UNO Chess

This is a chess variant that mixes standard chess with, well, UNO. It was created by the YouTube channel TripleSGames, but I will present the rules here (with some minor alterations by me) to avoid you having to search.

To set up:

• Set up the chess board and pieces as with a standard chess game.
• Obtain a deck of UNO cards and remove the zeroes and nines, as well as the Skip cards, the Wild Draw Fours, and one Reverse and Draw Two of each colour.
• If the deck has a Wild Shuffle Hands and Wild Customisable cards, these are to be removed as well.
• Set the removed cards aside - they will not be used.

Shuffle the remaining cards and deal seven cards to each player, then set the deck on the table face-down as a draw deck. Flip the top card over to start a discard pile - if this card is an action card, ignore the action. The player playing the white pieces on the chessboard takes the first turn, then turns alternate.

Each turn of UNO chess consists of two parts - the UNO move and the chess move.

For the UNO move, you must play one card from your hand to the discard pile, and like standard UNO it must match by colour, number or symbol. Unlike standard UNO you are not allowed to skip on playing a card - you must play a card even if you don't want to.

Then for the chess move, you must move one piece on the board. You may only move a piece if it starts the turn on a rank or file that corresponds to the number of the card just played (the ranks and files are referenced the same as in standard chess notation, with A=1 ascending to H=8). So for example, if on their first turn, White played a 2 card they would be allowed to move any piece on the second rank or the b-file, corresponding to any of their pawns or their knight on b1. All pieces retain their standard chess moves, with the exception that the king is allowed to move into or through check.

If you are unable to play a card, or all of your cards do not reference any pieces, then you may simply discard one card regardless of its features.

After you have discarded a card or moved a piece, you must draw one replacement card from the deck, after which your turn ends. If the draw deck runs out of cards, shuffle all but the top card of the discard pile into a new draw deck.

If you play a Wild card, you are allowed to move any piece on the chessboard.

If you play a Draw Two, you do not move a piece - instead you select two cards from your hand and discard them, drawing replacements. Action cards discarded this way are not activated.

If you play a Reverse, then instead of moving a piece you undo your opponent's last chess move. You are allowed to undo the capture of pieces this way.

If you wish to castle, then you must play a card that references your king. Then you may castle. You are allowed to castle out of, through or into check, but the king and rook may not have moved and no pieces can be in the way.

You are allowed to capture en passant if you can play a card to reference the pawn executing the capture.

If your opponent manages to capture all of your pieces and you are down to just your king, you must call "UNO" before the end of your turn. If you forget to do this, and your opponent catches you, you automatically lose the game.

If you manage to capture your opponent's king, you win the game. However if your opponent has a Reverse card in their hand that can be played, then can use the Reverse to undo their king's capture, in which case the win is invalidated and the game continues.

If six cards are played in a row with no chess piece moving, the game ends in a draw.

good variant of chess!

(As White)

If you got a 1 you'd be able to move either of your knights at the start. Getting an 8 means you would discard one of your cards and draw a new one, after which your turn ends.

NICE

I feel like the removal of cards adds unnessessary setup time, which I would find a little tedious, and makes the game feel a bit more 'ugly'.

Here would be my suggestion for the missing cards:

0s: Allows you to castle (as in O-O or O-O-O)

9s: Does nothing, you just lose your turn

Skip: Skip your opponent's turn

Wild Draw 4: Same as wild, but you also discard 4

Of course, adding these might make the game more swing-ey, but that is rather the point of adding a random element in the first place and is a large part of Uno.

Also worth asking: do the 50-move rule, stalemate (by blocking in rather than checks), and draw by threefold repetition apply in this variant (I would imagine insufficient material is not included, as the random element makes anything sufficient)?