Have you played unorthodox versions of chess?

For years I played standard and upside down because my brother and I did not know white was supposed to be at the bottom. We flipped sides randomly.

I had no idea there were so many variants.

I have played reverse chess, which is listed in the article. The object is to lose all your pieces and captures are mandatory. I am surprised by the number of variations.

I played a few variants when I was a kid and into chess and designing games. Our third-grade class got into chess for a while and IIRC a popular variant was to ignore check and checkmate.

It’s cool there are so many variants listed. I would’ve loved that when I was more into chess, though it would also take hoarding several sets to have enough pieces for some of those.

When I got Chess for the Atari 2600, I and some of my friends tried some variants just by using the editor to have different unit matchups. My cousin just liked giving himself an army of Queens and torturing the computer opponent without having to think much.

I used to like playing against the computer giving myself a head start in setting up my pieces in a good position.

My dad and grandpa used to like to solve chess problems, especially when they got their first computer chess sets, to see if they could solve them. My dad and a friend also used to play by mail, and both ended up using their chess computers for the moves, (and at the first, they were both doing that and not telling each other.)

I watched a Chess session, in the park with live characters on the chess board.

I have only played standard chess but I have watched people play “elephant chess” in China.

Oh, and I also play(ed) Feudal , a chess-like Avalon Hill game with a different set of pieces, up to three armies per side, castles, maps with terrain, and a free double-blind set-up phase. I currently own two sets, which could make for a monster game, but I got Feudal about the time I started losing interest in chess-like games and greatly preferring more representational wargames (e.g. Tactics II , Alesia , Wooden Ships & Iron Men , Squad Leader , etc), and role-playing games with tactical combat systems .

The beauty of chess is found in it’s inherent simplicity. Most variants, in my view, ruin this.