Would you like to try something new? There are literally thousands of chess variants to choose from, and many sites to try them online. And if you are not certain about specific rules or just want to observe some variants before playing them, I created a playlist on one of my YouTube channels to publish videos of 25 selected types of chess games, exported from the BrainKing.com database and converted to MP4 by my … well … my converter app (it doesn’t have a name, as I programmed it just for fun and my own usage).
Here’s the playlist. Check it out! Or try the embedded video right here.
The list of chess variants supported by my converter:
- Three Checks Chess – be the first one to give the third check to your opponent’s king
- Capablanca Random Chess – play on 10×8 board with two new pieces (archbishop and chancellor) and a randomly generated start position
- Los Alamos Chess – an easy 6×6 chess variant without bishops, which was formerly used to test the first chess computers in the middle of the 20th century
- Legan Chess – modified start position and several changed rules (pawns move diagonally and capture orthogonally, different promotion zone)
- Anti Chess – be the first one to lose all pieces
- Corner Chess – kings are placed at the right corners of the board and the positions of other pieces (except pawns) are randomly changed
- Screen Chess – both players set up the start position and place the pieces anywhere on their half of the board, there are some restrictions for placing pawns and bishops
- Crazy Screen Chess – the same as Screen Chess, but the restrictions are lifted
- Loop Chess – also known as Crazyhouse, captured pieces can be placed back on the board as your own pieces
- Knight Relay Chess – piece moving abilities can be extended by guarding knights
- Atomic Chess – if you want more action and destroy multiple pieces at once (including yours), this is your game
- Knightmate Chess – a variant with one knight and two kings, the knight is to be checkmated
- Grand Chess – play on 10×10 board with two new pieces (marshal and cardinal)
- Fortress Chess – the same as Corner Chess, each player has three extra pawns placed in front of their king
- Cheshire Cat Chess – after each move, the original square is removed from the board
- Janus Chess – play on 10×8 board with a new piece (janus)
- Embassy Chess – play on 10×8 board with two new pieces (marshal and cardinal)
- Fischer Random Chess – classic chess with a random starting position (some restrictions applied)
- Massacre Chess – start with a full board (8 queens, 8 rooks, 8 bishops, and 8 knights of each color) and capture all pieces of your opponent
- Extinction Chess – capture all pieces of the same type to win
- Horde Chess – fight against a horde of 32 pawns
- Dark Chess – see only a part of the board that can be reached by your pieces
- Ambiguous Chess – mark the target square and let your opponent finish the move
- Ice Age Chess – cut your way through ice blocks
- Racing Kings – be the first one to get your king to the last rank
I will return to the most remarkable variants in future posts. It could be interesting to write a few words about the history, detailed rules, basic strategies, and to analyze selected games from the database.