Time Controls and Variants
Now a relatively comprehensive guide to all common variants on Chess.com. Here, we cover all different classes of time controls, but the bulk of the post will be covering each individual variant (from the Popular, Featured, and Common tabs) and its unique points.
UPDATE (April 2026): Thank you for all the support! How is this already page 50 of top viewed blogs of all time!?!?! Also updated with new information and TL;DR'ed the chunky 4-player info. Added new variants as well, and separated variants by tab.
UPDATE (January 2024): Chess.com has released countless new variants since this article was posted. Go check them out!
Introduction
Chess.com has exploded with new variants lately! There are some new variants that have been shared with the world, and you can play them anytime. They can be played with different time controls, whether you like chess quick-paced, and making moves in split-seconds, or slow, with lots of thinking time.
Different Time Controls
There are 4 official different categories of Chess.com time controls: from quickest to slowest: bullet, blitz, rapid, and daily. Data is referenced from two articles here and here.
Bullet
Bullet chess is a speed of chess with games between one and three minutes long per each player. The most popular bullet time controls are 1 | 0 and 2 | 1. (Note that in time controls, the number before the | sign is the number of minutes, while the number after the | sign means the increment, which is the number of seconds added to a player’s clock after they play their move.) They are shown with this symbol:
It is very important that you turn on premoves with bullet and blitz chess; they can make or break a game in faster time controls.
Blitz
Blitz chess is a chess time control with games between three and ten minutes long per each player. The most popular blitz times are 3 | 0, 5 | 0, and 3 | 2. They are shown with this symbol:
Rapid
Rapid chess is a chess time control longer than ten minutes long per each player. The most popular rapid times are 10 | 0 and 15 | 10, along with many others. They are shown with this symbol:
Daily Chess
Daily Chess is different from the others. The time shown is the amount of time you have to make one move, not the whole game. The game isn’t played at once, unlike the other time controls; it is played over days, and you can exit the game and reenter. Daily chess times include 1 day per move, 7 days per move, and 14 days per move, along with many others. They are shown with this symbol:
Variants
You can find new fun ways to play chess using variants! You click the hand holding a pawn, and then click Variants.
Most Popular Tab
which is the most popular variants on Chess.com, I guess...
Four Player Chess
4 Player Chess is a variant of chess where you can choose to either team up with another person against two other people, or participate in a Free For All (FFA) against 3 other people. You need to have the most points at the end to win! Red goes first, then Blue, then Yellow, and finally, Green. The standard time control is 1|15D (D stands for delay), but there are many others!
Update: Originally, I added images of the text of the rules. I've instead decided to shorten the text a bit:
In Teams, your teammate is across from you, and you can't capture each other's pieces. You only need to checkmate one enemy player to win, and stalemating is a draw.
A special part of Teams is that you can draw arrows that your partner will see! Just right-click and drag arrows. Click on the board to clear arrows.
For FFA, the win condition is slightly different. You want to earn the most points out of all four players. Points are earned as follows: checkmating an opponent is +20, stalemating yourself is +20, checking two players at the same time is +1 with a queen or +5 otherwise, and checking three is +5 with a queen or +20 otherwise. Finally, capturing active pawns is +1, knights is +3, bishops and rooks +5, queens +9, and kings +20. Spare kings are +3, and 1-point queens are +1. The last remaining player is given +20 for each live king except their own on the board.
Importantly, resignation or timeout causes a player's King to stay alive (with all other pieces "dying"), and the King will move at random until checkmated/stalemated. If that king is stalemated, points are shared.
In FFA, pawns promote on the 8th rank, but in Teams, pawns promote on the 11th rank.
Also, in FFA, you can't ask your fellow players to resign or give you pieces, or you will receive the ultimate punishment: getting banned from the chat and possibly the entire game of Chess.com 4-Player Chess.
Self Partnering
This is just 4-player Teams without the 4-player. You control both sides of a team (so you have 32 pieces under your control at the start of the game).
Doubles (Bughouse)
Bughouse is a variant of chess where you team up with another player to play against two other players. You are paired up with one opposing teams’ players, while your partner is paired up with the other one. The game is like a normal game, except that when your partner captures a piece, it moves over to the left side of your board, and, on your turn, you can drag that piece anywhere on the board. The only rules for dragging is that the piece must be placed on an empty square, and pawns cannot be placed on the 1st or 8th ranks. When you capture a piece, it goes over to your partner, and they get to place it on the board, following the rules above. When your opponent captures one of your pieces, it moves to their partner, and when your partner’s opponent captures one of your partner’s pieces, it moves over to your opponent. The standard time control is 3|0, but there are many other time controls! Have fun! Personally, this is one of my favorite variants, and it's a nice refresher at any type of chess club.
Fog of War
Fog of War is a chess variant in which you are trying to capture the enemy’s king. It will not display any checks. The huge twist is that you can only see where your pieces can legally move, which limits your board vision. The same rules apply to your opponent as well. Note that in the move tracking, your opponents’ moves will say “?” for each move.
Some general advice I can give is to try to make your king as fortified as possible (to prevent the off chance that a piece just so happens to point directly at your king).
Automate (replaced with Setup Chess)
Automate is a chess variant in which you have one minute, but gain 10 seconds each turn, to set up your pieces. You have 35 points in total, and pawns cost 1 point, knights and bishops cost 3 points, rooks cost 4 points, and queens cost 7 points. Everyone is required to place 6 pawns at first. Pawns can only be placed, as White, on the 2nd and 3rd ranks, and as Black, on the 6th and 7th ranks. Then, you use the rest of your 29 points buying all other pieces except kings. You can buy anything you want, as long as you can afford it. You cannot buy pieces that you can’t afford. For White, all pieces except pawns can only be placed on the 1st and 2nd ranks, and if you’re Black, the 7th and 8th ranks. When you hit 0 points left, you place your king, and wait for your opponent to finish. Then, the computers make the best moves for each side, and see who wins.
Note that if you place your king in check, you immediately lose.
Update: Chess.com has removed Automate from the Variants selection for some reason. I enjoyed playing it while it existed, and I sure hope you did! (If you never got a chance to play this variant though, sorry.) Now there's Setup Chess which is the same, but the players play the game instead of the computers.
Atomic
Atomic is a chess variant in which if you capture a piece, the pieces one square every direction away from the capturer get blown up. The capturing piece gets blown up too. Pawns aren’t affected from explosions if they were not the capturer. Kings can go next to each other, they can’t capture, and players can ignore checks if they can blow up the enemy’s king. If you capture en passant, then the square where the capturer lands is where the middle of the explosion is.
I especially want to emphasize the fact that kings cannot capture. So if a white queen is on g7 and a black king is on h8 and it is Black to move, then if Black cannot either capture the queen or blow up White's king, then White wins (because the king cannot capture the checking queen and cannot escape).
Giveaway
Giveaway is a chess variant in which you are trying to give away all of your pieces (hence the name). If you can capture an enemy piece, though, the computer gives you only one option: capture the piece. Also, if you stalemate, you win, and en passant counts as a capture. You can capture kings, kings can go next to each other, there is no castling, check, or checkmate, and pawns can promote to kings.
It's a good idea as White to start with small pawn moves like b3 or e3. For Black, the same idea is good, but if your opponent messes up, then by all means, go for it!
There's also 4-player Giveaway, with the objective being getting stalemated first.
Horde
Horde is a variant in which if you are White, you have a horde of pawns (hence the name) and are trying to checkmate Black (you can promote your pawns) and if you are Black, you are trying to take all of White’s pawns and promoted pieces. White pawns have a choice to move 2 squares forward if they are on the 1st or 2nd ranks.
Knowing when to sacrifice pieces for some pawns is very important. From what I've seen, having the Black queen/rook make it to the 1st rank is often deadly for the white pieces because pawns can't capture backwards!
Crazyhouse
Crazyhouse is a chess variant that is the same as normal chess, but when you capture a piece, that piece goes over to you and you may place it on the board on your turn! The only rules are that you must place the piece on an empty square, and pawns cannot be placed on the 1st or 8th ranks. The way to access Crazyhouse is to go to your friends tab, challenge one of them, click the bar that says vs *FRIENDNAME* and a little cross sign should appear. Click it, and then click “Standard” and choose Crazyhouse!
Update: Now you can simply play from the Variants tab instead.
Spell Chess
One of the newer popular variants. Spell Chess is a variant with a twist: each player gets two green spells and five blue spells. The green spells, known as Jump spells, allow you to choose a piece that you can jump over with one of your own pieces. The blue spells, known as Freeze spells, freeze a 3x3 section of the board, and your opponent cannot move any pieces in that section of the board on their next turn. Spells can only be used again after a three turn recharge.
General advice: it's often beneficial to use your freeze as a defense against your opponent's freeze. For instance, if your opponent attacks your queen and freezes your queen, then use your freeze to freeze the attacking piece.
Duck Chess
Duck Chess is a variant that lets you place an immovable duck on the board after your turn, and on the next turn, your opponent must work around the duck. Every time a player moves a piece, the duck must be moved to an empty square. (The duck must be moved; it cannot stay on the same square.) Capture the opposing king to win; there is no check/checkmate in this variant.
The duck is immovable as in if you place the duck in front of a pawn, the pawn cannot move on the next turn (unless it can capture something diagonally).
I've already created a blog post about Duck Chess here.
Chess with Checkers
Supposedly also known as "Checky Chess." It's just normal chess but all pieces are replaced with identical checkers (of course, the colors of the checkers are different for each player). All pieces function normally, but the caveat is that you can't tell just by looking what piece a checker represents.
Feels like Blindfold but you can see where the pieces are, just not what the piece is.
Chaturaji
Chaturaji is a chess variant played on an 8x8 chess board. Your rook is in the corner, and your other pieces are put as if you only had the kingside half of your pieces. Pawns can only move one square per turn. Sailboats are rooks. Pawns promote to rooks on the 8th rank. Get the most points at the end to win! This is a four-player game, but the board is much smaller compared to 4-player chess since it is a normal chessboard.
Your goal is to earn the most points. Checks/checkmates do not exist and are replaced by king captures, which defeats an entire army and adds 3 points to the player performing the checkmate. The one new piece is the sailboat, which is just a rook. Pawns promote to sailboats on the 8th rank (end of the board).
If insufficient material/threefold repetition/50-move rule is reached, the remaining players each earn 10 points.
Again, you cannot plead others to give up or anything like that, just like in 4-Player Chess.
Featured Tab
Looking at player counts, I don't know why Chess960 is not in most popular but Checky Chess is, so I guess this is the "good but not the best" tab. Many of the more classic variants are here, such as Chess960, 3-Check, and King of the Hill.
King of the Hill
King of the Hill is a chess variant in which you need to move your king to the center or checkmate to win, so center control is very important!
At a higher level, players seem to go for slower strategies (basically they are just playing normal chess for a while) and pounce later in the game, and indeed, it's harder for a king to make it to the center in the opening because of opening principles! You want to control the center, so naturally, it's harder for the king to make it to the center in the opening.
Chess960
Chess960 (or, as it's been recently rebranded, Freestyle Chess) is a variant in which the pieces in the back rank are shuffled each time you play! There is no castling. The name comes from the fact that there are 960 original starting positions. Here's some more techy math information:
(4 × 4 for bishops) × (6 choose 3 for king and rooks) × (3 for queen) × (1 × 1 for remaining knights)
equals 960 ways! (Yes, I just derived this.)
because the king must be in between the rooks and the bishops must be of opposite colors.
Some general advice: it's well known that f2/f7 are the weakest pawns in a chess game. Well, there are often some pawns that are weak in a game of Chess960, and be especially careful if you or your opponent can uncover a bishop that directly attacks that weak pawn. There are many positions where an uncovered bishop can immediately capture a pawn that traps a rook, so keep an eye out.
3 Check
3 Check is a variant in which you have to either check your opponent’s king three times (hence the name) or checkmate to win. Be careful for combos from queens. In fact, a queen that is able to check a king without being captured is guaranteed at least two checks (one initial, and one possibly sacrificial) so be careful!
Chaturanga
Chaturanga is an older chess variant. Pawns can only move one square at a time. Knights move the same way. Elephants (in the bishops’ spots) move two squares diagonally in any direction and can jump over pieces. Chariots (in the rooks’ spots) move like rooks. Counselors (in the queen’s spot, also known as the ferz) move one square diagonally in any direction. Pawns promote to a counselor on the 1st/8th rank. You can win by 1) checkmate, 2) taking all of the opponent’s pieces except for the king, and 3) stalemating your opponent. There is no castling.
Gothic Chess
Gothic Chess is a chess variant in which you play on a 10x8 chess board. There are two new pieces around the king: the Archbishop (with a bottom like a Bishop’s) moves like a knight or a bishop, and the chancellor (with a bottom like a rook’s top) moves like a rook or a knight. To castle, the king moves 3 squares to either side, and the rook is dropped next to it.
XXL Chess
XXL Chess is a chess variant in which there are a lot more pieces. There are new pieces: crosses between a bishop and a knight, a queen and a knight, a rook and a knight, and a king and a knight (that cannot be checked). Do you notice that last piece? That piece is like a knight, except it moves 3 squares to any side (except diagonal sides) and one square to the side. It’s like an extended knight. Pawns promote to queens on your eighth rank.
Racing Kings
Racing Kings has a peculiar starting position. You are racing to get your king on the 8th rank first, and you can use your pieces to prevent your opponent from moving their king up the board. If both players make it on the same numbered move (which occurs when White makes it on their turn and Black immediately makes it as well on their turn, but NOT the other way around), then the game is a draw.
Players can play any legal move EXCEPT put their opponent in check. So moves like checking an opposing king or causing a discovered check are both not playable. Use this to your advantage!
Minihouse
A relatively new variant, Minihouse is just Crazyhouse but most of the pieces are gone. In fact each side only has one of each piece except the queen, and the game is played on a 7x7 board.
War for Throne
War for Throne is a 4-player variant and has a lot of rules, but the goal is to win the most points on a custom board. Checkmates/king captures are worth 40 points. 5 checks is a checkmate on an opposing player, and reaching the middle of the board (like King of the Hill) checkmates all remaining players. Pawns promote to kings on the 4th rank, and seeing as many pawns start on the 3rd rank, there will be a lot of promotions. However, only the 5-check king making it to the center counts as King of the Hill. Each pawn capture is +1, and each non-5-check king capture is +3.
Seirawan Chess
Named after American GM Yasser Seirawan, Seirawan Chess introduces two new pieces: the elephant, which can make knight moves or rook moves; and the hawk, which can make knight moves or bishop moves. The starting position is normal, but after a non-pawn piece is moved for the first time, one of the two new pieces can be placed on the vacated square. Only one of the two pieces can be placed, and each of the two pieces can only be placed once in the entire game.
Pawns can also promote to the new pieces.
Thermopylae
Thermopylae involves a fight between two armies.
First, the board layout is...interesting. Red wins if Green survives for 76 moves, and Green wins if their main king (which is a king+knight cross) is captured by either Red or one of two computers.
Labyrinth 82
Labyrinth 82 is a 4-player variant involving 8-check, pieces turning to stone upon checkmate, promotion on the second rank (and never after the second rank), and a wild layout. It's interesting that the board is not symmetrical for all four players.
Paradigm Chess30
Paradigm Chess30 is similar to Chess960 in that there are 30 different starting positions. Most notably, the bishops are replaced with dragon bishops, which can move like either a bishop in chess or a knight in 象棋 (xiangqi, Chinese chess). In Chinese chess, knights move one square in any direction and one square diagonally from that square in this order (and end a knight's move away from the starting square). The difference is that knights in Chinese chess cannot jump over enemies.
Pawns can promote to dragon bishops.
Common Tab
I really have no idea what "common" is supposed to mean here.
Blindfold
Blindfold is a variant in which you have to play without seeing any of the pieces, but if you click one of your pieces, it will show where it can move. Note that all of the moves, in the move tracker, will say “?” when played.
This is an online version of the OTB variant where players play by calling out moves instead of playing them at the board since they cannot see the board! (I think there are quite a few chess Youtube videos about blindfold chess.)
Capture Anything
Capture Anything is a chess variant in which you can (you guessed it) capture anything, including your own pieces! (But turn one Bongcloud is still a bad idea. Don't get any ideas.)
Torpedo
Torpedo is a chess variant in which pawns can always move one or two squares forward, and en passant can happen anywhere on the board!
Sideways Pawns
Sideways Pawns is a chess variant in which you can move your pawns sideways one square, opening up files with ease! In my opinion, this requires a lot of positional knowledge or intuition.
Opposite-Side Castling
Opposite-Side Castling is a variant in which you and your opponent may not both castle in the same direction (both kingside or both queenside). You must castle differently or avoid castling entirely.
No Castling
No Castling is a chess variant in which you can’t castle, which leaves kings in the open and therefore more exposed. (Actually, this is kind of like some of my games hmmmm...)
Fatal Giveaway
Fatal Giveaway is just Giveaway with one catch: if a non-pawn piece captures an opposing piece, that non-pawn piece "dies." The effect is that you cannot move it anymore, but it can still be captured. However, if a dead piece is able to be captured by an opposing piece, it does not count as a compulsory capture.
Elimination Chess
I unfortunately don't exactly understand Elimination Chess, so here are the given rules word-for-word:
- When possible, capturing is compulsory
- There are no checks or checkmates
- Players win upon being the first one to get stalemated or leave their opponent with only one piece remaining
- If a player has only one piece remaining but is able to capture, the game continues
- Pawns promote to a queen, rook, bishop, knight, or king on the eighth rank
Other Variants
Here are some other variants that don't fit into any of the above categories or are just too interesting to leave out.
Interesting Variants
This is of course a personal opinion, but here are some more custom-made variants that I found interesting:
If you're wondering how these could possibly be chess games, that's exactly what piqued my interest in these variations.
Balanced
Balanced is more of an equal chess option, based on rating. It will take away pieces from the higher-rated person, so that the lower-rated person has more material. Note that you can only play Balanced against one of your friends. Challenge one of your friends, then click the “Standard” bar and there should be one at the bottom that says “Balanced” for you to play!
This is not exactly a variant, but if you're playing someone much stronger/weaker, then this might be a way to even the playing field.
Custom
Custom is a mode in which you can freely make your own variant by choosing different selections! Use your creativity!
Ironically, the default setting of Custom is named "Chess." Reminds me of the (amazing, by the way) Chess.com 2021 April Fools post removing draws.
Conclusion
Chess.com has exploded with new ways to play chess and speeds to play chess at, but it is crucial that we know how to play them. I hope you enjoyed, and have a more thorough knowledge of the variants and speeds!
