Double Chess

My favorite variant is Double Chess.

To Play, set up two chess boards side by side, with one facing 1-8 and the other facing 8-1. Assemble four players at the boards. You are on a team with the player sitting next to you. Thus, I play white and my team-mate plays black. The two games are played simultaneously and both games end when one board reaches checkmate.

Here is the twist: every-time I capture a piece, I take that piece and hand it to my partner and vice versa (i.e. I capture a black bishop and hand that to my partner, who is playing black). We each get to hold those pieces in reserve as long as we make sure they are visible to our opponents. At any point in the game, we can use a turn to place a piece (almost) anywhere on the board. The only two restrictions to this is that a piece cannot be placed on an already occupied square and pawns cannot be placed on rank 1 or 8. Placed pieces can block or create check. Promoted pawns that are captured are demoted back to pawns.

To ensure that the game moves smoothly, there are two additional rules that must be observed. First, you cannot tell your partner what to do in his or her game. You can speak more generally (i.e. "I could really use a bishop!") but you can't point out a specific move. The other rule is that players must move in a prompt manner. If someone lags on purpose in order to receive a piece from their partner, the game doesn't really work.

What will happen, often, is that one board will become very cluttered and complex while the other has a lot of space. Pawns can pop out of nowhere on the seventh rank, creating promoting opportunities that need quick defensive reflexes. Promoted pawns become much very sacrificeable as they revert back to pawns for your opponent to use. Most importantly, you need to work as a team with your partner and make sure they are receiving material when they need it.

I would love it if this could be played on chess.com. I hope you try it out, or, if you already have, please share your thoughts on strategies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bughouse_chess

Ah. It seems this thread is redundant. Thanks for the heads-up about the alternate name.

No problem, I know how you feel, this it like the time I invented the helicopter.

I am afraid you were beaten to that thousands of years ago by the Egyptians.LOL

http://vejprty.com/abyhelic.htm

But it is not widely publicised as the Egyptian Govt has forbidden any tour guide from pointing it out or discussing it.

I've seen that mate, an interesting documentary called 'The Pyramid Code'.

Yeah great 5 part series, very interesting

double chess has 2 set of chess on 1 broad the chess you decided is bug house

They say there are more variants of chess in V3. I really hope this one is included :D

First of all, when I search for double chess it always says bughouse chess. I WANT TO PLAY DOUBLE CHESS! Not bughouse chess! But I just can't find the right app. an iOS app :(

chess

Play

I think this is most commonly called double bughouse.  Single bughouse is a game where when you capture a piece, you replace it on the board at the location of your choosing.

Double bughouse is typically played at 5/0 timing.  With these time constraints, any communication is fine.