What is the second-best chess variant? (As there is no doubt on the 1st one)

If you are a frequent user of this forum, you obviously know which one is the 1st one. So, what is the 2nd? (Smile)

I assume that you created this thread in this forum based upon my responses, your responses and other people's responses to the 'What is the best chess variant?' thread in this forum.

What is the best chess variant in your opinion? What is the second best chess variant in your opinion?

In my opinion, the best chess variant is Metamachy. The second best chess variant is Musketeer chess.

It is played on a 8×8 chess board with the pieces of the classical western army, along with a variety of 10 fairy chess pieces, out of which 2 of which are chosen by the 2 players, first one by white and then second one by black during a played game.

Each of the different possible pair of choice of Musketeer chess pieces lead to many different interesting tactical possibilities and combinations that are not present in classical western chess that is played with the pieces of the classical western army.

These 2 chosen fairy chess pieces are gated behind 2 of the home rank pieces that are chosen by the players and they enter into the chess board in the same squares that the home rank pieces in front of them move from. Black has also the choice to reject the white's first choice of Musketeer chess piece, in which case the chosen Musketeer chess pieces will be the default Cannon and Leopard.

In Musketeer chess 1.0, there are 10 fairy chess pieces and both players cannot choose the same piece. In Musketeer chess 1.2, there are 10 fairy chess pieces and both players can choose the same piece. In Musketeer chess 1.5, there are 51 fairy chess pieces and both players can choose the same piece.

In Chexx, there are 51 fairy chess pieces and both players can choose the same piece. Chexx is played on a 10×8 board, under the same Carrera chess set up, with the replacement of the Chancellor and the Archbishop, with the pieces of the classical western army and 2 fairy chess pieces that are chosen by the 2 players, first one by white and then second one by black during a played game.

Musketeer chess is an improvement to Seirawan chess, a gating game which always gates the 2 pieces of Chancellor and Archbishop every game. However, Seirawan chess does not gate the pieces in the way that is done by Musketeer chess, instead they are brought into the board when 2 of the home rank pieces chosen by the players move and into the square that they move from.

In Musketeer chess, when a home rank piece in front of the gated Musketeer chess piece is captured, then the gated Musketeer chess piece is also removed from the board. This is not true for Seirawan chess. In Seirawan chess, during castling, it is only possible to gate at most one fairy chess piece, namely Chancellor or Archbishop if any of them which have only not been gated yet, in one of the squares that the King or the Rook moved from.

Also that it is only possible to gate a fairy chess piece, namely Chancellor or Archbishop only in the first move of a home rank piece in Seirawan chess and if all of the 8 home rank pieces have made the first move and if a fairy chess piece, namely Chancellor or Archbishop has not been gated yet, then it would not be possible to gate any furthermore fairy chess pieces, namely Chancellor or Archbishop during the rest of the played game at all.

All of the 10 fairy chess pieces have different movements, with all of them except for the Dragon having power in between that of Rook and Queen. Dragon is much more powerful than the Queen, Chancellor is almost equal to but slightly less powerful than the Queen and Archbishop is slightly less powerful than the Queen and the Chancellor.

Musketeer chess is another gating chess variant like Seirawan chess with 10 different fairy pieces Cannon, Leopard, Chancellor, Archbishop, Eagle, Elephant, Unicorn, Dragon, Fortress and Spider (movements of these chess pieces other than Chancellor and Archbishop are not available in any of chess variants in Pychess) to choose 2 from, instead of Chancellor and Archbishop always in every game. It is currently under development at musketeer-chess.herokuapp.com and it might be added to Pychess later on once it is completely developed. Once Musketeer chess is added to Pychess, it would be as popular or more popular as Seirawan chess to players at Pychess.

Musketeer chess was available for play at jocly.com/#/about till 24.10.2018 when that website was shut down due to confiscation of game server by attackers. Earlier this year, that website got opened up again but it is impossible to connect to game server to play games with other human players, but only it is currently possible to play games against very weak AI. Seirawan chess and Musketeer chess with 51 different fairy pieces against very weak AI can also be played at musketeerchess.net/site/games.

Currently, it is possible to play human games of Musketeer chess at musketeer-chess.herokuapp.com by logging in to Pychess account which is in turn linked to Lichess account, but the website is very buggy, with the games terminated abruptly as loss due to 'Invalid move', especially when pawns are promoted to fairy Musketeer chess pieces other than Chancellor and Archbishop.

Musketeer chess with other human players can be currently played without any problems at all at vchess.club/#/variants, but there are only 7 fairy pieces (all of whose strength are between that of Queen and Rook) to choose 2 from, other than powerful Dragon, Chancellor and Archbishop. Would you be interested in giving Musketeer chess a try?

May be Centaur which combines the movements of King and Knight would be a good substitute in Musketeer chess for Dragon and in Metamachy for Lion. The strength of Centaur is between that of Queen and Rook. The Musketeer chess Dragon which combines the movement of Queen and Knight is more powerful than the Queen which in turn is more powerful than the Lion in Metamachy which can leap over other pieces and whose movement is limited to at most 2 squares in any given direction. The Lion in Metamachy is also, in turn, is also more powerful than the Queen.

In Pychess, right now that Musketeer chess has been closed as 'won't' in github.com/ianfab/Fairy-Stockfish/issues/32, similar in github.com/gbtami/pychess-variants/issues/371.