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I have a variant idea. Although the name is quite dramatic, it is not actually as dramatic as you may think: You still have the same pieces You still have the same goal (to checkmate your opponent) You still have the same starting position... Or do you? Below, are 2 positions: Both those positions are both the exact same starting position, because in this variant, the board is curved (there will be a scroller at the bottom so that you can move the leftmost or rightmost files around to see the position in a different way). Well, the board is curved (only with file meeting file), but how does it work? Below shows what the range of pieces may look like (assuming you have not shifted the files along): Basically, if you were to continue a diagonal until it reaches the first or last rank, it would be able to move like in the B diagram. Also, as shown with the R, pieces are able to attack like that. Easiest way to think of this variant is like a map of the world. Reasons for this variant Of course it does complicate positions significantly with the fact that pieces movement is harder to visualise, but it also significantly changes strategies as it means that there is no true centre (changing the principle of many openings). Without a true centre means your K is always "in the centre" (less that it is "not in the centre" because if it wasn't in the centre, it would be close to the rim of the board which has been, well, removed. Because of the removal of this, it means pieces can still attack the K from the "queenside" if your K is in the "kingside"), leading to more aggressive and tactical play. The variant also changes endgames too as in the puzzle below: Also many drawn endgames become wins as "Rook pawns" are now just the same as regular pawns. Tell me what you think of the variant!

Are the mods here able to add new chess variants? I have some ideas: Penguin Chess: Every piece can move to every empty square. Capturing is like in normal chess. Pawns can't move to 1'st and 8'th rank. King can only move legally. Aim is to checkmate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marseillais_chess the second one Third one: Same as normal chess, but no checks only checkmate is allowed. Progressive chess: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_chess

we like chess and we are playing chess we forgot to thank chess.com

I think we should have the option to have multiple royals in the same army, and with the options being for the army to die when one of the royals is checkmated, or for the army to require all royals to get checkmated in order to be killed.

Maharajah and the Sepoys, also known as Mad King's Game, is a chess variant where White has only a royal amazon, and Black has the regular setup. There's no promotion for Black's pawns, and it's on a regular 8 by 8 board. EDIT: Forgot to add that the Amazon starts on e1, like White's king in regular Chess.

Here we have an interesting game featuring some surprising tactics. Not because the tactics are “long range” - because they’re short range with occasional intermezzos with subtle, quiet moves that are profound. They are also not commonplace nor are they typical: we see a creative mind at work playing with the black pieces.

So I have a present for you guys in your variant creation, but I have a rule: If you use any of these tiles, mechanics or ideas in your game then the game must be publicly donated meaning you cannot be the sole proprietor of said game and other people will be able to profit from it as well as you. Chess is free and belongs to everyone With that said, lets begin... Terrain tiles are additional tiles that serve extra utility for the chess board. They can be added to your games to create unique atmospheres and experiences for the players. Plains tiles - "Normal tiles" (green)Water tiles - Requires boats or bridges to cross (blue)Ice tiles - A unit that lands on an ice tile will continue in the trajectory of their movement until they land on a non-ice tile or cannot move any further in the direction of movement due to a barrier block (such as a wall or a boulder) (white).Lava tiles - A unit dies if it falls in lava (red)Magma tiles - If a piece stays on a magma tile for more than 3 consecutive turns it dies. (orange)Mountain tile - Pieces can only move 1 square at a time when traveling mountains. Jumping pieces (such as the knight) can jump onto mountains but cannot move from a mountain tile to another mountain tile (only back onto another form of terrain). Pieces in the "Avian" class are not affected by mountains (grey)Swamp tile - Pieces only move 1 square at a time but swamp can be traveled by boat. If a "jumping" piece such as a knight lands in a swamp then they can't get out again unless pulled out by a civilian using a rope. InteractablesThere are also items and obstacles you can interact with. Treasure - it gives you gold that you can spend on units.Trees - Cannot be captured or passed through. An adjacent "Civilian" class piece can cut a tree down getting 10 wood for the player (which can be used for building boats, bridges and special units). Cutting down a tree takes up a move.Jetpack - Lets you fly over non-plains tiles unimpeded, but you cannot land in lava or water and if you stay on magma for more than 3 turns your piece dies.Rope - A unit equipped with a rope will be able to scale mountain tiles unimpeded. A civilian equipped with a rope will be able to "throw" the rope up to 8 tiles away (in a straight line) and pull out a "stuck" jumping piece from a swamp tile, or a boat from within water or swamp closer to the civilian.Shark - Moves around the edge of water tiles (clockwise or anti-clockwise) 1 space orthogonally each move (between players moves) and eats anyone it collides with (even if that unit is on a bridge or boat).Boats - A civilian class unit can build a boat on an adjacent water/swamp tile for 10 wood. Building a boat takes up a move, as does entering a boat and exiting a boat. Entering/exiting a boat is done on/from any immediately adjacent square (including diagonal). Boats can move 8 squares in any direction, including diagonally and boat paths don't have to be linear (straight lines). Only 1 piece may exist on a boat at a time. Rival players may "steal" your boat. Bridges - Bridges are more permanent structures that don't impede the movement of aquatic creatures like sharks. They cost 5 wood each, can only be built on water tiles (not swamp) and allow units to travel over water as if it were regular terrain. Bridges can be used by enemies and are destroyed by self-destructing (atomic) units. Barracks - Built on plains tiles, a player may spend their gold and wood resource on units which will then appear adjacent to the Barracks. Barracks must be built by Civilians and cost 30 wood. Civilians - They move like a King and capture on adjacent diagonals only. They can cut down trees, use rope, build boats, build bridges and other buildings. ---- A lot of these concepts were going into a chess variation I had wanted to develop along time ago called "Chess of Empires" since it had been influenced by the Age of Empires franchise. The idea was largely to allow a system by which players and those who love map making could develop and produce their own interactive worlds using chess and chess like mechanics. When I get the time for it, I'm hoping to develop it further. Feel free to use the ideas in your own chess variations, but know that if you use any of the ideas listed here then you relinquish your right to be the sole proprietor of that variation. Here is a concept map I made based on 8pc using magma tiles, water tiles, trees, treasure, jetpacks and a shark (imagine the pawns are "Civilians").

Have you ever played and seemed suspicious of someone only taking someone's else pieces? You can't see the whole game, but green just started to take yellow pieces only every time he could. Both accounts green and yellow had 4-3 games. In the end, I was 3rd because green only wanted to take red pieces and not mine's. That is very disappointing. (Green's account was closed) [Admin: Screenshot removed. Please do not publicly accuse others of cheating. If you suspect someone, please report them.]

So I'm going through my old files and realized there were several chess variations I made that I never formally published. Loop Chess is one of them. Loop Chess can be played with any even number of players, just keep adding board segments as appropriate. Loop Chess acts upon an "Infinity board" that is connected on either side as if it were a circle or cylinder. There are only two columns separating the last table from the first (not 4 as the image appears to suggest). Main play starts with White followed by the primary colours, followed by black then the secondary colours - although you are within your right and means to play "zigzag" (i.e. first board players first then second and so on). Play can include variations typically seen in multiplayer chess games such as Free-for-all, last man standing and Teams. Optional rule: If a pawn of yours promotes on the eight rank of a board segment that isn't your original starting board, that pawn turns into an Amazon fairy piece (Queen+Knight).

Trice vs Dysart

When I click on variants and select 4 player chess, the board changes and it doesnt let me do anything else. I want to play with my friends but it doesnt let me do anything.

Online option Instead of queens, both players have "sealed" metamorphs. Metamorph is an indeterminate figure whose quality is determined by the engine. The higher the advantage of the player (considered by the engine), the higher the figure sealed in the metamorph. Let's say, if white's advantage at the moment is much higher than black's, then the rook is "stored" in the metamorph. If the advantage decreases, then the metamorph deteriorates in quality inside the seal to a bishop, knight, and then a pawn. A pawn in a metamorph means that the player is much worse by advantage. The queen in the metamorph appears only if the player managed to bring the piece to the central square e4, e5, d4, d5, regardless of the advantage. You can open the metamorph at any time at will, but you cannot return it back. Until the showdown, he moves like a king. All other rules are the same as in regular chess. Offline option The metamorph's piece automatically acquires the properties of the opponent's piece closest to it. If there are several of them, the player has the right to choose which one.

Something very odd is going on. Last night, I spent a while pushing my rating to get #1 on the Racing Kings leaderboard. As soon as I did so, the leaderboard went down on my end and the variants server said I was disconnected. And then, just a few minutes ago, it started working just fine again. At this point, I was back down to #2 on the leaderboard and I played 1 game and got enough rating to be ranked #1 again. Now, the same exact bug is occurring. I don't want to jump to conclusions yet, but this odd correlation seems a bit fishy and it appears no one else is experiencing this.

This thread is intended to find some ideas how to play chaturanga. This game has no manuals, at least I did not manage to find much information in the net, so the best I can do is to write down some ideas and hypotheses, and let the stronger players to correct them. Note: square coordinates are for the older setup, with the king on e1; this will be fixed soon, but remember that in the meantime. 0) Take a knight with anything else than a rook Perhaps later on I'll create some tips for beginners as well, but this one alone is worth at least 200 rating points. Relative values of pawn, alfil and ferz may be a subject to discussion, but getting them wrong will lose you an equvalent of a pawn. Meanwhile, all of them are much weaker than a knight. Alfil is not a bishop, ferz is not a queen, knight is a strong piece. 1) Developement is mainly about connecting rooks Two connected rooks on an uncontested open file seem like almost-winning positional advantage, sometimes worth sacrificing some material for (https://www.chess.com/variants/chaturanga/game/10559786). To reach this goal, or to prevent opponent from doing so, you need to connect rooks before position opens up. One simple way of reaching this goal is to move several pawns to the 3rd rank, and playing a rook to the 2nd rank, alfils staying on their initial squares. The other is what I call "flat developement" - knights on e2 and d2, ferz on c2, king of f2. 2) Pawns should move together and you should not obstruct their movement In chaturanga pawns cannot move two squares. This means that a pawn on the 5th rank should be treated as semi-isolated, even if it has neighbours on the adjacent files. I have captured many such pawns. Also playing Alfil to d3/e3 when there is a pawn on d2/e2 is a positional mistake. Knight before pawn might be situationally good, especially if it can reach a good square afterwards, but I also tend to avoid that. In general "pieces behind pawns" works evn better than in normal chess. 3) Pawns should capture towards the center Old Arabic theoreticians assigned different values to pawns, depending on their file, and treated central pawns as much more valuable. The corollary to this rule is that central pawns ought to be defended by other pawns. Strong c4/d4/e4/f4 white pawns and c5/d5/e5/f5 black pawns are especially important, and it is good to defend them twice. 4) You start with a color weakness and a color strength This is indicated by the color of Your ferz. At the beginning, this piece is especially useful to defend squares not covered by pawns. It might be wise to place pawns on the color different than your ferz. Also, nothing short of placing a pawn there can prevent a f4-f5 break for white or f5-f4 break for black, due to possible alfil/ferz support. Color weakness often calls for a ferz raid. Color of promoted ferz is also important in the endgame. It is better to promote ferz of the color you don't have. 5) The king is a strong piece Players stronger than me often manage to form an impenetrable defensive position with just a king, a ferz, two pawns and some situational support. Side with material advantage often can use king as an attacking piece, more often than in chess. Since king is strong, it is not necessary to create a position ressembling a castle from normal chess, at least not right in the opening. A king on the 2nd rank, sheltered by pawns and defending them, is good enough. Early artificial castling just loses time, and is prone to "castling into attack" (https://www.chess.com/variants/chaturanga/game/10606305) 6) g3/b3 pawns are important defenders They immobilize enemy alfils after their first move. They are probably at least as valuable as these alfils, and sacrificing an alfil for them requires much finer positional judgement than I have. They control important squares in extended center. They are either defended or unattackable by enemy pieces, because alfils cannot reach them. 7) Important squares should be defended by a pawn, a ferz or an alfil Most of my losses were caused by failing to follow this principle. Strong opponents used such squares for their knights. So... 8) Please care for knight outposts Outpost in context of chaturanga is a square safe from attacks by enemy pawns, ferzes and alfils (that is, of by all the pieces weaker than the knight), preferably defended by a pawn or by a weak piece. Also, it is possible to have an outpost square safe for the time being, if enemy ferz would have to make several moves to attack a knight or if it is busy elsewhere.

3|2 FFA Crazy Custom Positionhttps://www.chess.com/variants/custom/lobbyAnyone want to join?

Yeah the knight cannot jump over pieces and the king cannot move one square diagonally.

WHY

The button used to randomly appear and disappear after each server restart, but I haven't seen it in the last couple of days. There was another link next to my rating, but it's gone too. Going to the URL directly shows an empty list. So, are the leaderboards gone for good?

This thread is intended to find some ideas how to design hexagonal chess variants. The information I could find on these games in the net is limited to descriptions of their rules, so I am writing down some ideas and deductions in advance of a potential chess.com hexagonal chess server. 0) The hexagonal grid does not invalidate any existing advice on designing good chess variants https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/good-custom-position-bad-custom-position-dos-and-donts-for-ncps-1 https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/variant-design-patterns https://www.chessvariants.com/opinions.dir/fergus/design.html 1) The hexagonal grid has 12 natural directions This is a source of much unintentional confusion surrounding the terminology of the rules. Orthogonal pairs of directions running through the edges or corners of the cells do not actually exist unless you use Strozewski’s board with distorted cells in spite of the convention of calling the directions running through the edges of the cells “orthogonal“. 2) Diagonals run through the edges and corners of the cells This is the reason for coloring the cells three ways. It also clears up the unintentional confusion due to the convention of calling both sets “root-3” diagonals. 3) A royal piece should have moves through all sides of the cells and balanced moves through vertices of the cells if it has any This undermines the valid possibilities where all root-4 diagonals are this royal piece‘s moves and any edgewise directions used are the Knight analog’s moves.