An idea for chess variants based on score

There is the simple scoring system of:

Pawns=1 point

Bishops and Knights=3 points

Rooks=5 points

Queen=9 points

... what if there was some point value for the King as well and wins / losses or draws were determined in some very clean and simple manner like this:

King=11 points

and the victory condition is to begin your turn with a score 8 points higher than your opponent and any game where this becomes impossible is a draw.

---- that's the basic gist of it, but for additional ideas ----

To simplify the 'draw' mechanic and make games shorter it could be that the score of each player on their 50th turn is used as a final score to determine win/lose/draw.

To allow for short term exchanges to occur, it could be that a player needs to maintain the victory condition for 3 turns in a row to win.

... and there are of course a ton of other more subtle variants, like giving bonuses for having ones opposing king under threat or having pawns in their 6th or 7th rank, or to help compensate for Black being at a disadvantage by an extra point for scoring etc.

... Just tossing out more ideas you might have fun trying out with someone.

Good luck with your gaming 👍

Yes, there are a lot of possible variants that could be fun to try ... for your suggestion, maybe you could score points for all pieces you have currently under threat?  Maybe raise the required score to 20?  I can just imagine the scenario where a knight forks the opponents king (for 11 points) and queen (for 9 more) and if there were no counter threats, you could win a game without ever even capturing a piece!! Ha

Of course it could quickly get complex, but I actually wrote up a chess program using a score system and it's kind of fun because it's possible to lose a king and still be able to win (for example, if you're already a queen up, then you could afford to sacrifice your king in an exchange )

Thanks for the feedback and have fun 👍

Wow you are very skilled, thank you for creating a whole new world of chess fun!

My pleasure and I'm glad you enjoyed the ideas   I was thinking of adding things to that program so it could be played like a Zelda game where you can explore a little world and play games of chess against the computer and maybe have different variants of chess in it, or add challenges like playing against an opponent with a handicap, like maybe you have to remove one of your pawns at the start of the game.

... I used to play chess some when I was young but this site has made the game more fun.

There's a variant called "Fog of War" on this site that you might try - it only lets you see squares you can move to, so you have to open up your side to explore the board and find where the opponent's king is.

Anyway, enjoy and thanks again

I like the idea for a variant. You can't checkmate, but capturing a king just gives 11 points right?
And then there's bonus points for special maneuvers / attacks.

It would be nice to set a maximum number of moves, say 25 - so people really have to focus on quickly developing an attack. And the points determine the winner, like in boxing and other martial arts. It would be good training.

Very cool ... you sort of read where my mind was going

It could be fun to have a variant where gameplay is more about positioning and tactics and creating cool scenarios or puzzles and less about capturing pieces and ending a game ... sort of like seeing how well can you dance!? =D Fun stuff ... yes, there are lots of possibilities.

An idea along those lines might be that players can use a turn to replace one of their captured pieces back on the board (but for scoring the points are still lost) ... so in that case, both players would tend to remain more balanced (piecewise at least) while playing, so instead of the usual gameplay where one player begins to dominate the board, it would remain more of a balanced 'dance', even if a player keeps losing pieces and score.

.... on the flipside, like you mentioned about a maximum of 25 turn games, I ALSO tend to enjoy having short sessions of play and then starting a new game, so yes, that's an interesting consideration too.

After playing on this site I have found that I tend to do better and enjoy the slower paced 'daily' type games, where you can check out the site and see what moves people have made and, at leisure, consider what moves might work.

If I had a game like that going on at home, it could be fun to leave a chess board set up and whenever someone was passing by and wanted to, the board is still there to look over and consider what might be the next best move

... Yeah, you certainly hit upon quite a few ideas "zone_chess" ... I admit it's almost a challenge, in itself, about how to combine many of these ideas together into a great scenario for a game of chess (or a variant too )

Have fun and thank you much for sharing your ideas.

Thank you opening the door to a whole new chess world!

so queen trades are non-negotiable for the side whose queen is getting captured...

rly, are you serious

New rules, new play styles.

You're welcome   As an idea for the program I was writing, I've been adding support for virtual tournaments between AI players who have different opening styles, ways of evaluating how good a board position appears to be and different strengths in how broadly and deeply they analyze their moves ... also they can each have different probabilities of making weak moves or blunders. 

For the idea of a creating a world of chess to explore, imagine a hypothetical storyline of going back in time and exploring the evolution of chess - different countries could have different rules or even different pieces.  As some examples that could be combined to together:

1) bishops are removed and replaced with knights

2) if a move results in a capture, the opponent can optionally counterattack that piece for free.

3) It takes 2 pieces making threats to be able to capture a piece

4) Randomization could be added by rolling a dice or using coin flips.

Anyway, yes, you get the basic idea ... it would be easy to invent and explore thousands of different ways to play and a neat idea would be to tie those together into a chess world program.

Thanks again, AngelicFox   Enjoy your weekend

Thank you