Variant Chess: Difference between revisions

* Chess960, where the starting position is chosen randomly from 960 possibilities. Invented by Bobby Fischer.

* ''Proteus,'' where the pieces can change identity repeatedly throughout the game. Also introduces a new piece that can't move but also can't be captured.

* [http://www.omegachess.com/ Omega Chess] deserves special mention as it gives the impression of actually having the intent to take the place in mainstream board-games on which [[Chess]] has historically held a monopoly.

* Games like [[Shogi]] (Japanese chess) and [[Xiangqi]] (Chinese chess) are related and similar to international chess; both Western/international chess and these games themselves started as variants of the Indian game ''chaturanga''. Some of these games, like makruk (Thai chess) can be played on an international chess board with the same pieces.

* Alice in Wonderland chess, which uses two boards, one of which is initially empty. Each piece, immediately after its move, "teleports" to the corresponding square of the other board (the move has to be legal before the "teleportation" and you can't move to a square if the corresponding square on the other board is occupied). This creates bizarre situations, e.g. if you want to protect your king from a check by moving a piece in front of the king, the moving piece needs to start its move on the board without the king. This, and other quirks of the game, make traditional defence useless and allows for some attacks impossible in traditional chess (for example, thanks to the fact that the same square on both boards can never be occupied, moving behind enemy lines is much easier).

* ''Guide to Fairy Chess'' by Anthony Stewart Mackay Dickins (1971). A good history of a particular group of non-standard chess problems, pieces, and boards played since the late 19th Century, and their evolution and additions through the 20th Century.

 

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