Editing Chess (section)

=== Modern variants ===

Among the more common things some game designers do is try to "fix" various flaws in chess (usually the reliance in top level play of memorizing the opening playbook, and the tendency to stalemate at the endgame) or expand it in some way, by making their own variant. There are many hundreds of these; to give you a general taste of what these look like, here are some notable ones:

* Many, many attempts to make a three-dimensional chess.
* Many, many attempts to make three or four player chess.
* '''Fisher Random Chess''', by '''that''' Bobby Fisher, which randomizes the starting positions.
* '''Grand Chess''', which makes the board 10x10, adds two Queen-equivalent pieces, and removes Castling in an mildly elegant way.
** (There are a large number of 10x8 variants that add two pieces that Grand Chess evolved out of (most notably, '''Capablanca Chess''', designed by '''that''' Capablanca), but Grand Chess is probably more popular, as it adds an element of space missing in most chess variants.)
* '''Marseilles Chess''', in which every move after the first is a double move (that is, you can move one piece twice, or two pieces once).
* '''Hexagonal Chess''', played on a Hexagonal board. There are several versions, that usually differ only by the starting setup and pawn movements.
* '''Circular Chess''', played on a circular board.
* '''Bughouse Chess''', mentioned above, in which two teams of two play, and can place captured pieces from their teammate's opponent on the board.
* '''Alice Chess''', the "other" two board game, in which you change boards each time you move.
* '''Anti-King Chess''', which adds an "Anti-King" to each side, in front of the other side's King's Pawn; if your Anti-King is not in check, you lose.
* '''Ultima''', (not to be confused with '''that''' [[Ultima]]) in which every piece but the King and Pawns is replaced by a piece that moves like a Queen, but captures uniquely--including one that doesn't capture at all, but merely completely immobilizes enemy pieces adjacent to it--and the Pawns have their own replacement that "merely" moves like a Rook.
* '''Maharajah and the Sepoys''', in which White has the ultrapowerful Maharajah, which moves like a Queen or a Knight, but only that, and Black has the regular chess army with slightly weaker pawns. Among skilled players, Black always wins, but the variant is useful in teaching Chess strategy.
* '''Kreigspiel''', in which you can't see your opponent's pieces. Requires a referee.
* '''Martian Chess''', the [[Icehouse]] chess thing covered in our [[Icehouse]] article. [[Icehouse]].
* '''Arimaa''', of interest only because it was designed to be "hard" for computer players to handle. Eventually, somebody made a computer program that could reliably beat the best human players. I for one welcome our new robot overlords.
* '''"Chess 2: The Sequel"''', made by people who've made a career out of trying to add random elements and fighting-game logic to board games and otherwise only notable for its preposterously ambitious name.
* '''Chess Boxing''', which alternates rounds of boxing with rounds of Blitz Chess (that is, chess with very aggressive timer).
* '''[[The Duke]]''': Shogi crossed with Concentration of all things, pieces flip on move changing their moves.  Actually a pretty clever game but absurdly complex to actually play.
* '''5D Chess With Multiverse Time Travel''', An evil sadistic version of chess in which pieces can be sent back in time creating multiple timelines that are all played on simultaneously.