List of chess variants

This is a list of chess variants. Many thousands of variants exist. The 2007 catalogue The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants estimates that there are well over 2,000, and many more were considered too trivial for inclusion in the catalogue.^[2]

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Standard chess

The chess variants listed below are derived from chess by changing one or more of the many rules of the game. The rules can be grouped into categories, from the most innocuous (starting position) to the most dramatic (adding chance/randomness to the gameplay after the initial piece placement). If a variant changes rules from multiple categories, it belongs to the sub-section below corresponding to the later-listed category.

• Starting position and armies
• Piece types
• Midgame rules and end-of-game rules
• Board shape
• Number of players
• Use of hidden information or chance

Names that represent a set of variants are annotated with "[multivariant]" after their name. All variants use an 8x8 board unless otherwise specified.

Many variants employ standard chess rules and mechanics, but vary the number of pieces, or their starting positions. In most such variants, the pawns are placed on their usual squares, but the position of other pieces is either randomly determined or selected by the players. The motivation for these variants is usually to nullify established opening knowledge. The downside of these variants is that the initial position usually has less harmony and balance than the standard chess position.^[3]

a b c d e f g h 8 8 7 7 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 a b c d e f g h Upside-down chess starting position (White sits at bottom)

• Active chess: Played on a 9×8 board, adding a queen with an extra pawn in front. Invented by G. Kuzmichov (1989), whose students tested the game, deciding that the optimal starting position was to place the second queen on the eighth or ninth files.^[4]
• Displacement chess [multivariant]: Some pieces in the initial position are exchanged but the rules remain exactly the same. Some examples of this may be that the king and queen are flipped, or the knight on the b-file is traded with the bishop on the f-file.

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Double Chess by Julian Hayward

• Double chess: Two full armies per side on a 12×16 board, the first to mate an enemy king wins. Pawns advance up to four steps on their first move. Capablanca found the game "remarkably interesting".^[5] Invented by Julian Hayward (1916).
• Endgame chess (or the Pawns Game, with unknown origins): Players start the game with only pawns and a king. Normal check, checkmate, en passant, and pawn promotion rules apply.^[6]
• Los Alamos chess (or anti-clerical chess): Played on a 6×6 board without bishops. This was the first chess-like game played by a computer program.
• Upside-down chess: The white and black pieces are switched so that White's pieces are on the 8th rank, with pawns on the 7th rank, one step away from promotion. The starting position looks like a standard chess starting position, but from the other player's perspective. As the pawns are blocked by pieces in the starting position, the game always starts with a knight move, and smothered mates are common.^[7]

• Casablanca chess: The starting position is chosen from a famous historic game; usually an interesting middlegame position. The position is verified to be approximately equal by a computer, and should have winning chances for both sides.^[8] The first Casablanca chess tournament was played in May 2024, and won by Magnus Carlsen.^[9][10]
• Pre-chess: The game starts with white and black pawns set as usual, but the initial position of other pieces is selected by the players. White first places one of their pieces on their first rank, and then Black does the same. Players continue to alternate in this manner until all pieces have been placed, with the only restriction being that bishops must be on opposite-colour squares. The game then proceeds in the usual way. Proposed by Pal Benko in 1978.^[11]
• Polgar reform chess [multivariant]: In his book Reform-Chess (1997), László Polgár proposed several variants played on board of size 5×8, 6×8, 8×6, or 9×6.^[12] The initial piece setup is determined by players in the same way as in Benko's Pre-chess. There are special rules for castling depending on the board. Polgár recommended these variants to train creativity and to speed up the game.

a b c d e f g h 8 8 7 7 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 a b c d e f g h Chess960, one of the 960 possible starting positions

• Fischer Random Chess (also known as Chess960 and more recently as Freestyle Chess): The placement of the pieces on the first rank is randomized; although there are rules such as the 2 starting Bishops have to be on different colour squares, and the King has to start between the 2 Rooks. The opponent's pieces mirror it. Invented by Bobby Fischer (1996).
• Transcendental Chess: Similar to Chess960, but the opening white and black positions do not mirror each other.

In these variants, White and Black do not necessarily begin with the same quantities of each piece type (for example, White may begin with more pawns than Black).

• Dunsany's Chess (and the similar Horde chess): One side has standard chess pieces, and the other side has 32 pawns.
• Handicap chess (or Chess with odds) [multivariant]: Variations to equalise chances of players with different strength.
• Peasants' Revolt: White has a king and eight pawns (the peasants) against Black's king, pawn, and four knights (the nobles). Black has the advantage. To narrow the contest, the game has also been played with three knights (on b8, c8, and g8) instead of four. By R. L. Frey (1947).^[13][14]
• Sixteen Pawns: White plays without their queen, but chooses where on the third and fourth ranks to place eight extra pawns. By Legall de Kermeur (18th century). Alexandre Deschapelles and Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais later established that eight extra pawns favour White too much, and hence played the game with only five, six, or seven extra pawns for White instead.^[15]
• Really Bad Chess: A mobile video game by Zach Gage; Each player has one king and fifteen other pieces selected at random.
• Weak!: White has the usual pieces, Black has one king, seven knights, and sixteen pawns. This game was played at a Columbia University chess club in the 1960s.^[16]

a b c d e f g h 8 8 7 7 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 a b c d e f g h Dunsany's Chess by Lord Dunsany

a b c d e f g h 8 8 7 7 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 a b c d e f g h Peasants' Revolt by R. L. Frey

a b c d e f g h 8 8 7 7 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 a b c d e f g h Really Bad Chess (example) by Zach Gage

a b c d e f g h 8 8 7 7 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 a b c d e f g h Weak! by Ralph Betza

E	D	C
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Raumschach starting position. Inverted knights represent unicorns.

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Shako starting position. Cannons (shown as inverted rooks) are on a1, j1, a10, and j10. Elephants (shown as inverted bishops) are on a2, j2, a9, and j9.

Most of the pieces in these variants are borrowed from chess. The game goal and rules are also very similar to those in chess; however, these variants include one or more fairy pieces which move differently from chess pieces.

• Baroque chess (or Ultima): Pieces on the first row move like queens, and pieces on the second row move like rooks. They are named after their unusual capturing methods. For example, leaper, immobilizer and coordinator.
• Berolina chess: All pawns are replaced with Berolina pawns, that move diagonally and capture orthogonally.
• Chess with different armies: Two sides use different sets of fairy pieces. There are several armies of approximately equal strength to choose from including the standard FIDE chess army.
• Falcon-Hunter Chess: A falcon moves forward as a bishop; backward as a rook. The hunter moves forward as a rook; backward as a bishop. Players introduce the fairies as the game progresses. By Karl Schulz (1943).
• Grasshopper chess [multivariant]: The pawns can promote to grasshopper, or grasshoppers are on the board in the initial position.
• Pocket Mutation Chess: Player can put a piece temporarily into the pocket, optionally mutating it into another (including fairy) piece.
• Spartan chess: Black (the Spartans) has an army headed by two kings, which otherwise consists exclusively of non-standard pieces, and battles the standard FIDE army (the Persians) of white.^[17]
• Super X Chess: Players can combine their own pieces by capturing them. King or queen can't combine. A combined piece has the ability to move as both pieces that got combined. Same kind of pieces can combine into new pieces. Pieces can't uncombine or combine again. By Miika Pihkala (2018).^[18]
• Torpedo chess: Pawns are replaced with torpedo pawns, which can move two squares forwards anywhere on the board as opposed to only on the first move. Pawns that move two squares can be captured en passant on the very next move. The rest of the pieces remain unchanged.^[19]
• Way of the Knight (WOTN): Invented by Ralph Betza, incorporating two elements from tabletop role-playing games. Begins with the standard starting position and pieces, however through capturing and advancing up the board pieces can earn "experience", and a sufficiently experienced piece is upgraded to a more powerful one. Upgrades include various fairy pieces, and involve player choices of "alignment".^[20][21]

There are a number of variants which use the empress (rook + knight) and princess (bishop + knight) compound pieces. The empress is also called marshall or chancellor.^[22] The princess is also called cardinal, archbishop, janus, paladin, or minister.^[23] Another compound piece is the amazon (queen + knight). To adapt to the new pieces, the board is usually extended to 10×8 or 10×10 with additional pawns added.^[24]

• Almost Chess: Uses an 8×8 board, with the conventional starting position, but queens are replaced by chancellors (empresses). By Ralph Betza (1977). A related variant is Sort of Almost Chess (Ralph Betza, 1994), where one player has a queen and the other has a chancellor.

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Grand Chess by Christian Freeling

• Capablanca Chess: A variant by the former world chess champion, José Raúl Capablanca. Played on a 10×8 board with chancellor (empress) and archbishop (princess).
• Capablanca Random Chess: Generalises all possible variants of Capablanca Chess with random starting positions following a method similar to that used in Chess960. By Reinhard Scharnagl (2004).
• Embassy Chess: Uses a 10×8 board with Marshall (Empress) and Cardinal (Princess). The starting position is borrowed from Grand Chess. By Kevin Hill (2005).
• Gemini Chess:^[25] Uses a 10×8 board with two Archbishops. From an idea of Dr Zied Haddad in 2016. The difference from Janus Chess is the initial setup where the archbishops are sandwiching the queen and king remaining in the center of the board.

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Gemini Chess initial position. The archbishops surround the queen and king from each side

• Gothic chess: A commercial variant played on a 10×8 board with Chancellor (Empress) and Archbishop (Princess).
• Grand Chess: Uses a 10×10 board with marshall (empress) and cardinal (princess). Invented by Christian Freeling (1984).
• Janus Chess: Uses a 10×8 board with two januses (princesses). By Werner Schöndorf (1978).
• Maharajah and the Sepoys: Black has a complete army, and White only one piece: the maharajah (a royal amazon).
• Modern Chess: Played on a 9×9 board, with an extra pawn and a prime minister (princess). By Gabriel Vicente Maura (1968).
• Musketeer chess:^[26] A commercial variant, inspired from Seirawan Chess. This variant introduces 10 fairy pieces: archbishop, chancellor, hawk (different rules from Seirawan Chess), elephant (different rules from Seirawan Chess), leopard, cannon (different from Xiangqi), unicorn, fortress, spider, and amazon (also called dragon in this game). Players have a choice of 2 pieces among the 10 possible and method used to introduce them during the game.
• Seirawan Chess: A commercial variant. Uses a standard 8×8 board with elephant (empress) and hawk (princess).^[27] By GM Yasser Seirawan and Bruce Harper (2007).

• 2000 A.D.: Played on a 10×10 board, features the empress, capricorn, gorgon, chimaera, dragon, minotaur, unicorn, and fury fairy chess pieces. By V. R. Parton.
• Bear chess:^[28][29][30] 10x10 chess variant, proposed by Mikhail Sosnovsky in 1985 in Kalinin.^[31][32] Board 10x10; extra pieces are Bears, which leap as N or two squares as R or B; baseline (a1-j1/a10-j10) RNBBeQKBeBNR. Pawns can move up to three squares initially (e.p. permitted). In castling, K moves to c/h files.
• Chessers: There are multiple variants that combine the rules of chess and checkers, including a 1925 variant by Frank Maus,^[33] and a 1960 proprietary variant by Phillips Publishers, Inc.^[34]
• Chess on a really big board: Played on a 16x16 board with 6 nonstandard piece types. Invented by Ralph Betza.
• Decimal Chess [multivariant]: Played on a 10×10 board, usually add extra pieces. Some decimal chesses use only standard pieces, but others such as Decimal Falcon-Hunter Chess use fairy pieces. One such variant is Decimal Rettah chess, which adds a king, queen and two pawns. Invented by V. R. Parton.
• Dragonchess: Three 8x12 boards with some standard chess pieces and many other pieces, some of which move between the levels. Created by Gary Gygax.^[35]
• Duell: Dice are used instead of pieces. Played on a 9×8 board.
• Etchessera: Played on a regular chessboard but where players build their own chess army from a collection of 17 different pieces.^[36]
• Gess: Chess with variable pieces, played on a Go board.
• Jetan: A "Martian chess" invented by Edgar Rice Burroughs for his novel The Chessmen of Mars (1922), played on a 10×10 board. None of the pieces are standard chess pieces.^[37]
• Prince & Princess: The chess variant that uses the criterion of succession, where the king or queen are replaced in favor of the prince or the princess, created by Antonio Maravi Oyague.^[38]
• Proteus: A chess variant using dice to represent normal chess pieces, created by Steve Jackson Games.^[39]
• Shako: Played on a 10×10 board. New pieces are the cannon from xiangqi (Chinese chess) and an elephant moving as a fers+alfil of old shatranj (ancestors of queen and bishop), so diagonally one or two squares with jumps allowed. By Jean Louis-Cazaux (1997).^[40]
• Stealth chess: Played in the fictional Ankh-Morpork Assassins' Guild from the Discworld series of books; played on an 8×10 board. The fairy piece is the Assassin.
• Stratomic: Adds nuclear missiles to the standard chess array on a 10×10 board. When launched they irradiate any 3×3 area (friendly pieces included) except kings. By Robert Montay-Marsais (1972).
• Wildebeest Chess: Uses an 11×10 board, each player has two camels and a wildebeest (camel + knight). Pawns move one, two, or three squares initially. By R. Wayne Schmittberger (1987).
• Wolf Chess: On an 8×10 board, with fairy pieces wolf (empress), fox (princess), nightrider, sergeant (almost a Berolina pawn), and elephant (amazon). By Arno von Wilpert (1943).

These variants introduce changes in the mechanics of the game, such as movement of pieces, rules for capturing, or winning conditions.

• 65th case: a 65th optional case is available adjacent to the board. Other rules remain the same.

In these variants one or both players can move more than once per turn. The board and the pieces in these variants are the same as in standard chess.

• Avalanche chess: Each move consists of a standard chess move followed by a move of one of the opponent's pawns.
• Double-Move Chess: Similar to Marseillais chess, but with no en passant, check, or checkmate. The objective is to capture the king. By Fred Galvin (1957).^[41]
• Double-Take Chess: Each player, once per game, can make two moves during one of their turns. These two moves cannot be used to place the opponent's king in checkmate.^[42]
• Kung-fu chess: A variant without turns. Any player can move any of their pieces at any given moment.
• Marseillais chess (or Two-move chess): After the first turn of the game by White being a single move, each player moves twice per turn.
• Monster chess (or Super King): White has the king and four pawns (c2-f2) against the entire black army but may make two successive moves per turn. There is no check. Players win by capturing the king. In a variant, White's pieces begin one row forward of their usual starting position, and the White's pawns may not begin with a double step. Another variant denies Black promotion rights (pawns reaching the last rank remain as pawns). White may always promote.
• Multimove Chess (i, j): A class of chess variants where white gets i moves per turn and black gets j moves per turn. Check is not enforced, and victory is by capturing the enemy king. The games are described and analysed logically in a 2015 journal article. The authors weakly solved the game for all (i, j) pairs except for (1, 1) (functionally, regular chess) and (2, 2).^[43]
• Progressive chess (or Scottish chess): White moves once, then Black moves twice, then White moves three times, and so on.
• Swarm chess: During each turn, each piece that a player can move must be moved.^[44]

These variants feature variant rules in the middle of the game, but the end goal remains the same (to checkmate the enemy king).

• Absorption chess (also called cannibal chess, power absorption chess, or seizer's chess): Pieces gain the abilities of the pieces they capture.^[45][46]
• Andernach chess: A piece making a capture changes colour.
• ASEAN chess: Pawns start on the 3rd ranks. Queens can only move 1 square diagonally and Bishops only 1 square diagonally or 1 square directly forward.^[47]
• Atomic chess: Capture on any square results in an "atomic explosion" which kills (i.e. removes from the game) all pieces in the eight surrounding squares, except for pawns.
• Benedict chess: Instead of capturing by displacement, players may convert an enemy piece they attack to their own color.^[48]

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