Horde Chess Strategy: A Guide To The One-Sided Slaughterfest

As you can probably tell, this article is about Horde Chess, or maybe just "Horde" for short. Now I played Horde for a few games and right off the bat, I could tell that the name is very appropriate. The board looks like this:

My first impression was that it would be a one-sided slaughterfest, and I was right for once. Just not in the way I thought. If you haven't played Horde Chess, try to guess which side has the advantage. Really, try. Well, anyway the pieces win by taking all the pawns and the pawns win by checkmate. In my opinion, the pieces have the advantage. I found through many minutes of playing Horde that the optimal strategy is to get behind the pawns and take them where the cannot defend each other. To do this, sacrifice your minor pieces to drill at the sides, where pawns are only supported by one pawn instead of two.

Once this is done, the pawns are like Arctic glaciers - they melt away due to rapid changes in the world, until they are all gone. Heck, the pawns are even white like glaciers. Once the queen or rook gets behind the defense, they can simply gobble up the pawns, where they are not being defended. I played 10 games, six as the pieces and four as the pawns. As the pieces, I won 5/6, and for the pawns I lost 3/4 times. I played on lichess.org against Stockfish at a 2200 rating (no idea what that means but it sounds high) and won three times as the pieces. Note that I didn't say three times in a row but still good. But don't worry too much if you are chosen to be the pawns. There are some cautionary measures that you can take, so that you don't lose too badly. One is prepare yourself for the inevitable, so that when the time comes you can resign in grace. Two is protect the outside pawns, because they are the most vulnerable. The best way to do this is to move the outside pawns, so that the middle pawns are protecting them. Also, make sure that the front pawns are protected, because they are subject to attack. If you don't leave pawns hanging, you have a better chance at making it close. You may even win (although I wouldn't bet on it). Well, that's all for this article... And may you be chosen to be the pieces.