the focus of the williamsburg chess club for wayward men and ladies is obviously standard chess and attendant strategic theories. but in the service of understanding the game better, we've adopted several chess variants. these variants are fun to play and can be less intimidating for newer players. all these variants can be played with a standard regulation chess set.
most of these variants were taught to the chess club by alex trotter, a faithful regular and shogi expert.
Suicide Chess
this game is exciting to play and moves very quickly. i find that a few rounds of suicide chess improves my chess game immensely.
- pieces are set up on the board as in standard chess
- the object of the game is to lose all your pieces first.
- captures are compulsory. if you have a capture available, you must take the piece.
- if more than one capture is available, you can choose which piece to capture.
- kings are treated as any other piece. there is no castling or checking.
- when a pawn reaches the opposite side of the board, it must be promoted. the promotion can be to any piece which has already been captured.
- when no move is possible, a player can 'pass'.
Maharaja and Sepoys
this game is harder to win than it seems. it helped me think about how to use my queen more effectively.
- the object is the same as standard chess, to deliver checkmate.
- white sets up the pieces on the white side as normal, the black side is limited to a single queen.
- the black queen is a super-queen: she can also move as a knight. this piece is capable of delivering checkmate all by herself.
- white's objective is to deliver checkmate to the black queen.
Hostage Chess
this game applies some of the principles of shogi (a japanese game) to standard chess.
- pieces are set up on the board as in standard chess.
- the object of the game is as in standard chess: to deliver checkmate.
- pieces move exactly as in standard chess.
- a captured piece can be returned to the board if it is 'ransomed'.
- a piece can be 'ransomed' from your opponent by exchanging a captured piece of equal or lesser value. for example: if your opponent has captured your knight, you can trade your opponent's captured knight or bishop for your knight and return that knight to the board. if you have captured only pawns from your opponent, you cannot ransom your knight.
- when you ransom a piece, it must be returned to the board during that same turn.
- when your opponent ransoms a piece from you and returns a piece of equal value, you have the option of returning that piece to the board at any time. for example, if your opponent ransoms a rook from you and returns your rook, you can choose to wait a turn or three before returning that rook to the board.
- when any ransomed piece is returned to the board, it can be placed in any free square.
- pawns are not promoted.
