Invent your own chess variant.

Simple but completely game-changing idea: The king and the queen swap roles. That's it. So the queen can get checkmated but not the king. The king is just kinda 'there.' Both pieces still move normally, but if your queen becomes trapped and is under attack, then that is considered checkmate. The king only acts as a supporting piece.

Interesting but way too drawish. A bare queen can probably prevent forced checkmate against almost any army.

Like, here's a position that should definitely never happen. White is up an absolutely ridiculous amount of material (29 points) in a pretty advantageous position against a bare royal queen. Black to move. Can white checkmate here? In how many moves?

In fact, I'll go one step further, is there even a clear way black can blunder mate in this position? Are any of the green moves clearly losing?

I would say at high levels of play chess is a rather drawish game on its own. Which is one reason why I try to make checkmate easier to achieve by having multiple royals, powerful pieces available by promotion or other means, or weaker royals, and compensate the risk of early game mates by giving the player better starting defenses. Making the objective way harder AND essentially robbing the player of any piece that can actually achieve that objective would probably need to come with a total overhaul variant where checkmating a queen is completely reasonable because you can do something like spawn in pieces or start with / promote to incredibly strong pieces actually to the task of checkmating a queen.

How about this: that the pawns don't promote but rather the chess board's edges are wrapped around infinitely, so going off the edge would bring you back to the opposite edge?

That would indeed be interesting, but it would be LUDICROUSLY difficult to win (plus white would win automatically because their first move would be to capture the enemy king on the other side)

I have a similar idea to introduce an unpredictability factor into chess. Have had the idea for a while now, I think it would still work.

It's called 'Carousel Chess' - after every move, the center (the square composed of the four squares d4, d5, e4, and e5) rotates 90 degrees clockwise. So a pawn on e4 moves to d4, then d5, then e5, etc.

This is to train focus on the center and getting used to the idea of tempo - to time maneuvers according to how pieces will likely stand in the future instead of on how they stand now.

This can get complicated quickly and would be a bit difficult in OTB, but it can work.

@Chess.com I have fabricated some other ideas, too.

Hi,

I think that can work with one simple addition! Adding a tempo to the die. So it introduces a new attack on a piece, and then the player has the next move to bring that piece to safety - if he wants to. This way you can get your king or queen out of danger so the game stays playable and doesn't just terminate. It would make play more dynamic and attacking.

That said, i do believe that an element of true randomization does away with some of the logical essence of chess - random moves should still be dictated by an inner logic, i.e. calculable - they should only add unpredictability, not total randomness.

Stalemate chess that works!!!! Objective: place YOUR king in an unmovable position to win. Players  start with zero pieces on the board. On your turn you can choose to place a piece anywhere  on the  board or move a piece you already placed. Pieces cannot be captured unless your opponent places there king in an unmovable position or when all your pieces are placed on the board.Pieces that are captured simply return to you to be used again on another turn rather then being gone or taken by your opponent.I Your king can be placed on the board and removed at anytime at the cost of a turn.If you put your king in an unmovable position and your opponent cannot allow it to move your opponent can  put his king in an unmovable position. If you allow their  king not to move while they can’t move yours then it’s a draw.What makes this idea more interesting is that you start with the opposite colored king and that is your king you are trying to stalemate.

You need more powerful pieces and the ability to checkmate without being up like 16 points of material.

Piecemate chess.

Players may on their turn move a piece or place one onto the board. The game begins with white placing a king and black following suit. These are the only kings that can be placed. Losing one of them ends the game.

Pieces may not be placed in such a way that any piece is attacked.

Pieces can attack squares but directly capturing is not actually allowed. Instead, if one of your pieces is in such a position that it is no legal move could take it out of danger, it is removed.

All Pieces are cowards who move to squares which are attacked by the enemy. But they can move into a position to attack an enemy piece, and they may end their turn under attack if they could escape.

Piece ordering rule:

You must have 2 more of the next lowest tier of piece to play a higher tier.

tier 1. elementary pieces: Wazir, Ferz, Alfil, and Dababba.

tier 2. Minor pieces: knight, camel, cobra (Alfil-Threeleaper hybrid), bishop.

tier 3. Major pieces: rook, Gnu (camel-Zebra hybrid), Knightrider, Missionary (Camel-Bishop hybrid)

tier 4. Queen strength pieces: Queen, Empress (rook-knight hybrid), Princess (bishop-knight hybrid), Bactrian centaur (King knight camel hybrid).

tier 5. Amazon strength pieces: Amazon (Queen-knight hybrid), Lion (double-moving king), ICBM (leaping queen).

So in other words, the fastest order you can play if nothing gets taken, is k,1,1,2,1,2,3,1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4,5. There definitely won't be Amazons and whatnot on the board by move 16 though because in practice most people will move and checkmate some pieces by then. Also it's not always advantageous to play better pieces because remember, you cannot play then in places where they attack the opponent. A Ferz is in some ways better than a Lion because the Ferz can be placed literally in front of the enemy king. However, it is also the case that powerful leapers are very difficult to remove from the board.

It's also worth mentioning that moving effectively costs you a piece. However, at a certain point, it becomes more advantageous to move than squeeze whatever piece in without attacking or being attacked.

I've got a variant idea:

I don't really have a name for it yet, but the rules are as follows:

When a piece/pawn gets captured(NOT by a knight), a new "dead" version of that piece moves one square in the direction the piece/pawn moved to capture it. The new "dead" version can be captured again to remove it from the board. If the "dead" piece/pawn "moves" outside of the board, or on another piece/pawn, it is automatically gone from the board. If a piece/pawn gets captured BY A KNIGHT, the "dead" piece/pawn now "moves" just like the capturing knight did.

Not my invention but I was introduced to an interesting game earlier in the year. White has the usual set of pieces set out as they usually are. Black has only one piece, the Maharajah, who starts on d8. The Maharajah has the properties of a Queen and Knight. White's pieces move as they do in ordinary chess. White wins if she or he captures the Maharajah. Black wins if she of he is able to checkmate white or capture all his or her pieces (aside from the King). It's surprisingly difficult for both sides, and quite good fun.

Normal chess but you release 10, 000 Luna moths into the room, and people have to try and concentrate while they fly around at Mach 2.

Could it be the variant I describe in my post just underneath yours, Jake?

Chess but the queen is replaced with the copycat. The copycat can imitate the piece that was played the most recent by your opponent. If the other person played their copycat, yours will function just like the queen. The copycat maintains the ability of the copied piece, until your opponent plays their next move. And lastly, if the copycat copies the king, it cannot be checked and can block checks to the real king.

kung fu chess960

just combine kung fu chess and chess960

Succession Chess

When a pawn reaches the sixth rank, it can promote to an Heir, a piece that moves like a Queen, but is limited to a 2 square distance.

If a second pawn reaches the sixth rank, it becomes the Heir, usurping the old Heir (which becomes a lowly pawn again).