Bughouse Strategies Explained

Bughouse is one of the most popular chess variants, and there are many events and tournaments that include it. Here, I will show you some strategies to get better at Bughouse.

Sacrifice on f7 or f2!

Sacrifices on f7 or f2 are probably the most common tactics in Bughouse. The idea is to lure your opponent's king out to then try to checkmate. Your partner has an extremely important role I this, though: they have to give you a lot of pieces. If you don't have pieces to place, then you may have just blundered a minor piece on f7 or f2 for nothing. Here is an example:

You have sacrificed a knight in the early stage of the game to bring the king out. Now what, though? Note that the e5 and g5 squares are squares that your opponent does not control. A placed knight on these squares can be devastating and lead to a quick checkmate.

Forks on c7 or c2!

In Bughouse, when your opponent has not developed much yet, it is a good idea to play Bf4 and attempts to place a pawn, knight, or bishop on the c7 square. A knight would fork the king and the rook, a pawn and a bishop would fork the queen and the knight. These forks are hard to stop without the opponent getting out of their way and making a non-developing move.

Trapping the opponent's pieces!

In Bughouse, it's much easier and more common to trap people's pieces. Queen traps can happen by forking the queen and the knight as seen  above, but when the opponent hasn't moved their queen yet. Also, if you have a knight on b6 and your opponent has a bishop on b3 (or vice versa depending on which color you are) you can place a pawn on a4 or c4 to trap the bishop.

Hunting the opponent's king!

In Bughouse, as in regular chess, the goal is to get a checkmate. While winning material helps you get to that goal, the fastest (albeit possibly riskiest) way is to attack the opponent's king. Usually, if they are castled, you want to mess up their pawn structure (h2, g2, and f2), sometimes by sacrificing. The initiative is much more important in Bughouse that in normal chess, sometimes even surpassing the value of the queen! This is because if you have enough pieces and you are attacking, a lot of the time, you will checkmate the opponent. 

Consider the following position, where you have a pawn, a rook, and a knight that you can place.

Here, you have a stunning combination, beginning with  placing a knight on h3 check!!

If gxh3, then place a rook on h1, which will be checkmate. And if Kh1, we place a rook on g1 check, another brilliant move!

White's only legal move is Rxg1, and then the final move of the game is Nxf2# smothered mate!

I hope this guide assists you in your future Bughouse games.