, Mar 23, 2022 11:43 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

The Wolf is ranked higher (stronger) than the Dog.

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/鬥獸棋

象>獅>虎>豹>狼>狗>貓>鼠

Elephant > Lion > Tiger > Leopard (Panther) > Wolf > Dog > Cat > Rat

I played this since childhood. This is the proper ranking of the animals.

The confusion about Dog > Wolf happened because on some of the cheap chess pieces, the wood carving of the Dog and the Wolf are almost identical.


Very Heavy Chess. A lot of firepower with all compounds of classical chess pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Kevin Pacey wrote on Tue, May 17, 2022 11:07 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

The Heroine and Popess piece types in this variant arguably (nicely) complete the combination of compound pieces I used in my own (earlier) 10x10 Sac Chess variant.

On the topic of piece names, I've noticed that in some languages the name for a chess rook translates to ship (or to boat, also). Thus 'Admiral' (or my choice of 'Sailor', in Sac Chess) gets bonus points as a choice of name, perhaps (for the piece type in question, a promoted rook in shogi), i.e. a person who uses a watercraft's power.

Maybe there's a slightly related argument that a real-life knight, in the past, is a person who uses a horse (arguably knight is a more elevated title than horseman, which would also work).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_(chess)#Name_translations


ArchMage Chess. 10x10 30v30 Fantasy Chess. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Samuel Trenholme wrote on Thu, May 19, 2022 04:17 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

I think one thing the author may do until when and if this variant gets formally published here is to make a Zillions of Games implementation of it, then send an email to Ed van Zon to get the implementation published. There can be a long delay before a submission and its publication here, but Ed’s pretty good about publishing a submission within a week of its submission.

The hard part is taking all these rules and converting them in to Zillions’ quirky language. I enjoy doing it myself; it converts rules in to unambiguous machine-readable rules, and it allows people to play the variant themselves.

I would also change the name of the summoned pieces in to something like, oh, Dragon Horse and Dragon King, the Anglicized form of these pieces’ names in Shogi. I like the summoning tactic, but it’s an open question whether having it makes the White advantage overwhelming. People seem to enjoy Crazyhouse a lot over at Lichess, so I think this summoning mechanic can be very usable.

(I should also point out that Betza called what is the Jester here the “Waffle”)


Archchess. Large chess variant from 17th century Italy. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Parker KH wrote on Sun, May 22, 2022 05:05 PM UTC in reply to Daniel Zacharias from Fri Nov 27 2020 09:04 PM:Good ★★★★

i think so


The Game of Nemoroth. For the sake of your sanity, do not read this variant! (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Azgoroth wrote on Thu, May 26, 2022 02:28 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

Just over twenty years after the initial publication of this page, the first ever computer implementation of Nemoroth is live, complete with a basic alpha-beta pruning AI. You can play in your browser at this link: https://azgoroth.itch.io/nemoroth

The only thing I haven't implemented is the Go Away push order, which I've been putting off due to how laborious the UI considerations are. As a placeholder, Go Away pushes are clockwise from top.

I originally wrote this implementation in TypeScript, but the AI was too slow and I ported it over to C++ using WebAssembly. I plan on open sourcing it eventually once I have more opportunities to clean up the code. This is one of the most difficult software projects I have ever worked on; I have known about Nemoroth since around 2013 but was not a strong enough of a programmer to pull it off until now.

I found a number of ambiguities in these rules, which I have tried my best to address reasonably on the linked page. Some have been covered in this comments section, some not (for example, if a Wounded Fiend leaves an already ichorated square, does the ichor stack to 11+ plies or max out at 10?).

The AI is surprisingly dangerous. It mobilizes the Ghast immediately and WILL advance it to d4/d5 if you let it, usually costing you the game. I have managed to beat it a few times, but it's tough as nails for how crude the programming is. Beware!

Ralph, if you're out there, thanks for this amazing variant. I tried to email you to get permission to make this but alas, I never heard back.


H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Jun 7, 2022 07:11 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from Thu May 26 09:33 AM:Excellent ★★★★★

Some Nemoroth pieces are 'color blind': they capture or otherwise affect friendly and enemy pieces in exactly the same way. The only effect of their allegeance is then which player is allowed to move them. But when they are petrified neither player can move them, and in effect they become neutral. An alabaster and an obsidian Leaf Pile are really the same piece, from a game-theoretical point of view, and that also holds for petrified Wounded Fiends. Likewise petrified Go Aways are all the same. And since they lose their special power on petrification, they are also the same as a Mummy. And they only differ from petrified Humans when we adopt the rule that petrified Humans promote to Zombie when pushed to last rank. Which would also make it necessary to distinguish petrified Humans by color.

Petrified Basilisks remember their allegeance because of the Basilisk's asymmetric move, which is preserved in the way it sees. Ghasts have a more severe effect on foes as on friends.


Marseillais Chess. Move twice per turn. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Vighnesh Jadhav wrote on Sat, Jul 16, 2022 02:43 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Marsellais chess has a rule where each player moves 2 pieces in the same turn. Castling is considered a single move. All other castling rules apply.

Mirodoly. Members-Only Piececlopedia: Mirodoly. Some theoretical principles of the analysis of pieces, both for classical chess and for modern chess.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

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Empress Chess. Members-Only Help your Empress win her battle. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

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ABC Chess. A variant with 8 armies of pieces generated by combining 1, 2 or 3 simpler pieces. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Andrew L Smith wrote on Thu, Aug 18, 2022 02:10 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

I like the idea of making an army using various combinations of a few building blocks, though I do have two critiques.

1: Balance. A combination piece is usually wirth more than the sum of its parts (eg: a Queen is worth more than a Rook and a Bishop; a Mann is worth more than a Wazir and a Ferz) which means an army with A+B+C=7.75 is likely to be completely overpowered. For example, look at army 1:
BNW=10, NW=5.25, BW=5.25, W=1.25, B=3.25, N=3.25, BN=8.75 (total: 37).
This is over a full Rook stronger than the regular chess army.

The more equal the components are, the more powerful they are when they work together. For example, army 2 (where one component has most of the value) is only about 2 pawns stronger than the regular chess army. So, armies with wildly unequal component strengths will need to have stronger components than more egalitarian armies to compensate for this.

2: The components should be versatile enough to be fun to play with on their own. For example, an Alfil can only reach 1/8 of the board which is un-fun to play (both with and against). One solution to this would be 'ABCD' chess, with 4 components arranged like this:

AB  CD  AD  ABC   K   BC  BD  AC 

By adding an extra component, one can eliminate the need for components to survive on their own, and can make weak components without having to worry about un-fun Alfil play.


Enhanced Courier Chess. Courier Chess with the weaker pieces enhanced.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Christine Bagley-Jones wrote on Mon, Aug 29, 2022 02:41 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

Should play well, it's nice to see you didn't 'overpower' it.


Avatar Chess. Game with avatars that can assume any piece of chess, depending on the fields of the board. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Christine Bagley-Jones wrote on Tue, Aug 30, 2022 12:00 AM UTC in reply to Gerd Degens from Mon Aug 29 07:24 PM:Excellent ★★★★★

Hi Gerd, hope your fine and well. I'm sure you haven't upset or hurt anyone!! I understand what you said, and it is extremely interesting idea indeed how you describe your game about the board etc.

I don't want to go on about the pawns, but still, I have to say, the game would maintain your 'theme' even if the pawns remained pawns. However, the game as you have it must have a unique feel and play to it!

Would be fun to see the game in action.


Al-Ces. Variant on 10 by 10 board with 30 pieces per player. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Kevin Pacey wrote on Tue, Sep 13, 2022 06:44 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

Inspiring game, yet it seems the action may take a while to get going

I don't yet get how to mobilize in the opening smoothly when playing this CV, at least when I tried to do so in my first game (with White, no less). After I moved the pawn in front of my king two squares, for example, I wanted to develop my knights to my fourth rank, towards the centre, in natural fashion. Yet that would allow Black to develop his deves (camels) similarly, and then to take my knight(s) almost at will - perhaps clearly at least a slightly worse exchange for me, since my pawn structure might be compromised without sufficent compensation when I recapture, and by my valuations (though tentative) a Kt is worth more than a camel on 10x10 (maybe even by as much as a pawn).

As my game (with arx) went on, I found my gold and silver had a hard time being deployed usefully for quite some time - an issue since they can get in the way of other pieces. I also had mobilization issues with at least one of two of my bishops, especially concerning if assuming castling is desirable in general. The assassins I had a hard time valuing, but guessed one could be worth as much as a queen. Maybe the inventor intended that mobilization be slow in playing this CV, I don't know.

@arx: I've sent you a personal invite to a Sac Chess rematch, in case you missed it, and wish to play.


Tridimensional Chess (Star Trek). Three-dimensional chess from Star Trek. (7x(), Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jim Tinsmith wrote on Tue, Sep 27, 2022 02:23 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

The premise for tri dimensional chess set's presence on federation star ships was to teach three dimensional combat tactics, which is something the Bartmess and Meder rules patently fail to do, by blocking circumventing moves.
The rules presented here, on chess variants, are not complete and lack rules for castling but also advocate inverted attack boards, which, if nothing else, are highly impractical.
Not only were the World Tri Dimensional Chess Federation rules written by a fighter pilot, to teach three dimensional aerial combat, which is more in keeping with the original theme, they also start the king and queen in the centre files and provide the most reasonable method for castling, as the attached images demonstrate.

King's side castling
Tri dimensional chess kings side castling
Tri dimensional chess king's side castling
Queen's side castling
Tri dimensional chess queen's side castling
Tri dimensional chess queen's side castling


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