Try Variant "Horde"!

I love 960, but Horde is maybe the most fun I've had with a variant in years, because it uses the rules of real chess from a very different set-up.  Basically, White plays 5-6 rows of pawns, and black gets all of their pieces and pawns.  Black tries to eliminate all of white's pawns, while white tries to checkmate the black king.  They started it out with colors reversed (i.e. Black playing the Horde), but that favored White to almost a 75% win rate.  So with the color flip, its probably preferable to play Black, but with an opening advantage closer to traditional chess.

5-6 rows of Pawns??

Such a variant is known under the name Lord Dunsany's Game ( http://www.chessvariants.org/unequal.dir/dunsany.html ) with only 4 ranks of Pawns, and I always thought it was already won there for the Pawn horde, if they played carefully.

If you like this sort of asymmetric game: Charge of the Light Brigade ( http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSchargeofthelig ) is another one, which plays (next to the usual King and Pawns) 7 Knights versus 3 Queens.

5-6 rows of pawns?! I think that must be easily winning for the Horde.

A good player can force a draw, I believe.

Its 4-5 rows guys, I misstated it, sorry.  I agree that 5-6 would be a clear win for the Horde!

Plenty of strong players at Lichess.org, so pretty confident its reasonably balanced.  As for me, I get beat with the Horde pretty regularly.  A mistake or two and your position falls apart really quickly.  

Here is me getting owned:  

Hmmm, it doesnt seem to be recognizing the PGN, did I need to delete some?  Here is the full PGN file, what did I do wrong?

[Event "Rated game"]
[Site "http://lichess.org/1mpRuZq6"]
[Date "2015.04.12"]
[White "ArtNJ"]
[Black "EZlla"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1559"]
[BlackElo "1732"]
[PlyCount "91"]
[Variant "Horde"]
[TimeControl "300+6"]
[ECO "?"]
[Opening "?"]
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/1PP2PP1/PPPPPPPP/PPPPPPPP/PPPPPPPP/PPPPPPPP w kq - 0 1"]
[SetUp "1"]
[Annotator "lichess.org"]

1. a5 b6 2. a6 c6 3. a4 bxc5 4. dxc5 cxb5 5. axb5 d6 6. d4 e6 7. a4 exf5 8. gxf5 dxc5 9. bxc5 Bxa6 10. bxa6 Nxa6 11. b4 Nc7 12. b5 Qc8 13. b4 a5 14. bxa6 Nxa6 15. a5 Nxc5 16. dxc5 Bxc5 17. bxc5 Qxc5 18. d3 Rxa5 19. a2 Qb6 20. b2 Rxa2 21. d4 Ra1 22. b4 Rxc1 23. c5 Qb5 24. d5 Rxd1 25. d6 Qc4 26. e5 Qxc3 27. e6 fxe6 28. fxe6 Qxb4 29. d7+ Kd8 30. f5 Qxc5 31. e4 Qxc2 32. g4 Rxe1 33. e5 h5 34. g3 Rxf1 35. f6 gxf6 36. gxf6 Qg6 37. gxh5 Qxh5 38. f4 Qf5 39. e4 Qxe6 40. g4 Kxd7 41. h5 Rxg1 42. f3 Nxf6 43. exf6 Qxf6 44. f5 Qe5 45. h4 Rxh1 46. g5 { White resigns } 0-1

I am playing it on lichess.org and have gotten the White pieces twice so far.  To me, it almost seems overpowering, playing the side with the pawns.  I guess I need to try the other side as well.

hey, those on lichess, join team: http://en.lichess.org/team/chesscom-members  :)

       the chess.com thingy just doesnt nderstand :(

I sent request for invite.

welcome to the team :)

Horde is the coolest. It really seems to favour black, because there are so many early breakthroughs, but skilful players seem to know how to avoid them. Black often gets squashed if he doesn't get a breakthrough to the back rank reasonably early.

I really like this too.  It's great that both sides have different aims, gives you twice the enjoyment within the game.  I managed to win on level 5 on Lichess with both sides.  Sometimes there can be an interesting endgame.  The last one I played I had to sacrifice a rook to avoid stalemate and win.  I really don't know why this game isn't more famous.  A game about sacrifices or pawn formations.  Not just a variant of chess but a game that feels like it has its own world.

I just noticed this is in the chess variant forum so most will still never know about it

Yes

Interesting variant