Silliest Chess Variants In History

PaulGeniusMorphy

Updated: Jan 13, 2010, 12:35 PM | 0

This blog is somewhat like a never ending blog consisting of the sillest diagrams nobody has ever seen. The more I create them, the more I will post them here for chess enthusiasts to enjoy. Here's my first composed diagram. This is a variant I made up with impossible pawn structures centered for both sides, and kings on their original squares. This variant is called Pawn Hunter.

Black moves first since I created this variant I make the rules. The object is to walk the king on the other side of the opposing army of pawns and capture them in order to free your own so that you can advance them to the opponent's back rank.

After you make it to the back rank with your pawn, you may promote it but it can become any piece including another king! That means that you can have as many kings as you want, but if your opponent chooses to promote his pawns to queens, then you'll have an army of queens vs. kings. Most standard rules of chess do apply here still, and each king that is checkmated must be removed from the board, but that's only if there is more than one king, but if your opponent has only one king and you checkmate it, then the game ends immediately, and you are the winner, vise-versa.

Look at the diagram closely and you will see that neither king can make it to the other side by trying to walk across on the king side. White's pawn on g4 stops the king black king from crossing that side and Black's pawn on g6 stops the white king from crossing on that side. Therefore, both kings must pursue victory by making a path along the queen side. This is obvious by sight. Just in case you have an opponent who wants to take the fun out of the game by playing for a draw, the rule is "A draw is not allowed for either side, and is unacceptable - winning must be forced by one side or the other."

Enjoy!

Here is another variant of mine different from the previous one. See diagram below.

In This variant is called The Four-Night Kill since the rooks that are blocked in by the pawns of its own color are bound to be killed. Standard rules apply except for the pawn promotion to a king. When a pawn makes it to the opponent's back rank it can become any piece but a king. I left it up to the players to decide who moves first in this one.

Below is a 3rd variant of mine called 4's.

There are 4 queens and 4 knights for both sides.

The object is to capture the opposite color queens before the opponent captures all of yours. The first player to capture all of the opposite color queens win. The queens are only blockades, and do not move. Only the knights can move. The knights can be captured also.

If all 4 of your knights are captured, then you automatically lose. White moves first. The kings have been discluded in this variant. Enjoy!

This last diagram is a pendulum puzzle. I named it that because of the heavy action that will swing first along the center with the queens being the heavy weights placed in bad positions.

All standard rules apply except for the castling. There are no rooks in this puzzle for that to be possible. Kings are tucked away in the far corner on their side of the board. Enjoy!

The next diagram you see below is a puzzle. You see 5 bishops and 1 knight on one side, and black pawns scattered all over the board. The object is to capture all of the pawns that are blocking the bishops' diagonals from one end of the board to the next so that the bishops can move freely along that diagonal. The knight must not move onto a square that is attacked by a pawn enabling the knight to be captured.

However, it isn't necessary to capture every pawn, but only the pawns blocking the longest diagonal for each bishop. Finally, once the knight has cleared a diagonal for the bishop, that bishop must move from the square it is sitting to the other end of its longest diagonal. Be careful not to clear a diagonal too soon if the knight will need to occupy certain squares around it to finish knocking out pawns that are blocking the diagonals for the other bishops.

Remember that once a diagonal is clear for a bishop, that bishop must move immediately along that diagonal until it has reached the other side of the board, and it must remain there.

The pawns are just blockades.

Silliest Chess Variants In History

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