Unsolicited Bughouse Advice 🪲🏠

👋 Hi! I’m Sarah, aka sarah_endipity (like “serendipity”). I’ve been playing bughouse for over a year now, and it’s easily become my favorite chess variant. Here are a few tips I’ve learned. These are just my opinions, but I hope they help or offer a new perspective. 

♟️To castle or not to castle?

In regular chess, castling is meant to move the king into a safer place and activate the rook. However, in Bughouse, castling can actually make you more vulnerable. It’s easy for your opponent to open the pawn shield in front of your king and start dropping pieces to swarm your king. Oftentimes, keeping your king in the center offers more protection. By keeping your king in the center, it’s surrounded by more of your own pieces, which makes it harder for your opponent to find a good square to drop a piece. Even when your king is under attack, there are more directions to run. But if your king is stuck in the corner, it can get trapped quickly. 

Still, there are times in Bughouse when castling is necessary to buy some time, like if your center is falling apart and your king is exposed. Just don’t castle out of habit; do it if it actually makes your king safer. 

⚔️Offense over defense

In Bughouse, it is almost always better to attack than to defend. Your opponent can drop pieces out of nowhere, find a weakess, apply nonstop pressure, and completely overwhelm you. Unlike standard chess, it’s more difficult to plan ahead when a surprise drop can ruin your whole position instantly.  But when you are the one attacking, your opponent is the one scrambling to survive. In fact, attacking may be the best defense because your opponent can’t focus on attacking you if they're too focused on preventing mate. 

Also, when you put pressure on your opponent, they might make more mistakes or give up pieces-and those pieces can go to your partner, who can use them to attack. Your opponent may want to stall for a certain piece, but they can’t because they need to deal with your threats right away. This may make their partner slow down, since they might want to stop making trades to avoid giving you more material and thus give your teammate extra time to attack or improve their position. 

🎯Sacrificing

One of the most counterintuitive things in bughouse is how sacrificing your pieces, even powerful ones, can sometimes be the best move. In standard chess, losing your queen might cost you the game. But in Bughouse, that mindset can work against you. Sometimes it’s worth it to lose a queen if it means getting your partner the knight they need to deliver checkmate. In bughouse, you’re board isn't the only one that matters- you are playing as a team.

📝TL;DR:

✅Castling can make your king more exposed, so don’t do it unless it helps.

✅Staying on the attack is usually better than defending

✅Don’t be afraid of big sacrifices if it helps your partner

This is my first blog post, so I’d love to hear what you think!