The Instructiveness of Bughouse's Unique Aspect

Let's distinguish tactics or forcing moves, and positional play or non-forcing moves. Chess and all of the chess-like games have these. Because there is another board, there are teams, and time moves into the foreground, bughouse has a third aspect which it might help any aspiring bughouse player to consider: strategy, or big-picture thinking. 

Strategy is what tactics and positional play serve. It creates a space for players who are weaker individually to outplay teams of stronger players. It also can help you if you are say, struggling to get close to 2000. 

Sometimes big-picture stuff is more productive to focus on. It's the lense through which we search for tactics--or through which we filter out unproductive or exorbitantly expensive tactics. Sometimes it helps you identify the exceptions to the usually helpful rules of thumb. 

What matters isn't just finding the right move, but the process. You can memorize the moves played by strong players, but observing strong players only reveals what was played--not what they would have played in different variations. Sometimes strategic explanations are just more concise, and searching for the right strategy is the simplest process. 

I think strategic thinking is the easiest path to improvement. To me, being on the right strategic page is more important than even not blundering material or being up time. Practicing good strategy makes finding good moves easier. It makes you easier to partner. 

Everything on offer here is testable. The adjustments any team makes should be the simplest. Ideally, there's no blame in the game. It's a matter of which changes produce the easiest and fastest increase in the effectiveness of a team. 

(1) Bxf7+ 

What's really wrong with the following sort of thing? Bottom right player takes on f7. 

Speaking loosely in the chat section, this is often called "sac-sitting". But White probably doesn't sit yet because there is no immediate N@g5+. 

Why does Bxf7 hurt the bottom team's chances? It's not sitting, and it's not even the material. Bishop for pawn is nothing really. 

Part of the problem is White's decreased control of the board. But the other part is that White cannot feed very easily. This creates a one-sided and non-reciprocal strategy. White should change course, developing the knights, pushing the d pawn, and getting some pieces into circulation. The big problem with playing the way White is, is that the flow tends to be rather bad for the partner, who is at the same time usually pressured to hunt pieces. 

Part of what motivates hasty attacking is fear, and a desire to catch the opponent at the first opportunity. It's better to loosen your grip. It's better to let the tension mount a bit. This means accepting some vulnerability. 

White doesn't sacrifice the Bishop. By waiting, the bottom team is able to hide its cards. It's not clear when the attack will be, and it's not clear where it will be. It could be on either board. When one team member sacrifices early, the team becomes committed. 

By waiting, White offers the opponent the chance to sacrifice. This isn't as risky as it may seem. If there isn't enough material for you to profitably sacrifice, there shouldn't be enough for the opponent. And if Black does get the Queen, there is also the option for White to decline the sacrifice with Kf1. There are also good deviations from "theory" such as p@e3, blocking the sacrifice. 

Waiting should be a research project for the improving player. It's kind of a game of Chicken. Who commits to sacrificing first? It's about being neither too soon, nor too late. Many more players are too early than are too late. If you practice waiting, you will doubtlessly mishandle certain chaotic positions. But, knowing you are on the right page, refining the tactics and the defense isn't that difficult. 

(2) Droppers and Starters

The usual values we assign to the pieces are based on what they are, but not on where they are. So P =1, N = 2, B = 2, R = 2, and Q = 4. I've often wondered if the Rook should be valued at 3 points, because it features in a variety of mates against a castled king. 

First, the mate in the corner. 

Second, the smothered mate with R@g8+ and Nxf7+. 

But any of these numbers are rough estimates. In bughouse, the significance of being up or down material is not what it is in standard chess. So materialism as an approach to bughouse is not clearly best. How much material is worth an unsafe King, and being forced to sit? To enjoy the extra material without derailing one's partner is rarely straightforward. 

There are situations in which the hunt to "win" material is barely worth the trouble.

White (bottom right) is dreaming about N@c7+. But is it worth it? Assuming that the time is close, the partner (bottom left) has reasonable chances of getting the Knight. But then what is Rook really doing? Black goes out of their way for a Rook which they never asked for, and which wasn't bothering anyone anyway. 

Part of it depends how you like to play. Some players act like they invented multi-premoving. If premoving and clicking contests add say, 10 percent of a players strength, what's interesting for an improving player is what this is a percentage of. 

Sitting aggressively makes more sense if the opponents are clearly stronger than you. Then you accept a time scramble. More sitting means fewer chances for the stronger side to outplay the weaker side. 

Some pieces are less valuable when they are on the board, than those in the pocket.

Black drops p@b4 in the hope of kicking the knight away from the center or capturing it. I'm confident that this is not to Black's advantage. White will get a nice center upon recapturing. But Black dropped a pawn which could have gone anywhere on the board. It's too early to say that this pawn is definitely more valuable than the White Knight, which had fewer options. It's a Pawn for a Knight, but it's also a dropper for a starter. White has a good argument for not retreating the knight. 

A strong bughouse player gets value out of both starters and droppers. When White doesn't retreat, and Black captures, White gets to creep towards Black. 

White's piece on c3 was replaced by something. Black's Pawn is gone and is not replaced. If White is able to get more exchanges like this, Black could be pushed off the board. White's plan nearly always involves pushing away Black's pieces on the Kingside and then hitting f7 or g7. The Knight on c3 is most disposable piece in this plan. 

If Black plays dxe5, White again creeps towards Black with dxe5, while Black's own pieces are not being replaced. White does well even with a little flow. N@h5 and p@h6 are possible. Black does not have the open lines needed to do anything other than defend passively. White's Bishops are strong. 

Perhaps if I were Black, I would try something like p@b2, to allow N@f4. But even here, Black should understand that they are just trying to get caught up, and that this is a defensive sacrifice. 

The Pawn drop to harass the Knight is just a resource which can be strong or not. It's premature here. It's better if it's undermining something.

It's a bit awkward for White, because their Queen is on e2. (Qe2 feels intuitive but it's risky.) White shouldn't retreat and allow Nxd4 with tempo on the Queen. I would probably try Be3, defending, or Bb5, pinning the c6 Knight. But the problem is not just that White loses Knight for Pawn. White doesn't have a great way to retake. Either a gap in the Kingside will be made or White may lose more time retreating the Queen. But White is only lost if they get stuck on the idea that the Knight is really worth saving. White should remember that starters are cheaper than droppers, and shore up the center.

Whenever moving a minor piece, I usually advise moving it to where you want it, and not to where your opponent is arguing (implicitly with their moves) you should put it. Rerouting the Knight to g3 can also be very strong. 

(3) Number of Steps

Some ideas fail not so much because they are unconditionally wrong, but because they take too many steps. First you threaten a defender, then you capture it, then you threaten the King, then you gain the initiative. Unfortunately, you did not have that many moves to use and your opponent doesn't even save the defender you threatened. 

The same move could be good or bad, depending on how critical both boards have become. An idea like Nxg2 against a castled King can be either horribly slow or craftily swiping a free pawn while challenging the opponent to expose their King. 

Is it good, or bad? It depends. As an attacking move against the King, it's not great. It weakens the light squares but doesn't pressure them in the way a pawn capture would have. White can ignore and attack Black in a more forcing way, probably with p@h6. Black can't force anything with their own Knight on g2, and if White ignores it, Black will have to move the Knight again from g2 to hurt the King. If that move from g2 is a capture, it is more likely to be harder to ignore. 

I never consciously count the number of steps. If I have to count, I probably wait. 

(4) Footwork

Many positions are about distance and timing. Sometimes the same attacking idea which doesn't work on one move only needed one preparing move to make a strong threat. Phil and I were playing and reached the following position. I include the opponents' names because they fought well, and so you can see the time situation. 

Moving the Knight to f4 helps Phil on his own board, and it helps me. Phil could have played the immediate N@h3+ and hoped the opponents reacted slowly enough that I could get him a Rook for a smothered mate. Instead, Phil played this waiting move, which not only suggests a new Knight at h3, but also a new pawn at h3. Instead of going all in, Phil calmly waits and perhaps subverts the expectations of the opponents, who may have been expecting something more critical. Instead of attempting a critical hit, Phil's N@f4 hovers ominously. It also conserves material, which is always wise when down time. It also conserves options.

N@f4 allowed me to focus on finding good moves. It would be quite easy for White to blunder mate after R@b1+, Nxb1!!, Q@d1#. White's Nxb1 self-destructs by cutting the a1 Rook's defense of d1. 

When you've been swinging from an unbalanced position, or playing with teammates who are, you appreciate a little careful footwork. It keeps things easy. 

Footwork might be understood as a move which increases the number of steps it takes the opponent to force things. 

Another example.  

I like B@d3 here. It's not strictly necessary, and I can't even say that it's good. Black can just block with tempo anyway, right? But B@d3 was never an attacking move. It was a defensive move with check. All it does is increase the number of steps needed by Black in order to counterattack. It also means that Black has to waste a dropper blocking the check. Bishops are good defenders because they move backwards. Pawns are ideal attackers, because they are cheap, but they promote. 

Part of White's attack here is based on reducing Black's counterplay by limiting their droppers. They only ever have enough droppers to barely defend, but never enough to start checking continuously. 

(5) Time 

Bughouse fuels impulsiveness. It's hard to stop giving check, and it's hard to change speed. Rushing and premoving is often not something people do because it increases their winning chances. It's more of a lifestyle choice or an aesthetic. People want to think of themselves as fast players. They premove, and perhaps they get up a lot of time, and in a reasonable position, up 10 seconds, they keep premoving. Their opponent gets wise to it, and finds a way to exploit the premoving. Where a wiser player would premove only as much as was needed, and then switch to more careful play with the finish line in sight, the "fast player" premoves in a way unrelated to the board and time situation--just to do it. Deciding your move before you have seen the opponent's move can only work for so long. 

Any time you get ahead on time, or in material, this advantage can be given back and converted into something else. Some players say that only time matters, some that only material matters, some that only the initiative matters. Obviously, bughouse has many aspects, and no-one to my knowledge has tried to quantify the values of things like King safety, initiative, being up time. But once premoving has gotten you up a certain amount of time, why premove more, except that it's a habit? 

In these two above examples, my team was down time. But the positions were interesting enough that this investment of time was worth it. Continuing to find moves sort of feels like continuing to hit a ball towards the opponent. They have to keep responding.

Practicing speed does not make you stronger, but trying to understand the positions does make you faster. The tragedy (if you like to see players improve) is that some players identify as speedsters and therefore end the search for a good position. 

Too much speed can make co-ordination difficult. If time is tight, it may be necessary to neglect it. But many games are lost up time because of premoving as a lifestyle. It's like being overtaken by a driver who races into a red light. Why the hurry? 

(6) Aims

Understanding the kind of play a position calls for can cut through confusion. 

The Queens have been traded on the right board. This ought to be a good thing on balance for the bottom team. White has a Queen in hand and the first move. Black (bottom right) needs to understand that they are not likely to find mate. White has no real weakness. Black's task is to get caught up on development. Impulsive and anxious thinking will obscure this. Black could go in for something overly expensive. Such a plan will leave large weaknesses, and small chances for success. For instance, insisting on hitting c2. 

Black drops N@b4 and after White defends, tries to trade the defender with B@c4. There's no need for this. If Black's partner is agile enough, it might be made to work. Black should instead realize that their position is strategically very close to the starting position. 

Black calmly breaks the pin. Black also understands that there's little to worry about here. Any forcing sequence White would try is likely to fizzle out. If 0-0-0+ or Rd1+ Black can play Kc8. 

Part of being a strong player is accepting tension, and not trying to resolve it too soon.

This is also important with one of Black's main responses to 1.e4.

Both sides have to realize that while there are technically windows of opportunity to attack, most attacks will fizzle out. And so the right way to continue is to keep moving and play with aims which are more modest than immediately checkmating. 

(7) Heavy and Light Play

Heavy play is strategically inflexible. That's not always bad--it's often characterized by an attempt to steamroll the opponent. Here's an example from the London System. 

"Heavy" is intended to have mixed connotations. White plans to have all of the fun, perhaps never backing off or defending. Just hit f7, swap off any of Black's defending pieces, and eventually mate. I call this heavy because it can slow in that it takes many moves, and it sometimes crushes Black. I think of the London System like a mallet. White had a nice game after using the open h file. 

The drawback is that White doesn't always end up feeding their partner. 

The user EgoSmasher sometimes used a more "light" London System. It's not about mating, but as I interpret it, more about staying flexible and getting the most out of the pieces. Something like this. 

White's light squared Bishop isn't posted as aggressively. But White has different ways of playing from this position. This might even be better. 

Light play isn't just about the opening. Sometimes it's about taking some chances, and even letting your King look after itself. Sometimes lightness is about changing strategic gears. 

 In this position, audioison19 and I somehow got down time. Our opponents played quickly and strongly in the opening. 

As Black, I have to decide what to do about the attack on my Queen. I see three options. 

1) Qf8, which gives up the tempo. Might be ok.

2) f6, defending. 

3) g5, weakening but gains tempo. Two pawns on the seventh rank might hurt me. I can castle Queenside but then p@a6 will hurt as well. 

But how likely is it that Black on the other board will want to take two Pawns? That feels a bit weird for Black, and it might help my partner if his opponent is forced to chase Pawns. I still don't know what the best way for Black is. But I decided to accept some weaknesses. 

My aims are, don't get mated, don't bleed too much material, and try to catch up on the clock. In the end audioison found mate with me focusing on feeding and not getting mated. 

I think of e4/e5 as characterized by very light play. In particular when White plays Be2, adopting the mindset of the Black player, up a tempo, but not trying very hard to use that tempo to do anything momentous. 

And when the mallet is not the right tool for the match situation, there's an opening which feels like fighting with a pair of tweezers. 

White keeps pieces on the board, which in certain match situations gives the best chances. White does not run out of material, and White's partner does not have to deal with so many droppers. 

Sometimes light play makes you a better teammate. I have always thought that VaMPyReSLaYeR plays very lightly, letting the strategic nature of the position change and rolling with whatever happens. Always fast, but never losing because of silly premoves. 

Here, Vampy takes on f6. Why give up the pin? I'd rather make Black work to break it. I interpret White's play as light. White feeds her partner, and also draws out Black's Queen, which can be harassed. Sending pieces is like sending letters in the mail. You are more likely to get them if you send them. Vampy gets pieces into circulation. 

The Vampy opening for Black is the best model for anyone trying to improve. Something like this. 

Light and safe. Also note that after Bb4+, White doesn't want to spend a Pawn to block with tempo. It's worse for White and the Knight no longer has a square to go to.

If Black retreats it will be not so much to save the Bishop but to keep White's position awkward. 

(8) Conclusion

Advice in bughouse should be tactical, positional, and strategic. Coaching bughouse has often made me put my intuitions into words. Once I reviewed games that had reasonable speed, no blunders, and decent tactics on both boards, I had to find the reasons for losses. The reasons were usually unpersuasive if considered positionally--they were nitpicking. Considered strategically, patterns begin to emerge, and these suggest easier solutions. 

Strategic and positional advice has to be made to work tactically. But strategic and positional considerations often fix the tactics, making a player find the only move or find a consistent plan.

I propose that you can send me your games, and I can review them in a follow-up post. I'll accept any games--whether you won, lost, proud of them, or confused by them. I'll look at them with the items (1)-(7).