Chess variants

Chess960, also known as Fischer Random Chess, is a chess variant that randomizes the starting position of the pieces on the back rank. It was introduced by former world chess champion Bobby Fischer in 1996 to reduce the emphasis on opening preparation and to encourage creativity in play. Chess960 uses the same board and pieces as classical chess, but the starting position of the pieces on the players' is randomized, following certain rules. The random setup makes gaining an advantage through the memorization of openings unfeasible. Players instead must rely on their skill and creativity.

hybrid game of chess and boxing

variation of chess in which each side is given less time to make a move than under normal tournament time controls

games related to, derived from or inspired by chess

form of chess play wherein the players do not see the positions of the pieces and do not touch them

chess variant played on two chessboards by four players in teams of two

Chess Game with People as Figures

set of chess variants played on a board with hexagonal cells

thumb|upright=1.45|1.N@e7+ Kh8 2.Bxg7# (#Notation|@ notation) Crazyhouse is a chess variant in which captured enemy pieces can be reintroduced, or dropped, into the game as one's own, similarly to shogi. It was derived as a two-player, single-board variant of bughouse chess.

medieval chess variant

any of various chess variants that use multiple boards at different levels

chess variant invented by José Raúl Capablanca

chess variant where pieces "explode" upon capture, also removing surrounding pieces

family of chess variants played with four people

chess variant whose goal is to lose pieces

board game

chess variant played on a circular board

family of chess variants specially designed for three players

chess variant played on a 6×6 board without bishops

Chess with computer assistance

chess variant

chess variant in which captured pieces are reborn on their starting positions

chess variant in which each player can see one’s own pieces but not the opponent’s

commercial chess variant designed by Daniel MacDonald played on a 10×10 board with four extra squares at the corners

2020 chess variant video game

variant of chess

chess variant in which White makes one move, then Black makes two consecutive moves, White replies with three, Black makes four, etc.

chess variant played on two boards

Cheskers is a variant of checkers and chess invented by Solomon Golomb in 1948.

asymmetric chess variant in which one side has standard chess pieces, and the other side has 32 pawns

chess variant on a 10×10 board featuring rook–knight and bishop–knight compounds

four-player chess variant

chess variant

chess compositions with nonstandard rules (e.g. with fairy pieces)

thumb|The game of Tic Tac Chec, played on a 4x4 board Minichess is a family of chess variants played with regular chess pieces and standard rules, but on a smaller board. The motivation for these variants is to make the game simpler and shorter than standard chess. The first chess-like game implemented on a computer was the 6×6 chess variant Los Alamos chess. The low memory capacity of early computers meant that a reduced board size and a smaller number of pieces were required for the game to be implementable on a computer.

chess variant in which a player only sees their own pieces and the squares that they can legally move to

Jetan, also known as Martian chess, is a chess variant first published in 1922. It was created by Edgar Rice Burroughs as a game played on Barsoom, his fictional version of Mars. The game was introduced in The Chessmen of Mars, the fifth book in the Barsoom series. Its rules are described in Chapter 2 and in the Appendix of the book, with an actual game partly described in Chapter 17.

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a set of chess variants in which dice are used to alter gameplay

Djambi (also described as "Machiavelli's chessboard") is a board game and a chess variant for four players, invented by Jean Anesto in 1975. The rulebook in French describes the game, the pieces and the rules in a humorous and theatrical way, clearly stating that the game pieces are intended to represent all wrongdoings in politics.

team chess variant

variation of the game of chess

Hexapawn is a deterministic two-player game invented by Martin Gardner. It is played on a rectangular board of variable size, for example on a 3×3 board or on a regular chessboard. On a board of size n×m, each player begins with m pawns, one for each square in the row closest to them. The goal of each player is to either advance a pawn to the opposite end of the board or leave the other player with no legal moves (akin to stalemate), including by capturing all of their pawns.

Chess variant in which each player moves twice per turn

chess variant

variation of chess

1976 board game

chess variant

a seven-player variant of the game xiangqi

chess variant

variant of xiangqi created during the Qing dynasty by the Bannermen

set of chess variants played on a board with triangular cells

chess variant invented by Ralph Betza in 1979, in which two sides use different sets of fairy pieces