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I posted it on https://variants.world link: https://variants.world/posts/372 (Post new forum reason: the old forum is locked)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Timecontrol 45 sec Gamerules 3pt Checkmate, 3-check, Atomic, King of the Hill, Capture the King Promotion King, Knight on the 10th rank Note Accepted, yay! Oh, Warui-atomici is coming soon! Stay tuned!

(Only creators with at least 4 WoFs accepted will be listed. If a WoF has been removed, it will not count toward the creator for this list.) Just some random stats. Post below your thoughts and if there's anything else you want me to dig up (as long as it can be based on public data and doesn't get me sacked from my job ) @VarunPatil11 - 11 @qilp - 11 @bsrti - 10 @BFDIChess - 10 @Cyprian2206 - 9 @stupnik_2_0 - 8 @Trento007 - 4 @BoxJellyfishChess - 4

I have a suggestion for a rule that could be added into 4 Player Chess & Variants. It would be called "Forced Captures" and means that when one player is able to capture a piece(s), they must choose the piece they want to capture and capture it if this is a legal move. Special rule: However, if a player is in check but attacking enemy pieces and cannot capture anything legally, they lose the game. (Or you could turn on Capture the King and disable this rule.) This would allow for variants such as Chess but you have to capture when you can (different than Giveaway) and other cool variants. Do you think this could be added in the future?

After being on the variants server for however long, all the CPs I've seen fall into certain categories, and so, in this forum, I will be showing you my Custom Position Stereotypes All positions shown were seen on the Variants server 1. The M1 Feeling bummed out because of your 2763-game loss streak? Do this! 2. Checking for an Imbalance Without Checky Chess: Moral: Don't play a CP with Checky or Blindfold 3. 2P 4PC Enjoy 4PC without the nuisance of waiting for 3 people, only for one of them to abort. 4. S P A M WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT 5. The guy who looks at "How (Not) to Make a Variant" and copies a position ChessMasterGS specifically said to NOT do this. 6. Double-MoverPlay 2 moves at once. 7. Zombie Apocalypse "Chess is too competitive" 8. The Demised Variant AKA Max's Game 9. The Idiot I think you forgot about the 50-move rule 10. The Other Idiot Yes, I actually saw this in the Variants Lobby. (Duck Chess is off) 11. The NCP *Knight-rider Jumpscare* 12. The Chess.com/analysis Guy This literally took me 5 minutes to make. 13. The guy who takes an official variant and changes one thing Here's the variant we see: Can you spot the change? Here's regular War for Throne for reference: Answer: +20 for checkmate instead of +40 14. CheckersWe hate rip-offs of chess. This is chess.com, go play checkers on checkers.com. Pretty sure I messed up the colours too. And finally ... 15. The Stereotyper Wait, why is it a picture of me?!

Amazon is the strongest piece is chess, right? I trapped it in a Jail, like this.(Fog of war, Takeover and king of the hill) What do you think about this? (4PC forum link: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/new-4-player-chess-type-amazon-jail )

I'm currently looking to gather some information to see what various groups of people think (e.g., people hearing about variants for the first time, variant creators, long-time players) about this! We all love our variants with fairy pieces and interesting game-rule combinations, but it might differ for others I'll go first and give a few reasons for my picks, Most beginner friendly: Rookmate (same position as regular chess, objective is easy to understand with strategy able to be learned on the fly for new players) Minihouse (small board, no fairy pieces, crazyhouse is one of the most popular gamerules already) Cross Derby (only 2 types of pieces with no fairies, easy objective of attacking a smothered king) Least beginner-friendly: Thermopylae (lots of fairy pieces, objective is impossible to understand without reading description of the game) Emperor's Tomb (Giveaway + bare piece, xiangqi horse and dragon bishop) The X of Tricks (every single piece is a fairy, early promotion if not defended, aggressive attacks) Note that this is just subjective, an actual beginner might think differently from me and that these variants are all still fun! (after all, we wouldn't have many variants if we just simplified all of them)

https://www.chess.com/variants/4-player-chess/game/67547075/364/1

In a two-player game with zombies, if a zombie checkmates a player, the game is somehow a draw. (Example: This game: https://www.chess.com/variants/custom/game/67698211/0/1)Is this purposeful and is there a way to make the other player win if one player gets checkmated by a zombie?

There is a bug that seems to appear after changing the board size.  In the shown position above, White is able to promote the Pawn. However, the Pawn would be on the 5th rank, but the promotion is set to the 7th rank, so what is happening here? Additionally, the notation on the right is not even accurate... This is because the system thinks that the position actually looks like this:  ...as noted by the correct notation and proper promotion.  Clearly, this is misleading. This bug needs to be fixed. 

Previous updates: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/update-on-ncv-wof-testing-situation (July 13, 2023) https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/update-on-ncv-wof-testing-situation-2 (August 11, 2023) https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/update-on-ncv-wof-testing-situation-3 (November 26, 2023) Hello Custom Variants community! It's been almost a year since the first update, and a lot has changed since then! When these posts when first being made, Custom Variants was definitely in a different place compared to today, and it's all thanks to everybody here, whether you joined us in 2018, after the merge of 4PC and Variants, or just recently! These updates were first started back in July of last year, mostly because there was some concern over the reviewing of variants. Many of these issues have now been addressed, but regardless, think of this as a transparency report of sorts! If you don't want to read this entire thing or want to skip to a part you're interested in, follow the bolded text on the titles of the sections. Without further ado, let's get into the topics of this update: Agenda What are the major changes since November (when the last post was made)? What's with some of the bugs on variants.world? What are NCV Testers for? What's the current CGA + NCV Tester team? Will there be NCV Tester applications in the future, and can NCV Testers become CGAs? What's the current breakdown of the testing situation? Will more variant creation guides be written? Will any variants be removed? What's going on in the world of variants and custom variants now? What are the major changes since November (when the last post was made)? First off, we started doing Golden Variant arenas again in February! Like you may have heard, Golden Variant arenas were originally sporadically made in order to popularize variants that otherwise may not have gotten as much attention. They were indefinitely paused, before the CGA team brought them back, now with a monthly schedule, and voting process!  You can see the most recent voting announcement (for July) here: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/vote-for-julys-golden-variants You can also see which variants have been featured so far:https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/2024-golden-variant-schedule Golden Variant arenas have been pretty popular on the weekends (alongside our weekday Wheel of Fortune arenas), and have easily become one of the most popular arenas on the server, and we're still working on improving activity on the server as a whole! One variant that certainly stands out is Minihouse, which has become one of the most popular variants on the server! Now onto basically the biggest change that has happened since: the introduction of Variants World! Variants World, also known as variants.world for its URL, is the new variants submission platform that we have been using since December, which I gave everyone a sneak peak at in the November update. Over the last 7ish months, around 300 posts have been made and all variants that were archived by @CGA (cgabot) have been migrated over to the platform as well! With its simplistic interface, Variants World has been very helpful in organizing variants and helping the CGAs review, sort, and filter them faster! Votes can be counted in one place, alongside notes and classifications. In addition to these two major changes, we also released an application for NCV Testers, which just closed today, but we'll get to that later! What's with some of the bugs on variants.world? Some of you may have noticed that "NCV | Resources Chess" was labelled as post 242, while the post right after it was erroneously labelled as post 285. My current understanding of the situation is that it's being worked on, but as far as I know, this isn't a major issue. A more pressing bug that will be addressed is that the image generation program mysteriously renders dead pieces as Red or White. This has definitely caused a fair bit of confusion, but clicking into the testing game always helps as you can then see the actual position. This bug has not affected CGA testing, and no decision is ever made simply by looking at an image of the variant (not even with autodecline). After all, we will always look at the actual position when the board is inaccurately shown. The Variants World developers are actively working on fixing these bugs and also implementing new features and quality-of-life changes onto the platform, so look out for those! What are NCV Testers for? What's the current CGA + NCV Tester team?  As a preface for those not aware, CGA is short for Custom Games Admin, and NCV Tester is short for New Custom Variant Tester. Both can vote on variant submissions, although CGAs have a few extra responsibilities: creating Wheel of Fortune and Golden Variant arenas, writing accept/decline messages on reviewed variants, leading the NCV Testers, etc. In September of last year, we released the first NCV Tester application in more than 2 years as we were down to just 4 CGAs, which was not sustainable at all.  Given the CGA team needed to stay up at night in their timezone in order to test with another CGA across the globe, this was the best course of action, since in addition to getting more testers for efficient voting, more perspectives could be explored. Unfortunately, we only got one suitable candidate out of the applicants at the time, @Unknown_2015, and we made another post 2 months ago, which just closed today! In this application, we toned down the questions so that they were more like an application rather than a strict test, and we found many more suitable candidates.  In addition, we welcomed back former CGA @TheChessDude991, after his departure 3 years ago from the team! (All applicants who were selected have been messaged already on chess.com by @qilp.) The current official testing team, their ranks, and club roles are as follows: (Super Admin) Head CGA: @qilp(Admins) CGAs: @bsrti, @NoWellOkay, @JkCheeseChess, @ChessMasterGS, @TheChessDude991(Coordinators) NCV Testers: @Unknown_2015, @jackityjackjack, @Dan-kyu_System, @BN1208 (Italics indicate members currently on vacation) Will there be NCV Tester applications in the future, and can NCV Testers become CGAs? Yes. Throughout the course of Custom Variants, the team has seen many shifts, and NCV Testers are always valuable and get us out of tough places when people are missing. I don't think that any application will open in the near future as we're seeing a pretty big team at the moment, but we'll see how things go! To answer the other half of the question, NCV Testers are the top candidates for CGA selection, although there is no guarantee NCV Testers will become CGAs.  What's the current breakdown of the testing situation? Here's some good ol' bullet points: We have 8 active testers: 4 CGAs and 4 NCV Testers There are currently 22 variants still UR (Under Review). The oldest post still UR is https://variants.world/posts/20, made on August 29 of 2023. The variant was affected by a bug, which still remains unsolved, meaning it cannot be reviewed at this time. The next oldest post still UR is https://variants.world/posts/140, made in March of this year. It was self-declined but has since been reopened. The oldest post still UR unaffected by any special circumstances is https://variants.world/posts/181, made on April 17 of this year. In the last 7 days, we have reviewed and made a verdict on 19 variants (!). All variants have at least been analyzed and/or skimmed by a tester. This is very good progress! We're no longer in a crisis like before, and our goal is to reach a point where all variants at a given time can be reviewed. Will more variant creation guides be written? Yes! I always welcome suggestions in my DMs as well, so if there's popular demand for a certain guide to be written, I can see what I can do. In addition, I am planning on making a directory, or a resource page of sorts for guides, especially as the number of them far exceeds what can be pinned to the top of the forum page. Will any variants be removed? There have been some small rumors floating around that another "purge" of variants is happening, similarly to one that happened in 2021-2022. See more information here: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/the-changes-to-the-variants-custom-games-after-the-merge In short, it was the removal of around 50% of all existing (NCV) variants, for a multitude of reasons. There was a retesting of many candidates slated for removal, using a standard similar the one we use to test variants normally today. At this moment, through statistics on weekly activity, Golden Variant participation, etc., we are monitoring the variants we currently have the lists in the various categories; we are not currently planning on conducting any "purge" of the variants.  What's going on in the world of variants and custom variants now? I can't say much is happening at this very moment for custom variants, but as you can probably tell, the testing team is definitely going to work on a "clean-up" process for the variants still Under Review. Stay tuned though, we might start planning some more large scale events On the other hand, there's a really good event going on in the 4 Player Chess club right now: the 4PC Festival, which aims to test candidates for standard 4 Player Chess' starting position. There's tons of membership awards, and the arenas feature some of the most popular and best 4 Player Chess players and streamers. So, if you're looking for a challenge, competition, or just something fun to try out, the 4PC Festival is something that should be on your radar! That's all for now! Thank you for reading all the way to the end!

Post for June: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/vote-for-junes-golden-variants Not sure on what some of the terms in this post mean? Have any other questions? See any typos? Feel free to ask and comment below! Scroll down to the bold text if you want to know how to vote without reading my entire message Hello Custom Variants Community!  Can you believe it's been 4 months since we restarted Golden Variants? Since then, 6 variants have joined our NCV and WoF ranks, with many more to come! Variants has certainly gone through more than just a few changes, and we're here to make sure that variant creation continues to stay relevant. We've also inducted 2 new NCV Testers onto our team, with hopefully a few more coming in in the next few weeks that the application is open. Check that out here: https://www.chess.com/announcements/view/become-a-variant-tester-apply-here If you haven't already, make sure to check out the 4 Player Chess Festival announcement in the 4 Player Chess club: https://www.chess.com/announcements/view/the-four-player-chess-festival, it's going to be a pretty fun event! Since 19 weeks have already passed, it's going to be a hassle listing out every variant that has been featured in this post without making it too lengthy, so those of you who got the ping will have already known about this page that will make things easier: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/2024-golden-variant-schedule The format for this month's variant selection is as follows: The first week (7/5) will be a 168-hour (weeklong) arena of Ambush, the most recently accepted NCV. The second week (7/12) will be a 168-hour (weeklong) arena of Simplicity, the other most recently accepted NCV. The third week, (7/17) will be a 72 hour arena of the #2 voted variant from the poll. The fourth week (7/24) will be a 72 hour arena of the #1 voted variant from the poll. The poll consists of 5 pre-selected "Extra" 2P NCVs that have not yet been selected yet for Golden Variant. You may vote for a maximum of 2 variants by selecting both of them in the same response. The vote will last for 11 days. The exact time left can be seen by going into the StrawPoll. Vote: https://strawpoll.com/bVg8BR0v1yY Thank you all in advance!

Anyone gonna play? Link : https://www.kfchess.com/game/YIQMG4?key=da919dd6-2ca1-4643-a2fb-0509c234e04d

Post for April: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/vote-for-aprils-golden-variants Scroll down to the bold text if you want to know how to vote without reading my entire message Hello Custom Variants community, Since I wanted the voting period to be longer this time, I've decided to make this post early! The Golden Variant arenas have continued to garner a lot of players; only being passed in terms of popularity in recent weeks by the VCS tournament. Like I said in the last post, this is a good thing! It means that variants which may otherwise not get the attention they deserve will be introduced to more and more players as these arenas are continued. Villagers Chess and Mini Forest have continued to have upwards of up to 50 games played per day, which is pretty decent; Minihouse and Amazon Jungle (which were voted for last time) have not had their Golden Variant arenas yet at the time I'm posting this, but have over 100 active players each, and sometimes 100+ games in a single day. After April, we will be at Week 11 of the Golden Variants series in 2024. These are the variants that have been played thus far: Week 1 (2/24): Cross Derby Week 2 (3/1): Rookmate Week 3 (3/8): Behind the Mirror Week 4 (3/15): Villagers Chess Week 5 (3/22): Blackletter Chess Week 6 (3/29): Mini Forest Week 7 (4/5): Ashtandrez Week 8 (4/12): Caught in a Snag Week 9 (4/19): Minihouse Week 10 (4/26): Amazon Jungle This time, we're changing the format up a bit. Read below for the changes: Arenas will now be 72 hours long normally. The first week will be the newest accepted NCV (Warui-shogi), and will be an all week (168 hour) arena. The second week will be the other newest accepted NCV, if applicable (e.g., if another NCV is accepted between the creation of this post and the finalization of the vote). If not, then the slot will go to the third place winner of the main vote. The arena will only be an all week arena if the former scenario occurs. The third week will be the first place winner of the main vote. The fourth week will be the second place winner of the main vote. The fifth week will be one of the variants featured in the last 10 weeks of the Golden Variant arenas (listed above), and will be decided by a separate vote. The arena for this variant will be called "Platinum Variant". The vote will last for 14 days. The exact time left can viewed by entering the poll screens! Main Vote: https://strawpoll.com/B2ZBEL2aBgJ Platinum Variant Vote: https://strawpoll.com/wAg3ArzMWy8 The guidelines are as follows for the Main vote: The variants voted for cannot be in the Most Popular or Common section, but may come from the Featured or Extra section (exceptions: Checky Spell Chess and Racing Kings also cannot be chosen). Warui-shogi, Enchanted Woodland, and the 10 variants in previous editions of the Golden Variant arena cannot be voted for. The variants must be 2 Player NCVs or 2 Player Historical Variants. We will allow 4 Player variants in the June vote and give them greater emphasis at that time. The guidelines are as follows for the Platinum Variant vote: The variants voted for must be one of the variants from the previous 10 editions of the Golden Variant arena. Thank you all for taking the time to read this! Please leave any feedback and questions in the comments below!

This is a resource page that will be locked and will be linked on Golden Variant announcement posts (since the list was getting too long), and will be updated monthly in 2024 after Golden Variants for a month have been decided on.  Relevant announcement posts for voting have also been included below. (Dates are based off the PST/PDT timezones and are in Month/Day format) Week 1 (2/24): Cross Derby   Week 2 (3/1): Rookmate   Week 3 (3/8): Behind the Mirror   Week 4 (3/15): Villagers Chess   Week 5 (3/22): Blackletter Chess   Week 6 (3/29): Mini Forest  Week 7 (4/5): Ashtandrez  Week 8 (4/12): Caught in a Snag   Week 9 (4/19): Minihouse   Week 10 (4/26): Amazon Jungle  Week 11 (5/3): Warui-shogi  Week 12 (5/10): Enchanted Woodland  Week 13 (5/17): Thermopylae  Week 14 (5/24): Infiltration Danger  Week 15 (5/31): Minihouse (Platinum Variant)  Week 16 (6/7): The Hive  Week 17 (6/14): War for Throne  Week 18 (6/21): Villagers Chess II  Week 19 (6/28): Blind Box  Week 20 (7/5): Ambush Week 21 (7/12): Simplicity Week 22 (7/19): Sergeant's Checkers Week 23 (7/26): Tag Team Week 24 (8/2): Every End Week 25 (8/9): Sparks of Hope Week 26 (8/16): The Eyes of Horus Week 27 (8/23): The X of Tricks Week 28 (8/30): Ambush (Platinum Variant) Week 29 (9/6): The Lake Week 30 (9/13): XXL Chess Week 31 (9/20): Crazy Cavalier Week 32 (9/27): Emperor's Tomb Week 33 (10/4): Gothic Chess Week 34 (10/11): Rubicon Week 35 (10/18): Best Friends Forever Week 36 (10/25): Seirawan Chess Week 37 (11/1): Explosive Magic Week 38 (11/8): Saturn's Rings Week 39 (11/15): Counterturn Week 40 (11/22): Warp Speed Week 41 (11/29): Stone Gravitation Week 42 (12/6): Storming the Castle Week 43 (12/13): Trapped Queens Week 44 (12/20): Golden Ratio Week 45 (12/27): Saturn's Rings (Platinum Variant) January-Early February: No Golden Variant Late February-March: Decided by CGAs April: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/vote-for-aprils-golden-variants May: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/vote-for-mays-golden-variants June: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/vote-for-junes-golden-variants July: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/vote-for-julys-golden-variants August: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/vote-for-augusts-golden-variants September: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/vote-for-septembers-golden-variants-1 October: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/vote-for-octobers-golden-variants November: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/vote-for-novembers-golden-variants December: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/vote-for-decembers-golden-variants

The admins of this club reject my ideas and set me "Delicined"

my post "red and blue custom position" i tried editing its name to "the tunnel" but it switched right back. please help me understand why that happened.

Checkers Position without checkers: Position with checkers: Modifications: Checky Chess, Pawn promotion to Bishop, Custom Position, The stalemated player lose