Weird Chess Variants

I'm working on a database of chess variants (well, really chaturanga variants, but we'll skip past that bit of pedantry for now). I think I've got the basic design of the database done, but before I start entering data I want to be sure it can handle the variety of chess variants out there. Of course, the only way to be really sure is to enter all the known variant into the database. But I figured if I got a test set of a dozen or so really odd variants, being able to enter those would give me reasonable surety that my database can handle the full variety.

Rather than bias what goes into the test set by my experience, I figured I would ask the chess.com community. What are some of the weirdest chess variants out there?

This is going to push the limits of what counts as a chess variant. I am defining a chess (chaturanga) variant as a game meeting four condtions:

• A board of interconnected cells,
• Using pieces that move in a variety of ways between those cells,
• Where at least some of the pieces can promote into more power pieces, and
• Victory depends on the condition of one or more "royal" pieces.

Anyway, thanks for any help.

This could help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant

I'm aware of Wikipedia, chessvariants.org, and such. I'm looking for other player's perspectives on the issue.

We play several chess variants in my group:

http://www.chess.com/groups/home/the-quotgquot-group

Feel free to join and partake in the variating fun. 

Here's my take on some weird chaturanga variants.

weirdness rating from 1 to 10 (my personal opinion of course), 1 being international chess itself, 10 being the weirdest--as a reference I'd rate atomic chess and suicide chess both 3/10

1. spatial outrageousness

Hexagonal Chess 7/10

3D Chess (of course!) 8/10 (I think it deserves 8/10 because the gameplay would be so different)

2. weird rules

Life, the Universe, and Everything 7.5/10 lol this game is a joke

Legan Chess 7/10

Ice Age Chess 6/10

Cheshire Cat Chess 6/10 it may not seem weird at first, until you play it

lol that was fun

Cool, thanks Skp. I knew of a couple hexagonal and 3D variants, but those last four I'd never heard of. Ice Age and Cheshire Cat looks especially interesting, and the latter would be a great use of my Beyond Chess set.

You might want to look through this site http://brainking.com/en/SelectGameType I haven't checked which variants I think are the wierdest ones yet but there are some variants that look really cool.

I have also seen games were the objective of the game is to get your king to the other side of the board to win but I don't know the exact rules for this variant or its name.

I think the variant you're talking about is Racing Kings, am I right? I forgot about this one, otherwise I would've included it. Well I've played it two times and I think it's a pretty unique one especially since there's a rule that you cannot put your opponent's king in check.

cat chess is weird

king move as a queen???

insane

Ghost chess is pretty weird - captured men return as ghosts that cannot be recaptured as soon as the capturing square is vacated. If several pieces have been captured on the same square they are resurrected in reverse order, i.e. last-most captured returns first. A truly spooky game!

Neutral king chess is also interesting - there is only one king on the board and it may be moved by either player. It may not be moved into check, and the object is to be the first to mate it.

I just recently published a short fantasy story on the Amazon Kindle featuring a number of new chess variants that I developed:

"The Amnesiac's Quest" (available on the Amazon Kindle for 99 cents)

Here are some of the variants portrayed in the story:

Promotion Chess

Attrition Chess

Melee Chess ("Chesskers")

Diamond Chess

Parasite Chess

Most of these variants would be challenging to play unless one had multiple identical chess sets, since they use more than the standard number of each type of piece.  This is because in many of these variants, each piece has the ability to change its rank to become another type of piece based on what it does in the game.

While trying to play these variants, I realized that I had to make my own chess set that would allow me to quickly transform one piece into another.  The result?

Chess Cubes! (available on Etsy.com)

I've made a few sets of Chess Cubes, and they're available for sale on Etsy in two varieties: "Psychedelic", and "Coal and Marshmallows".

If you are interested in trying out the variants from the story, then my hand-crafted custom-made chess set is the perfect way to do it.

i saw this one variant with bulls that twice as far and try ourobouro chess

yes we love to follow up from comments that are over ten years old

What about checkers

hi

hi lol

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