Vote for August's Golden Variants (2025)! - Chess Forums

Jul 31, 2025

0

#1

Post for the previous month's vote:
https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/vote-for-julys-golden-variants-2025

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 start of the bold text if you want to know how to vote without reading my entire post 😀)

Hello Custom Variants Community!

Although you may not have seen it coming, August is almost here! For some of you, the start of the new month might just be a few hours away. Let's see what we've accomplished in the past month and get some voting in for the new Golden Variants!

First off, to recap, we welcomed fellow community creators @asthebird and @VishTheFish771 as our newest NCV Testers a few weeks prior, after concluding the NCV Tester Application cycle for this year! Despite some troubles with scheduling and making final decisions, head CGA @qilp and the rest of the team finished reviewing the last batch of applications, and we recently added two more members to our ranks: @TimeVeteran and @Mayo_Neighs! Interestingly, @Mayo_Neighs is the first titled player (an NM) to have joined the team since IM @BoxJellyfishChess unfortunately had to leave us a few years ago, and we're glad to have him with us!

As of writing this, we currently have 9,980 members, and we're closing in FAST on 10 thousand! It's great to see that so many people have interest in Custom Variants here on chess.com, whether they're just casual observers, players, creators, and more. What celebrations will there be...?! Keep an eye out for potential events hosted by this club! 😀

On the topic of events, the Spell Chess Championship is coming up 2 weeks into August, so if you've got any interest in winning the title, or just seeing how far you can fare against the best of the best, make sure to remember to join! Chess.com Community will also be hosting Duck Chess, Seirawan Chess, Crazyhouse, and Fog of War championships for the remaining months of the year.

Now, as per usual for any Golden Variant voting announcement, the CGA stats for this month!

There are currently 117 variants Under Review (aka UR, not including bugged variants).
Of those 117 variants, 65 are NCVs and 52 are WoFs.
In the last 7 days, 11 variants have been posted in total.
In the last 7 days, 12 variants have been reviewed and given a verdict (i.e., Accepted or Declined).
As always, you can track our progress here:
https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/variant-verdict-feed
We're hoping that we can finally start reducing that UR number with the help of our new testers!

Now, with that out of the way, let's get started with the voting!

Format:

To save space, much of the info previously found in this section has now been consolidated into the Golden Variant Schedule page, which you can find below:

https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/2025-golden-variant-schedule

Please read this in full! On top of general info, all previously selected variants, a link to last year's schedule, as well as links to previous votes are also included in this page.

What you're voting for:

There are 5 eligible weeks in August, meaning that there will be 5 Golden Variant arenas in this month. The first two weeks have already been predetermined by the CGA team, so the next 3 weeks (starting on August 15, 22, and 29 respectively) will be voted on by the community!
Weeks 1-2 of August (listed as Weeks 31-32 on the schedule, linked above) will be the classic WoFs "Lining the Field" by @Trento007 and Hailstorm by @spacebar!
Week 3 of August (listed as Week 33 on the schedule) will be a throwback to 2024's Platinum Variant selections! The winner of this winner-takes-all vote (as well as the predetermined WoFs previously mentioned) will not be eligible for this year's Platinum Variant selection, but will still receive an "All Week" arena.
Week 4 and 5 of August (listed as Weeks 34-35 on the schedule) will be selected through two separate votes, including a variety of variants from the Teams (Self-Partner) section, Free-For-All section, and the Custom section.

The voting process:

Three comments will be posted below with 5 (except the Week 3 vote, which will only have 3) voting options and corresponding icons.
React to the comment with an icon to vote for a variant. You may vote for more than one variant!

For example:

For all 3 votes, the variant that places the highest in each cohort will be selected for the Golden Variant arenas for August!
The voting will end on August 11, 0 UTC. Make sure to vote as soon as possible!

Happy voting and may the best variants win!

ChessMasterGS

Jul 31, 2025

0

#2

Vote (for August 15) - VOTE CLOSED (Throwback Variant)

React with to vote for Minihouse (https://www.chess.com/variants/minihouse)

React with to vote for Ambush (https://www.chess.com/variants/ambush)

React with to vote for Saturn's Rings (https://www.chess.com/variants/saturns-rings)