Forum

R

A Zebra chess piece moves like a Knight, but the Zebra moves in a 3-2 L way instead of 2-1 L. A Zebra-rider is a chess piece that moves like a Zebra continuously until it hits a piece or the edge of the board. Please add these two pieces to the custom chess variants editor.                                                                                              iwanttobecheckmater

There’s already an XXL chess variant and a mini chess, but I find them to be limited. What are your ideas of variant chess boards with weird sizes, and what pieces will fill them?

Make it stupid as possible

I MADE A GAME OF CHESS WITCH HAS ONE THOUSAND SPELLS AND A NEW LOOK

Chess Creator's Oath: I promise, as a variant creator, to never patent a game of Chess. My game is free. Chess is free. I rescind all rights of intellectual property.I recognise no Chess authority. Chess belongs to all humanity.Chess is for everyone. May it be, that Chess remains unfettered and free. Colossal Chess So my latest invention is built on a 64 x 64 board. It's a bit rediculous... If you can't see the image clearly, right click and open in a new tab. In this variant I have used a lot of fairy pieces. I have been relatively conservative with rider pieces as this will become the de facto valuable pieces in this game with such a large board. There is 1 King and 1 Amazon on the board. Within the Pawn "frontline" I have used 4 rows of pawns, 2 rows of berolina, 1 row of soldier and 1 row of stone general. Rules Pawn pieces can only move 1 square at a time, however, at the start of the game the players can agree to push all pawns within the "frontline" further up the board by an agreed amount (up to 8). After the pawn agreement phase play may begin starting with White. Pieces move as they do with regular fairy piece movement. Pawns promote in the eighth "rank region" (57th rank), but only the sergeant may promote into an Amazon. A King may castle with an "Elephant"(Rook-Knight) on the first rank provided that niether piece has moved, there are no pieces in between them and the King would not be in or passing through check in order to castle. There is no 50 move non capture rule for draws (this game is rediculous). Custom Settup The above example is only a standard I'm defining. Custom settup is the heart of this variant. You take all the pieces from above and you assign them in whatever format you want within the first 3 regions in your territory. Both you and your opponent plan your settups secretly then you bring your armies to the field in the format you gave chosen (no automate 1 at a time thing here, but you can play like that if you want to.... [I wouldn't]). Mercenaries variation In Mercenaries an agreed upon points scheme for all pieces is drawn up for all pieces and each player agrees upon being allocated a certain number of "points" in which to spend before the game begins. A player must spend all his/her points before the game begins and can buy whatever piece they like according to the agreed price and place them whereever they want. Each player does this in secret first before bringing the armies to the table. At a later date I may come up with a point system and suggested price values for players to start if they wish to play this variant but I got stuff to do now :v Hope you like it :0

"In the north, where the sun does not rise for thirty days, old chronicles tell of those who come in the darkness." I created a chess variant where the board belongs not only to White and Black. Here, there is a third force — the Heralds of Silence. They emerge from your moves, move as a swarm by the roll of a die, and spare no one. Neither kings, nor pawns.No check. No checkmate. Only the hunt.No castling. Only the cold.Welcome to the night that lasts thirty moves. QUICK RULES THE SETUPOnly kings (White on e1, Black on d8) and pawns (White on 2nd rank, Black on 7th).No other pieces. Queens appear only through promotion.You'll need: chessboard, kings + 8 pawns each, one d8, and 15–20 tokens for Heralds. THE HERALDS OF SILENCE A neutral piece that appears when you make a move without capture:Pawn move and Herald appears directly in front of the pawn.King or Queen move and Herald appears on the square they left.Heralds block the Queen's line of sight. THE REAPING PHASEAfter every move, if any Heralds are on board:Roll d8 (1=↑, 2=↗, 3=→, 4=↘, 5=↓, 6=↙, 7=←, 8=↖).All Heralds move one square in that direction, starting from the edge they're moving toward.Collide with a piece? It's destroyed.Collide with another Herald? The moving one survives. KING'S TELEPORTIf you cannot move any pawn or queen at the start of your turn, your king may teleport to any empty square. A Herald appears where he left.Bare kings move only by teleport — if you have no pawns or queen, your king simply teleports instead of walking. WINNINGKill the enemy king (check/checkmate don't exist).Both kings die in Reaping Phase = draw.30 moves without any capture = draw ("The night has ended"). Full rules here: https://www.chess.com/blog/Pokshtya/heralds-of-silence

Now your asking me "Why are you combining variants?" and you might ask "How are you going to combine variants?" Well I'm combining variants because why not and I'll be using a mixing pot to combine variants. Oh yeah, and you might be asking me "Why the hell do you have to combine  variants if we can make our own rules in our variant?" Well I wanna share combos of variants, like ideas. Now let's get into it! 1.  Board and pieces I'll choose the classic chess layout for a fresh start.  Into the pot! 2. Variants  Now I wanna make it chaotic as possible, oh yeah! Fog of war! Into the pot you go! Hmm... oh! Atomic Chess and Giveaway! Even more chaos!  Now I have one more in mind, Chess 960. Oh also just for fun I'll add duck Chess and also Crazyhouse! Plop 3.Time because why not? Yep to make this in testing I'll choose 20 sec|1 FAHHHH Now I'm ready to mix it, now it should take it like 5 min to mix it all together. 5 min of mixing later... I'm done! Now I'll not share the layout and rules because I don't wanna waste my time. Here it is! Well, you can share your reviews and thoughts about this combo. So yeah that's it for this combo. Well, gotta go! *Disappears out of nowhere*

Hi all! I hope you are having a good day. Currently Chaturaji offers only Casual Teams, and I was hoping this could get updated. The standard chaturaji teams are Red & Yellow vs Blue & Green, however, this should not be the case, and I would go so far as to suggest the complete removal of this Chaturaji teams setup. This is because Chaturaji with standard 4PC Teams is a forced win for red & yellow, effectively killing any purpose or competition present in the variant. The standard teams for Chaturaji needs to be replaced by the current Chaturaji Alt Teams Setup, which is Red & Green vs Blue & Yellow. This position is not unbalanced, and it is much more dynamic and strategic than the current Chaturaji Teams setup.  As I previously mentioned, this setup already exists as Chaturaji Alt Teams, but the only way to find this variant is by searching it, and most players in the Chaturaji community or just curious about the variant have no idea it exists. This effectively kills any activity Chaturaji teams could have. Additionally, Chaturaji Alt Teams only offers composition rating, making ratings convoluted and improvement and skill progression a lot less rewarding. There are a lot of people that want to play Chaturaji Teams, but when the tools avaliable are for teams where one side has a forced win, and the alternative is virtually unknown, it is hard to learn to play or enjoy!  The (hopefully) simple fix for this is just to make standard Chaturaji teams Red & Green vs Blue & Yellow, and to give it the standard glicko 2 rating system that way players can finally compete in Chaturaji teams. Hopefully this won't be too hard to implement since the tools are already there, and it would be great if Chaturaji teams could finally become a viable variant!

TL;DR Rating vs. Scoring Rather than rating changes happening directly as a result of final placement, games are scored by giving each player a number of wins or losses. The amount of rating points you gain or lose when receiving wins or losses will vary, depending mostly upon the average rating of players in the game. 4-Player FFA In almost every scoring scenario, placement (1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th) determines who wins or loses. A higher point total will not mean a bigger rating increase. In games where the average rating is low, or close to 1500, 1st place will be awarded 3 wins, 2nd place gets 1 win, 3rd place gets 1 loss, and 4th place gets 3 losses. In games where the average rating is high, 1st place will be awarded 4 wins, and each of the remaining players will be penalised 1.33 losses. Teams A team's average rating is calculated in favour of the higher-rated player, at a weight of 2/3 to 1/3 from the lower-rated. Both players on the winning team receive 1 win, as calculated against the average rating of the other team. Both players on the losing team, 1 loss. Glicko-2 Variant ratings on chess.com use the Glicko-2 rating calculation system. This system of scoring was specifically developed for multi-player games, and represents a mathematically fair way of assessing point gains and losses dependent on player's skill, consistency, and the elements of luck which arise from any multi-player game. The heart of Glicko-2 is the value of Rating Deviation, or RD. Ratings are dependant on a probability function, as opposed to a single, defined value. When you see your rating on chess.com/variants, that value is the system's best approximation of your skill, to be interpreted as the expected value, but surrounded by a bell-curve distribution, with a standard deviation given by your RD: Players with a lower rating deviation have a more predictable rating, meaning the system has a larger degree of confidence that their ratings are close to the given values. These players' ratings consistently stay within a narrow window above and below the reported rating. As such, the system doesn't change their ratings as dramatically. If two equally-rated players each lose to a field of equally-averaged opponents, the player with the higher rating deviation will lose more points than the other. Likewise for points gained after a win. On the variants server, initial ratings are set to 1500, and rating deviations set to 120. As such, the first games you play within any given rating category will cause your rating to change dramatically, but as your rating settles into consistency, your RD will fall, and rating changes won't be as drastic. On the other hand, if you often play against players with ratings much higher or lower than your own, your RD will rise, regardless if you typically win, or typically lose. An RD value of around 60-70 is a sign that a player's skill matches closely with his rating. Anyone looking for an in-depth explanation on the specifics of Glicko-2 can find more information or open source implementations on the creator's website 4-Player Scoring (FFA) The Glicko-2 system is responsible for changing ratings after wins and losses, but the other component of scoring is how many wins/losses are assessed in each game. In the past, there have been many in-depth discussions about how exactly to reward/penalise players in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place after a 4-player game. From those discussions and prior tests, the system for chess.com/variants has been implemented as follows: At lower levels of play (beginners), the 1st place finisher will be awarded 3 wins, 2nd place will earn 1 win, 3rd place will be penalised 1 loss, and 4th place, 3 losses. This will be the case for all FFA 4-player gamemodes where the average rating of all 4 players is close to 1500. At higher levels of play, players are expected to be more competitive, and not simply take the easy route out when as the game comes to its conclusion. Therefore, it has been decided that for games with higher average ratings, 2nd place should not be awarded points, but rather penalised for not winning outright. This encourages a cooperative spirit among players who aren't leading in points to fight every man for himself, and negotiate to the top of the standings at every opportunity. In these higher-rated games, 1st place will also gain a larger reward of 4 wins, while 2nd, 3rd and 4th place will each be penalised equally with 1.33 losses, thus adding to the notion of fight as equals to prevent the common enemy from winning. The mentality in these games should be firstly, to equalise the playing field, but secondly to gain marginal advantages until you cannot be stopped, even with the eventual 3-vs.-1 cooperation of your opponents. You will gain nothing by fighting against the 3rd or 4th place finishers only to land in 2nd behind the winner. The determination of the boundary between higher-rated and lower-rated will be set by the admins, and may be a different value for different modes of play. Wherever that boundary is set, the transition from +3/+1/-1/-3 to +4/-1.33/-1.33/-1.33 will be a gradual one modelled by a series of logistic functions, dependent on the game's average rating, and where the admins have set the Solo Point. Currently, the solo point is set at the following values for these popular gamemodes: 2500: Standard 4PC, Arena of Legends, The Four Horsemen 2200: War for Throne, Diamond Wall, Glass Labyrinth 2000: Collateral Worlds, Arena of Grasshoppers, Battle of Castles 1800: King Safety *These determinations may be adjusted as the distribution of ratings within these classes rise or fall. Exceptions The following exceptions can cause scoring changes to occur in ways contrary to what was explained above: Pure FFA scoring In these gamemodes, scoring will always be handled as if the average rating was 1500, i.e. +3/+1/-1/-3. Notable implementations of this scoring system apply to Chaturaji, Labyrinth 82, and 4P Giveaway. Pure Solo scoring Similar to pure FFA, this scoring system always acts as if the average rating is at the solo point. 1st place gets 4 wins, and 2nd-4th all lose equally with 1.33 losses. Games such as Unison use this scoring system. Points scoring Just like the other modes, there are still 4 wins and 4 losses to be distributed. However, with this method, the wins and losses are distributed proportionally to the amount of points each player earnt in the game, and how far above or below the average it stands. An example of how the wins and losses would be distributed in a game with points scoring is shown below: 3-Player scoring Is the same as 4-player for most modes, except there are 3 wins and 3 losses to be distributed. The FFA scoring differs slightly in that 2nd place will receive both wins and losses determined by the logistic function morphing from 0.75 wins+0.75 losses to 0 wins+1.5 losses. The breakdown of this morph is shown below, where the red and blue lines are both assessed upon 2nd place: 2-Player scoring 1 win, 1 loss. Shouldn't be that difficult to figure out who gets what. Ties If 2 or more players finish a game with the same amount of points, the rewards/penalties between their placements will be divided evenly and applied for each. For example, if two players are tied for 2nd and 3rd in a game where the scoring was +3.38/+0.14/-1.15/-2.37, then each of them will receive 0.07 wins, and 0.58 losses. Aborts If a player disconnects or resigns near the beginning of a game, it can result in a horrifically unbalanced game for the remaining players. In these instances, the game is aborted – or cancelled – so that the players who didn't choose to abandon the game can get off to a more equitable start. Aborting games intentionally to play for a strategic advantage is against the spirit and rules of the game and is the height of unsportsmanlike play. To actively discourage this practice, point penalties (and on occasion, playbans) are assessed to players who abort games. Aborting when your rating is low, or infrequently enough that it can be attributed to unintentionality will only give minor penalties, but for players who abort frequently, or have high-enough ratings to know better, those penalties can be quite steep. Teams Scoring In teams games, there's nothing fancy with the number of wins and losses. The players on the winning team get the win, and those who lose get a loss. The only complication is how the Glicko-2 system works to change ratings with the information of 1 win, or 1 loss. In an FFA game of 4- or 3-player, the wins and losses are computed against a hypothetical player with a rating equal to that of the game average. This allows players with ratings lower than the average to be rewarded more favourably when beating out a stronger player pool, and penalised a lesser amount when receiving losses against players stronger than they are, as would logically make sense. For teams, instead of giving wins or losses versus the average game rating, players' wins and losses count as if competing against a player with the average rating of just their opposing team's players. This happens with the caveat of that average being weighted in favour of the stronger (higher-rated) player. Because players on a team can communicate with arrows, chat, or through external means, the strength of a team can be heavily or almost solely reliant on the player with a better understanding of the game. As such, that player's average will count twice as much as the player with the lower rating. I.e., 2/3 versus 1/3. For example, if a team comprised a player rated 2154 and another rated 2436, the members of the opposing team would each receive either 1 win or 1 loss versus a player with a rating of 2342. Other Notes and Resources A natural consequence of how games work within the scoring framework is that once a 4-player game has been reduced to 2 players, the outcome, scoring-wise is often already decided. For that reason, players can resign to win (claiming the win), be forced to claim a win (autoclaim), or be forcibly resigned (autoresign). If that sounds complicated or scary, please find a more detailed explanation here. For transparency and a fairer game experience for all, all 4-player games will broadcast a message at the top of that game's chat box breaking down the scoring for that particular game. For all rated non-teams modes except for the points-based scoring, that message will look something like the examples shown below (points games will have a concise standardised explanation of how scoring will work in that game): Theory is a completely different discussion than scoring, although a thorough understanding of the scoring system definitely will give you an advantage in your gameplay, and change the way you approach theory. One of the first steps in that journey is understanding that even in solo-esque play, cooperating with another player or players will give you an advantage over those that are playing with an army of 1. There is a distinct difference between cooperation (allowed and encouraged) and teaming (prohibited), which has been the subject of many write-ups prior to now. If this is a new idea for you, please seek those explanations on your own, but start here and here. The article above attempts to explain how rating changes occur, but the categories of different ratings, and separation of rating types have been explained elsewhere, so were omitted here. Those descriptions can be found here. Some players may wonder about how the admin team has chosen to assign scoring types to different positions and gamemodes. Although providing that reasoning would be difficult for each and every game, there is an overarching way in which the custom games team evaluates positions, and finds a scoring scheme that fits their ideas. An introduction to this evaluation process is described here. With any questions about what was described here, or for a general Q&A regarding specific implementations on the variants server, please leave your comments below!

I made an almost the same version of checkers, but with chess pieces. First, pieces don't jump, they capture like bishops and pawns. Second: all the pieces are on dark squares, and all pieces move diagonally. Third: every dark square from rank 1 to 3 has a stone general on them. Fourth: Pawns (the stone generals) promote to bishops on the eighth rank. The goal of the game is to capture all the opponents pieces. I have no clue how chess.com did not make this, but I am doing the job for them.

https://www.chess.com/variants/4-player-chess/game/97894550/0/3 it is team mode

So u guys must have realized hey! this is a variants club so u click join then what are u supposed to do? Maybe we should chat in the chat or type in the notes, so u do. But after that u think it's boring just to do that so u leave. What are u supposed to do in this club???

This is a niche, intellectual game for connoisseurs of deep mechanics, not a mass-market product. Paradox Mirror Chess was created first and foremost as a research experiment.I wanted to create not just "another variant," but a new type of intellectual challenge.And I have created it. Before you is chess where the struggle is not only against an opponent but against the mirror logic of your own decisions. Yes, it is more complex and unfamiliar. But that is precisely why it is fascinating—just as a new mathematical theorem or a philosophical puzzle is fascinating. Quick Rules1. Mirror Squares: Every square has a twin. Find it by swapping the file and rank to their "opposites" (a1 ↔ h8, e4 ↔ d5, b3 ↔ g6 etc).2. You make a move, and... (if the mirror square is VACANT):– An opponent's piece appears on the mirror square: Pawn → Knight | Knight → Bishop | Bishop → Rook | Rook → Queen.Move a pawn – your opponent gets a knight. Move a knight – they get a bishop. And so on.– But if you move your Queen/King: Your piece teleports to the mirror square.3. AND this only works if you: do NOT capture, do NOT give check, and the mirror square is vacant.4. Golden Rule: At the end of YOUR turn, your King MUST NOT be in check. If it is, you lose immediately.5. Goal: Deliver checkmate. No castling. "Mirror Squares (Simple Rule)"Every square on the board has its pair — a mirror square. To find it, change the file (letter) and rank (number) to their "opposites":Files: a — h, b — g, c — f, d — e.Ranks: 1 — 8, 2 — 7, 3 — 6, 4 — 5.Examples: For a1, the mirror square is h8; for e4 →  d5; for b3 →  g6.Important: The center of the board (squares d4, d5, e4, e5) is the "mirror"; they reflect into each other. The game introduces key terms for special effects that describe the core game mechanics and help formulate the rules precisely.The game's special effects have their own names:If your Pawn, Knight, Bishop, or Rook moves, and an opponent's piece appears on the mirror square — this is "Mirror Distortion."If your Queen or King, after moving, instantly relocates to the mirror square — this is "Mirror Transition." The game's notation uses special symbols:! — a move with "Mirror Distortion" (the appearance of an opponent's piece)./ — "Mirror Transition" (the teleportation of a Queen or King).# — checkmate, including one that befalls a player on their own turn. Unlike in classical chess, where "!" is a qualitative evaluation, here it is an objective marker of a key mechanic triggering. My notation does not mark an assessment, but events in the mirror field. The "!" symbol captures the moment of "Mirror Distortion" — the act of creating a piece from the void, akin to an iteration in a fractal. Thus, a game record becomes not just a history of moves, but a map of causal fractures on the board. If you ask me how to denote a good move in The Chess of Mirror Paradoxes, I will answer simply: the concepts of a "good" or "bad" move in their usual sense do not exist here. Because the mirror logic works differently: any action simultaneously strengthens and weakens you. A brilliant attack can open a fatal breach, while a forced defense can unexpectedly create a threat in the opponent's rear. So the main criterion here is not the "strength of the move," but its price. In this game, there are only dangerous, risky, and paradoxical moves. More detailed information and rules in PDF format are available here on my blog at chess.com.

The moose is just an elongated camel, it jumps 4 squares horizontally or vertically, then 1 square left or right (up or down if moving left or right 5 squares). It also, jumps over any pieces, bricks, or ducks. The black piece is currently finished, but the white piece isn't. I will add the white piece when I finish edit: I am trying to get the image to not disappear from the post and comments. I am trying to get the image on here. Stay tuned for the image.

Same like "Make you most Stupid Variant" but you have to make it cursed as possible

The Essence of the Game We use a standard chess set to play the game. Your turn consists of playing with two pieces. The FIRST PIECE must move WITHOUT CAPTURING — just step onto an empty square. This piece comes under the influence of magic. You roll an eight-sided die, and it shows the direction. The piece may move across the board several times, swapping places with any pieces — yours or your opponent's. This is pure magic, no captures involved.When it finishes its journey (reaches the edge and cannot move further), you move to the SECOND PIECE.The SECOND PIECE must now make a CAPTURE (if possible) — take an opponent's piece with a regular chess move. That's it. The goal is simple — capture the opponent's king.The first piece weaves magic and rearranges the board. The second does its job and spills blood.Detailed rules here (chess.com blog)

__________________🪟_______________🚪_________________________________________ 🪑 🖼️ |----------🔪--------| 🛏️ set emergency alarm ->  ◉🚨 ______________________________________________________________________________

There are a lot of variants, so I was thinking, what if we combine two of them into a new one. Which combination do y’all think is best? I would say Four Player Fog Of War or even Four Player Bughouse.

Chaos