PSA: At 9:38, the footage from Bughouse Chess, the right guy is Garry Kasparov, former World Champion and considered to be one of the greatest chess players of all time, while the woman he plays against is Dana, Reicnize-Ozola, former economics and then finance minister of Latvia and also a member of my German team! :)
@@StezzerLolz : I met him during an exhibition. Stumbled into the wrong building, but he was quite nice. You can see that Chess is fun for him, not just a job.
Chess seems to really be on the collective subconcious right now, between this, Queen's Gambit, and the Down the Rabbit Hole documentary on Deep Blue. All great stuff, btw.
Here's a chess variant I've never shared publicly before, invented with a friend all the way back in 2000. Born out of frustration with spectators suggesting moves, we decided to make a game where every piece moved differently from normal chess. Being a bunch of middle schoolers, we also invented rules and moves we thought were cool, like "Super En Passant", the "Ultra Castle" and "Revenge Turn". This is what we came up with: 1) Pawns move like kings. If the pawn is on its starting row, it can move two spaces in any one direction. 2) Rooks move like bishops and can "Ultra Castle" -- Once per game, you can swap your rook and king regardless of where they are on the board. 3) Bishops move like rooks and have "Martyrdom" -- If a (rook move) adjacent piece would be captured, the Bishop MUST swap places with the threatened piece and be captured instead. 4) The King moves as normal, but gains "Super En Passant"--Like attacks of opportunity in D&D 5e, if any enemy piece moves through or out of the region adjacent to the king, the king may move into that space to intercept and capture it. 5) The Knight moves like the queen, and can also jump over pieces as part of its movement. However, it cannot jump and capture in the same move. This jump can also be used to ignore a king's Super En Passant. 4) The Queen makes two king moves in a row. This sounds weaker than its original iteration, but it allows the queen to make double captures, and also threaten up to the 24(!!) spaces closest to it. We also made two changes to the overall rules that have a huge impact on the game: A) The chessboard is a cylinder, so the squares on the right side of the board are considered adjacent to the left side of the board. B) The Revenge Turn--After a king is captured, there's one more turn. If the other king is captured, the game is a draw. This means a perfectly valid response to check is to threaten your opponent's king. This is a fast and brutal version of chess, with each side being able to control far more of the board than normal. Rooks, due to the wrapping sides, are primed to attack the knight's starting square, but moving the knight early puts it in range of the utter bloodbath at the center of the board. Once the board clears, it becomes a game of fencing, where you try to strike at the heart of the enemy's king without allowing a counterattack to turn your win into a draw.
This sounds awesome. You should put the rules to this in pastebin so you can preserve it and link people to it. I’m sure lots of other people would have fun playing with it.
It does make chess fun. If by fun you mean brain melting. Which is pretty fun, when you play normally and then three timelines in the past you accidentally chekmated the king.
I’m surprised Quins didn’t mention “Chess 2”, a videogame with several different chess variants that also has one of my favorite optional rules that you can use in real life: That you can also win by moving your king across the midline of the board. Just adding this rule to a regular chess game really changes how you play. Do you want to risk your king inching closer to the middle or hold him back and try to goad your opponent to exposing himself? In any case, I still love the video and any excuse to play more games I already own.
This (also known as Sirlin's Chess) is my favourite variant. Different armies with new moves and powers? Sign me up! The midline rule is definitely what saves the game, though. I often include it when I'm playing regular chess.
GM Hikaru Nakamura obviously prepared for the midline rule by working on bongcloud openings in blitz chess. That is a sentence that I thought would never make sense, and yet here we are.
@@FatherTime89 It's available on Steam, but it was pretty dead the last time I checked, sadly. There might be a Discord or something where you can find game. I might be interested if you find one!
Regarding the review of chess itself. What you say is true. It is hard work, and if you don't play against someone about as equally matched as you, it is often torture for both sides. The loser feels like a loser, disheartened and downtrodden. The winner feels like a sadist, cruel and unyielding. However, when both players, even if they are not equally matched, are interested in learning the game-- I don't mean the rules, the rules are step 0-- they can explore the game for hours and hours, never tiring of what they discover. Chess is an adventure in which you continue to choose paths in a dark forest. At the end of the game, you can backtrack and explore a different path with your friend. Unfortunately, chess is a hard game to get excited about. Maybe you're excited when you're 8, maybe, but if you keep losing and don't get any help or instruction, chess just becomes associated with disappointment instead of growth and progress. Chess does not conceal who is winning, but in good games, it is often hard to tell, just because both sides have good advantages. Even when the advantages are clear, you must be fluent in reading a chessboard. Who has open files? Whose pawn structure is better? Who's defending? Are they a good defender? Is losing the bishop pair worth a pawn and the attack? To me, an avid player, I find chess to be extremely rewarding when played well, but boring and cruel when played poorly. It's not a game you can just pick up and have a good time. It's a skill, really, and not everyone wants to learn a skill. My final review of chess? It's good when it's good, but it's not good often.
Pretty accurate description. As a player who has never, and I mean never won a single game of chess in my life i have aways left the board feeling frustrated. I have never really tried to get good with the game, only played from time to time, purely casually and as such I never stand a chance against other better players. The game has no luck element, so you're either better or worse than your opponent, corresponding to your defeat or victory. But i would love to try out these chess variants. They seem chaotic enough to level the playing field between a veteran and a newbie like myself.
I'm not sure I'd agree that their review was right, more that it was part right. To say you can't have fun losing a chess game or that it holds no surprises is just dead wrong. Losing can suck pretty hard, but if you aren't horribly mismatched with your opponent, it can be really fun to see unexpected combinations unfold.
I love this comment. I'm by no means a good player and I, for the most part, enjoy the game just as much when I lose as when I win. Seeing a great play unfold by your opponent can be just as good as unfolding it yourself, but I think it takes a little more appreciation of what has just transpired. I think that chess is seen to be an intellectual contest that losing to someone hurts the ego in a way that losing at monopoly or scrabble doesn't. There is a common misconception that to get good at chess you need to be able to think a million moves ahead but that just isn't the case. Sure, the toppest of top players do have great calculation abilities but for many to get good you need to learn and employ a few simple (ish) strategies to avoid making immediate mistakes.
I'd say chess is good often thanks to online matchmaking based on your rating. I never feel like I'm facing someone who is way too good or way too bad.
@Name Name That's my problem with chess, it's a game that I dont really feel like investing time with and only play because of the interactions with my friends, but that means that I don't get better and can't reach the level necessary to compete with them. Thanks for the tip though.
A popular variant in medieval chess (especially in Central and Eastern Europe) was to actually make it a gambling game by rolling a die determining what piece you could move. You actually had to take the enemy King to win, which means you generally had to position your forces to take the best advantage of the forces at your disposal. And it has the added benefit that you could always blame the dice for losing.
Not a chess variant, but my wife and I recently bought Onitama and love it. We used to play chess but I was much more experienced and therefore won every time, to the point where she would get upset. With Onitama, we split our victories almost entirely 50/50. We haven’t played chess since and haven’t wanted to. It’s definitely her favorite game we have.
QUINNS! I was just: "Ooh new Shut Up and Sit Down. I'll have to watch it while I have lunch." And then you mentioned Chesh! Thank you so much for the shout out!
@@squashyhex9818 unfortunately there's no plans for it. It was a small project I made in my spare time. Got another project in the works now, but I hope one day I can make Chesh Deluxe a reality on PC/Mac.
My favorite (and only) chess variant is one of my own design, "Time Chess", where there's a 6-turn clock representing 24 hours (dawn, midday, evening, dusk, midnight, morning) and at "midday" (white) or "midnight" (black) turns, the other side largely isn't allowed to see what move you just made until after their next move. All you need is a second chess board (no extra pieces) and a screen to hide one board or the other depending on the "time", and a pen you rotate to indicate the time.
Also, as everyone who used the "academia only" internet back in the 1980s, we are now in the "endless September" after the floodgates for the masses opened.
While you make valid points, I actually quite like how personal a loss is in chess. Anything that happens is your fault, which results in horrifying losses and awesome victories. The best games of chess are against equals, and frequently result in even the loser smiling. Then a rematch.
Agreed, though I'd prefer a variant where there's some comeback mechanic to keep things interesting until the very end, but it must be used wisely so it doesn't feel cheap like passive rubberbanding
I love the feeling of being forced into a corner and coming up with a move that my opponent didn't expect. I can admit, however, that these unexpected moves are only possible because all my friends and I are bad.
My go-to is Reverse Chess: - chess, but you win by losing all your pieces, and if you can take a piece you must take a piece. It's fast and fun, still with room for strategy. Bait your opponent into your area, but make sure your last piece can be taken!
Once booted up chess with my friend in tabletop simulator, then I summoned a rat by rolling a bad roll on d20, then my enemy sacrifaced most of his pieces to summon cthulu, after which I build a a catapult and a campus to recreate the black death virus, with which I infected my rat, and planned to catapult it in, but my catapult got destroyed so I infected my tower, and sent it as a spy to the enemy backlines to create a great famine on his side of the board. Probably most intense and intresting game of chess I ever had.
As a chess enthusiast, I can understand how most novices would walk away from a loss dispirited. For me, though, it's about the beauty of the game. Some of my favorite moments have been when my opponent pins me into a brutal yet elegant defeat.
Yes...i agree but you can consolidate and if your opponent isnt carefull you could win..and that is a beauty of chess...for example if i am behind 50pts in terra mystica by the final round i am not winning it... But 40 good moves in chess are sometimes trumped by one horrible move....
@@republikadugave420 you rely on that horrible move being made by the opponent though, as opposed to your own clever use of balancing/comeback mechanic like found in some modern games
It's nice to see chess get a mention, as it is my favourite game haha. Some things for speed, a clock is really useful, adds more tension, cuts down time and slapping a clock is the most satisfying thing since weighted poker chips. Other variants I play often that you might enjoy: crazyhouse (2 player bug house), chess960 where pieces are randomised for each player Secret queen, at the start write down a pawn that is secretly a queen and try and unleash it at the right moment All sorts of piece combinations are interesting, like one player gets pawns, king and only knights (7 of them), and the other gets normal pieces with no knights Avalanche, every time you move you move an opponent's pawn Dimension chess, every 4 moves the board shifts one square to the left, the pieces on the left are out on the right There's loads more, and although Go might be deeper, theres lots of life in the strategy to chess. Losing isnt that bad, you can always ask where you went wrong, reset the board and have another go! Sorry for the long comment, but can't see my favourite board game and not comment with some of my knowledge haha! Cheers
@@DeBear91 its weirdly stressful, especially if you accidentally lose your secret queen right at the start! Best part is if you're playing fast you might lose track of your opponents queen after it's been moved and it gets crazy
Without a doubt the most fun, and the most time laughing, I've ever had playing ANY board/video game is chess. Specifically playing with a clock at a fast time control and in-person over the board. Fast time control removes the grind and the over-calculation and you just play with intuition. The flurry of moves towards the end of the game as your time starts running out just has no comparison. Particularly too if you play with the "king takes" variant; where if you check the king and the opponent makes a move without noticing you can take the king and win the game. Also I can understand issues with skill gaps in chess, and how that can make some games just totally unfair. But that also speaks to what I think is also hugely rewarding about chess: the direct feedback of knowing you are getting better at something, and that feeling being fully tangible.
1:03 annoyed every real chess player ever EDIT: how did that bishop even get their, it would of had to F5 then D3......... i have gone insane overanalyzing and fake chess game
@@fcohex6148 my friend once accidentally swapped bishop and knight. we didnt notice until I realized that bishops protecting each other was rather sus...
"Unless you and your opponent are particularly well matched, chess is a game that expects you to work as hard as possible, simply to make your opponent work harder before you inevitably lose." So well put.
There's a real problem in general with games that have huge breadth in that the better you get, the less likely you are to be able to play viable opponents. Let's just say you were okay with that and wanted to get competitive--your practices are hamstrung by the opponents you play against. I have a friend who I play backgammon against, and we've created our own microcosm of skill because we only play with eachother--and both avoid researching too much about the game to learn more mathematically sound approaches to the game. Because we appreciate that we know the same things and learned them from playing eachother almost exclusively. The thing is, he's more naturally talented at games, but I'm more capable of understanding whatever complex degenerate strategy I find online. It feels cheap when I do this, because even though he could do it, that'd cheapen the game for him, and ultimately does for me too when I do it. So I end up having a weird relationship with games that have this level of complexity and long skill curve, where the more I engage with the game the less I like it? That's so counter-intuitive, and mostly a modern problem, since before I'd only be able to play with fellow bumpkins in my small town, and maybe pick up a book at the library to study, which would just put me in the second tier of slightly better read bumpkins in my town. Now I've got access to everyone's brains, and AI that can train me to dominate at chess, and the "contest" is who's memorized the most degenerate strategies.
@@hermanisthemungeman8262 Besides Go. Of course, Go has the unfair advantage that if it ever does feel like its losing its replay value, you just increase the board space and it becomes hyper-exponentially more complex
The traditional game of chess is a challenging and rewarding hobby. Don't be discouraged from playing by the comments in the video. Its also easier to setup and play than many of the modern games reviewed here. Chess puzzles are also great if you don't want a full game. Go is fantastic as well and would be better for mismatched players.
Sure, chess is easier to set up than most games, but I *don't* find it particularly rewarding. For me, chess is very much a game that feels very hard to grasp without a lot of deliberate study after which it becomes one of mostly rote strategy for all very high-level players. Is this subjective? Sure, but I'm certainly not alone in my feelings towards it. Of course, no-one should be discouraged from trying it, but they also shouldn't be judged for disliking it. I feel like there are some chess enthusiasts who regard chess as being a class apart from 'modern' strategy games, and I just don't think that's true.
I recently tried chess 960 and prefer it over the classic since you don't have to study openings. What other modern strategy games have you found that are comparable? Hive is on my list to play but I usually play go when I don't feel like chess. I also like pc strategy games.
Ah no! You've missed a great chance to highlight Arimaa! A fantastic game designed to be intuitive for humans, yet hard for computers/algorithms to solve. It's my favourite use for a chess board, as it's much easier to learn, and it let's you say things like, my Camel pushed your cat in the well, and it's no longer holding hands with your horse, so now I've drowned your cat, letting my bunny freely move to the finish line! Big recommend. What else could you want?
I've enjoyed a variant where you randomly mark the underside of one of your pieces, and that is your secret king. The game plays as normal except declaring "check"... because your opponent won't know who it is. As the game progresses, you have to read how they're playing to get an idea of which piece they are trying to protect. It brings a psychological aspect to the game that isn't normally there.
Parts of this video make my heart hurt because chess is actually lovely and beautiful if you spend even minimal time getting to know it. The world needs more people celebrating chess, not the other way around. At the same time, I’ve always wanted to play Bughouse and Stealth Bomber Chess seems really hilarious.
It is a game, and if it isn't fun, then there is nothing beautiful in it for the one playing it. Thus new varriants of the game are much better if you actually enjoy them.
@@f23-n4t I am 27 now, and have been playing for fun since I was 6. And it always seemed stupid to me that a game that is supposed to be some simulation of warfare doesn't allow you to arrange your armies in a formation before the battle. Ever since I changed the rules so that both players secretly rearange their figures before match, I had so much fun. No opening strategy, just a lot of wow moments
The variant that makes the game the most fun I've found is playing blitz chess with a 5 minute clock. Makes the game very fast, fun and forces you to balance move against time pressure.
A chess video game I find fun is “FPS chess”, which is exactly how it sounds. It is regular chess, but whenever you take an opponent’s piece or vice versa, the attacking piece and the attacked piece have a duel. The duel puts you into the perspective of your piece, and each piece has different abilities and weapons. Pawns have muskets, knights have bows, bishops have shotguns, bishops rooks have snipers, queens have machine guns, and finally, kings have swords. The winner of the duel takes the opponents piece. Sometimes against a good player, I get destroyed by a single pawn.
My favourite variant is something me and a friend created called Defector's Chess, where after a certain amount of either moves or time, the players switch sides (We used D6 turns for each player) so you can't just murder everything, as you'll be playing as that side soon.
There’s a much more fun, less horror grim dark motif, card powered version out now. Ironically it’s called Devil’s Chess, but I love it. You rotate the board, explode pawns, jump with your Queen. It’s fun.
I love chess and cringed at the many, many anti-chess arguments that I think were wrong, but several of the variants look really fun, especially Monster and Alice.
@@timdood3 Okay, for you, random internet guy, I'll rewatch the video and put out my thoughts :) I don't have too many things I think they were WRONG on, just of a different opinion, mostly. It's not religion or something, it's opinion on a board game. For my perspective, I'm someone who's very good at the game, but not tournament good. I can have an intense, close match with many people, but I destroy newcomers and wouldn't probably stand a chance against a pro. I was in a chess class in my homeschool co-op, then when the teacher left, I took over and I was a 14 year old teaching chess class to 12 year olds. I wasn't a good teacher, but I learned a lot. "It is often devoid of surprise, charm, and even sometimes reward." I have fairly often played 3-5 games back to back with the same opponent and every game somehow ends up surprising and different. In my experience, something happens fairly early to take us down another trail and I constantly learn more ways to react and control the game. There is a beauty to it. And an art. I love the feeling of figuring out a way to pin or fork a pair of pieces, then trying to find a distraction to get to that point unnoticed. "Charm" and "Reward" are somewhat abstract, especially charm, but I'd say the game is both to me. "Chess is two things. One: planning as far into the future as possible by examining all the counterintuitive movements of these discrete movements. And that's simply hard work!" I learned the game young enough that I can't comment on counterintuitive, but at this point I instantly know what each piece does and, from teaching the game, I don't think it takes that long. But the joy of the game is that you are constantly getting slightly better at picturing it. It doesn't take that steep a skill curve to be able to push pieces around and play a game, but there is an incredible skill ceiling to keep the game interesting for a lifetime with the right opponents. But I do see where to a newcomer, memorizing how six pieces move and how to see the board as a series of potential traps to set and avoid could be intimidating. I find it fun, sometimes mentally tiring in a satisfying way, but not hard work. "It is a particularly cruel fight to the death for two players that makes no attempt to hide who's winning and losing. Unless you're particularly well matched, [one will have no chance of winning and will know it the whole time.]" (Longer quote than I felt like typing) This IS true between a good player and a beginner. If I play against someone who just knows vaguely how the pieces move, I will win every time. But every game you lose is a new perspective on better play. When I was little, I played with my Dad some and he showed me the game, then beat me till I got to his level. Then I have gotten more into playing with my Uncle and have risen to his level. Now I would probably beat Dad 9/10 times, but everyone else I know who is not a basic beginner (so like five people) are at a level that I sometimes win, sometimes lose. And often it's hard to tell who's winning on a particularly good game. And often one is winning, then a mistake or a good pin or fork allows a comeback. So yeah, I understand his argument from a beginner's perspective and maybe I'm just lucky, but I've found that most people that invest the time get to a good level against each other. And the better ones beating the weaker players just teaches them how to rise to the higher level (so I guess we're all Saiyans?). [It's horribly dispiriting how one side will gradually steamroll the other to utter destruction. Someone's losing terribly which isn't fun and when I'm the steamroller, I feel bad for my opponent.] (Again, longer quote than I felt like typing). See 3:57 - 4:29 Sounds to me like Quinn's just had some really lopsided games. I guess I have too, but maybe I'm just crueler and enjoy destroying :) . But yeah, the tighter matches, especially at a moderate level of play are so intense. Or the realization that you're a piece or two behind and need to find some trick to come back or surprise checkmate before it's too late. The thrill when it works out. It's an intensely competitive game. And I guess I just don't mind losing either. I want to win, but seeing some cool trick or different strategy can be fascinating and beautiful in its own right. And next time I'll be ready. That was too long :)
@@rdh288 First thanks for your comment, it was really instructing, and I mostly feel the same. However, what I would like to point out is that, as the multiples examples in your rebuttal show, Chess is and will always be a personal experience, meaning that a counter argument against it, while it can be sad to hear, will never be *cringe*, just another point of view. Learn to respect what others are thinking without being condescending. Have a nice day A fellow shitty chess player
A variant I liked as a kid, we called "suicide". The winner was whoever lost all their pieces first. All pieces move the same as regular chess, except check doesn't limit the king in any way (because he's happy to die), and if you can take a piece then you must take a piece.
Highly recommend "Knightmare Chess" but is out of print. A recent kickstarter called "Devil's Chess" came out that seemed similar but did not back. I believe it is available now though for sale from the company.
I think the releases (Knightmare Chess 1 and 2) weren't a huge success for Steve Jackson Games, but someone else can licence them - it was originally a French product.
Yes, that was a French product. You can google "Tempête sur l'échiquier" (Storm on the chessboard), fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temp%C3%AAte_sur_l%27%C3%A9chiquier. The original product had cartoon-like drawing, which I find match better with the feel of playing such a game.
One Chess variant that I highly recommend is Paco Sako, a.k.a Peace Chess or Dancing Chess. It takes away a lot of the feels bad of losing as no pieces are ever properly captured. There is also a great feeling when you get a good chain reaction off. There are specialised sets for playing it, but you can play with normal pieces on a board too. The designer has started streaming on Twitch and is a great person to play against. The rules are quite well explained here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-yJVcQK2gTdM.html
I love Bughouse chess, I'm glad that got a shoutout since you mentioned you'd only be listing games playable with one board. Seriously though, it takes the funest part of shogi and throws in co-op while its at it.
I love checkmates as an endgame condition (do give Shogi a try) but the way you framed it makes so much sense, even though it would've never occurred to me!
Didn't expect to find such cool variants that actually want to make me play chess with non-board gamers. Certainly wouldn't have looked up chess variants for myself. Thank you for this video!
If yo can find it Quins, look up LASER CHESS. It was an old video game. Insteadof a Queen you had a laser and each of the pieces was shaped in a way that would deflect the laser. So you could either move or fire the laser to destroy a piece.
Playing Card Chess is one I made up when I was bored. Basically you have a deck of playing cards with jokers included and a chess board. Each player takes turns picking a card that then informs them their options for moving. I'll lay them out here: Ace - 8: you must move any piece available on the file that aligns with the drawn number from the players left ( i.e ace means a file for white or h file for black, 2 means b or g file, 3 means c or f etc) 9: you must move any of your knights 10: you must move any of your bishops Jack: you must move any of your rooks Queen: you must move your queen King: you must move your king If you pull a file card and you have no pieces on that file, then you look to the rank that number could also represent. So if you pull a 3 of diamonds as white and have nothing on the c file, then you can look at the third rank to see if you have any pieces that can move. If you have no legal moves to make with the card you've drawn then you can just draw again until you get one that presents a legal move. This also works with being put in check, you have to keep drawing cards until you get a move that will let you escape or block the check. It's very stupid and inherently too random but it's really really fun. Me and my mom play this because she doesn't like playing actual chess with me anymore. It leads to really interesting and funny positions that make you take a lot more risks than normal chess could. Like capturing a bishop that's protected with your queen, knowing that they can't recapture unless they get lucky
I was surprised there was no mention of Knightmare Chess from Steve Jackson Games. Having cards that allow you to turn the entire board 90 degrees, create a crack of doom in the board, or combine two pieces (giving you the movement of both) is one of my favorite ways of spicing up chess.
They also created Tile Chess, where pieces create the board as they go along by moving into empty space, and another version whose name I forget in which each piece is a cube with a different chess piece on each face (plus an immovable untakeable pyramid) and you can change what a piece is as you go along.
I quite like racing kings chess. Where both players only have a king, rook, two bishops and two knights and star on the same side of the board. You have to try and move your kind to the other end, but you're not allowed to put the other player in direct check. Portal chess is also fun, where you get a counter of your colour which moves like a king and when a piece lands on it it portals to the other counter also if you move in the direction through it you keep moving but out the end of the other side of the portal.
The best use of a chess set is as markers to label your pieces during a game of Six Making, a much more fun game. That being said, these asymmetric variants just might make me set up an actual chess board again. Shortcut to actual start of chess variants... 5:05. Just to add one to the list, a really fun variant a friend and I made years ago when we got bored of playing regular chess was "hidden queen chess". Basically, one of your pawns has a little mark on the bottom of it (we used a Sharpie). You each place your marked pawn in secret, you can put it in any of the regular pawn starting positions.. At the start of any of your turns you may reveal your marked pawn and turn it into a queen, and then make your move. It really adds a lot of tension, where you have to treat each of opponents pawns as if it's a possible queen, and allows for amazing bluffing opportunities. You often want to convert it to a queen first for a devastating strike, but if you don't deal a fatal blow from then on only your opponent has the advantage of surprise. Wait... did he just make that pawn easily capturable by my queen because if I do it then he can reveal his secret queen and capture mine? Totally, deliciously changes the whole game with the addition of one simple rule.
Thank you for this! I have always thought chess sets are gorgeous works of art and I have always wanted to get one. However, I have always hated playing it. These variants sound like a joy! Thanks!
Fun chess vsriants: S-chess (SHarper chess or Seirawan chess) - two extra pieces are added for each side, a rook-knight called Elephant and Bishop-knoght called Hawk. Both start off the board and can be broughtcinto play as a part of the same move in which a piece leaves its initial position. Throws theory out the Windows, no more Berlin draws, and much more interesting aggressive play. - king of the Hill- if yourcking gets to one of the for central squares (e4 e5 d4 or d5), obviously kingston still cant walk into check, you win the game. - three check chess - if you manage to check oponent 3 tjmes you win. - duck chess - put a neutralne piece (a duck) next fo the board. After each move, the player making that move puts the duck on an empty Square (cannot leave it on the same square, but csn keep putting it on the same one every turn after its moved away by thecopponent). Nothing can cature rhe duck, but outside of that it works like any ofher piece blocking movement and checks (not blocking knights moves obviously). And for 4 players, hand and brain: on each team one person is brain and one is hand. Hand player should probably be the more skilled player for more interesting gameplay, for more hilarious play switch it around. The brain player has to name the piece type (pewnie, king, jnight etc) and the hand player chooses the specific instance of that kind of piece and moves it whwre he wants. No other communicistion allowed. Casting, like in normal chess, is a king move and could be made only if the brain player says "king".
Aw, no mention of Racing Kings or King of the Hill variants? Those are my favorite because of the lower-stakes atmosphere and totally different objectives for winning rather than just checkmate. Another good mention is Three-Checks-Chess where you lose if your king becomes checked 3 times regardless of whether he is checkmated -- essentially giving your king "3 health".
I learned playing chess from my brother when I was two and he was six. At five always losing was to frustrating. Since then we only play rarely and mainly variants (robbers chess and laser chess being those)
2 other chess videogames that I quite enjoy is regicide, a 40K themed chess game where you can play classic chess with the pieces flavoured as orks and space marines or alternatively play “regicide” mode where pieces can shoot eachother, use grenades and other abilities. The other is shotgun king which is chess but the black king has a shotgun….. it’s a fun turn based game with upgrade trees and quite a bit of replayability
One that I have had a lot of enjoyment from but didn’t make the list: David Sirlin’s Chess 2: The Sequel to Chess. Variant armies with variant moves and play styles keep things mixed up and pretty interesting, combined with a new win condition where in addition to checkmate, you can win a game by moving your king safely across the midline of the board.
I think my favorite variants of chess are 1) shogi and 2) crazyhouse chess. Crazyhouse is basically 1v1 bughouse, where when you capture an opponent's piece, you add it to your own reserves and can drop it on the board, barring some restrictions. There's also the classic chess960, which randomizes the rear line units, three-check chess, where the first person to go into check three times loses, and antichess/losing chess/misere chess, where the win condition is losing!
I learned chess pretty young and after several years of playing was taught bughouse when I went to chess camp. As I was playing, I remember thinking that it was so much more fun than regular chess! I was chess coach at the library and teaching the 4-8 graders about bughouse brought the same joy to their faces as it did mine all those years ago! I'd recommend a 3 minute time limit if you have chess clocks available. If not, just try to move as fast as possible!
The two best chess variants I’ve played are horde chess and 3-check. 3-check is especially sharp and tactical. It single handedly revived my interest in chess.
My favorite chess variant is Paco sako where the pieces fuse together and both players get to move the union. It also introduces combos and chains to chess
There's also my favourite nonsensical version of Chess: Klein Bottle Chess. In which pieces wrap around when they go off the edge of the board, *but get flipped when doing so.* So if a Rook moves up the A column and goes off the edge, it will return at the bottom of the H column and keep moving up. Or move to the left in column 3 and emerge on the right side of the column 12 (It's also played on an 8×14 board with a second row of pawns on the other side, so the game doesn't start in Checkmate) I'm convinced that it's actually impossible for a human to fully internalise the possible movement options for all their pieces in this variant, and the simple fact that nobody is actually good at it makes it incredibly fun to play.
The best variant of chess remains Shogi! It can look very intimidating but with nice westernized pieces or a Yokai no Mori set it's easy to play. Plus, like for chess there are dozens of variants to try. Dobutsu Shogi is the cutest and prettiest version to get, but it's hard to find. You should really look into it!
I've had so much fun playing 5D chess to the point I'm giggling about the ridiculous boardstate on a regular basis. My personal favourite chess variant is one called terrain chess (one that I'm uncertain if I read about it somewhere or if I made it myself when I was 15). All you need is a regular game of chess and 64 square tiles in the 2 famous non-colours. After you make your move, you can move one of the tiles to a non-occupied space of the same colour. This ends up creating a height map on the chessboard. A piece can always move to a space lower than it or a space that's 1 tile higher. This also means that if a piece is 2+ tiles higher, it cannot be taken.
My favourite variant is called Hive; you buy a copy of Hive and play that instead - far fewer stress headaches and the thrill of watching insects capering.
I recall seeing a deck of cards that changed the rules of chess in my friendly local game shop. I think it was called [Nightmare Chess]. I think that might be worth exploring.
I like the variant called King of the Hill. You can win by traditional checkmate or by being the first to walk your king to the hill represented by the 4 central squares. Also duck chess looks fun but I haven’t played it yet.
This was great. I really enjoyed your take on these chess variants. No matter how many times I look up chess variants, I always find new ones. I really wish you did not speak so negatively about the standard game, because your pessimism has made it harder for the audience to potentially see what might be the best aspect of chess; learning from your mistakes. If you're playing with the right mindset(and maybe the right people), even being on the losing side can bring about a plethora of ideas about how the game evolved the way it did. All these ideas can lead to hours of conversation either during or afterwards.
Alice Chess put me in mind of Martian Chess, for Looney Pyramids and in Pyramid Arcade. The key there us that piece ownership isn't based on colour - it's based on which side of the board the piece is on. You can take a piece, but you might be giving your opponent a tool to take yours.
There are so many more interesting chess variants than that one that happened to travel to the west. What about chinese chess, korean chess and my favorite: Shogi. The 9x9 variant is the most played and popular version, and for good reasons: it is sharper (games *rarely* end in a draw), more dynamic (multiple simultaneous battles on the board, win/lose can quickly change) and balanced (material versus position) than "international chess" . There also is 'Tori Shogi' on a 7x7 board and a huge version that is played on a 25 x 25 board (just setting up the pieces would taka a couple hours, I presume...) if you fancy that... 😉
Some fun recent variants not covered in the video: duck chess, poisoned pawn. An old variant that has immense historical value and is simple to grasp: Los Alamos chess.
I suggest people look up Arimaa. It was designed to use chess sets, allows for asynchronistic board starts, and is designed in a way that humans are better than computers.
As kids my brother and I loved a chess variant dad taught us called suicide. Basically its the exact opposite of chess in that you're trying to get your pieces taken and if you can take, you must take. Winner was the first to lose all their pieces if I recall correctly. Basically the idea is to help you learn the moves and threat zones of the various pieces.
I recommend Dark Chess. It's called Fog of War on chess.com. You can only see a square if you can move or attack there. Checks are allowed and you are not informed if you are in check since the goal of the variant is to capture the king.
Stealth bomber chess reminded me of Alex Randolph’s Confusion, which isn’t strictly a chess variant but definitely in the same spirit as a lot of the ones covered here.
I really love chess variants, and yes, that's mostly due to how unfamiliar they are to me as compared to regular chess (which is fine, but boring for me), I've dug through chessvariants.com in the past and there are so many interesting variants there, yet a few of the ones you mentioned were still new to me and I look forward to trying them out some time, but my favorite board game of all times is itself a chess variant, and I will happily play it for the rest of my life. That game is called For The Crown and it mixes chess with Dominion style deck building, with fairy pieces.
I'd be very curious what SUSD thinks about Shogi. I was trying to get into chess and somewhere down the line got gifted a Shogi board. Since then, my mind has exploded and I've been trying to convince people that playing a game where you first have to memorize a bunch of different Chinese characters is actually a lot of fun.
I'm 57 and have been playing chess since I was 9. Unfortunately, if chess is played with an incorrect attitude it's a horrible game. Firstly, you must play with a clock. Second, if you're not absolutely evenly matched you must give/receive odds; play with a handicap; either time, moves, or pieces. Third, you have to know when to drop your king if you're losing or call 'mate in x moves' if you're going to checkmate. Finally, your focus needs to be on GIVING your opponent the best possible game you can. It has a brutal learning curve (soul-crushing games in the beginning) and if you play with the wrong person it goes south fast. Civility MUST be part of the game; trash talk can get your ass kicked in some game rooms---I grew up with two boxers that are also serious chess players. I learned from my very traditional Mexican grandfather who was very serious about civility, sportsmanship, and tradition. About fairy chess, varients, my favorite is Moab Chess; it's a combination of random and Fischer chess. Other fun chess variants are Portal Chess, Omega Chess, Chess 2, and Knightmare Chess. I still play and love chess but I won't play with just anyone. This is a serious game and it has to be played with the right attitude; it's Diplomacy on roids.
In school, we played 'Giveaway' - the object being to lose all your pieces first. The only rule change was that if a piece can take another piece, it must do so. Games started slow and cagey but ended fast and furious. You could bang out a game in minutes.
Chess is like a sparring match between martial artists. At high levels they play multiple games per match, like how in a sparring match they fight in rounds. Both players get thrown or punched or kicked after quick positioning, feints, and jabs, and come back swinging with a different tactic. At low levels, though, you're not tough enough to take a beating yet, so the first time you lose it's like being thrown by a judo expert, and you land wrong, and you're sore for three days. That doesn't make judo terrible, and it doesn't make chess terrible either. It just makes it a game that has a higher barrier to entry, like taking up boxing or karate.
