Any favorite chess variants?

@russ said
Currently distracted by an ongoing rewrite of core RHP code, which supports variants. This will not be released for quite sometime - and even tested in isolation away from RHP initially.

Any favorite you would specifically want added?

[hidden]And yes, it does pain me to write favorite rather than favourite 😉 [/hidden]

@benjamin-barker said
How about Maharajah and the Sepoys?

@venda said
Shogi is the best variant I have played but probably too time consuming to programme for the number of people who would want to try it

@mwmiller said
@Russ

You can do it Russ! Mankind allegedly put a man on the moon, so this should be a piece of cake.

YouTube : An example of a transposition...

@Russ

How about dark variants (you only "see" what your figures see?)

@Russ
This is new to me.
Is this similar to the Fischer variable chess ?

@mghrn55
From Wiki :

Transcendental Chess (TC) is a chess variant invented in 1978 by Maxwell Lawrence.[1][2] Chess960 (Fischer Random Chess) is similar but has fewer starting positions. In Transcendental Chess the beginning positions of the pieces on the back row are randomly determined, with the one restriction that the bishops be on opposite-colored squares. There are 8294400 such positions in total. In Chess960 there are 960 possible starting positions, but that is because the king must be located between the rooks and both sides must have the same starting position. In Transcendental Chess there is no such rule so the position of one side can be any of 4²×6!÷2² = 2880. There is no castling.[2] On the first turn a player, instead of making a move, can transpose any of two pieces on the back row.

My favourite chess variant in real life is kriegspiel, though it is very rarely played as it needs a referee and quite a bit of setting up. I'm not sure if it would be possible to code that up (though I think I saw it on "another site"* a long time ago).

To be honest the only chess variant that I ever see real chess players indulge in is Exchange Chess - better known (unfortunately) as Bug House.

* My original post was immediately removed when I tried to post it. I'm guessing that the reason was that I mentioned a different chess site.

@Russ

I don’t know the name of my favorite variant and maybe it has already been mentioned here. I have seen it played in the postmortem rooms at several tournies.

Two games simultaneously, four players, two players on a team with opposite colors. (It does not pain me to spell it so.) Pieces captured by one player may be placed on the board of his team-mate. The first player who sets mate wins for the team.

@moonbus
That's Exchange Chess (Britain) or Bughouse (rest of world? USA anyway).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bughouse_chess

@mynameisklint

Thanks. I learned something today.

This might be tricky to code though, as positions can occur which would be illegal in normal chess (such as having more than 8 pawns on a side).

@mynameisklint said
My favourite chess variant in real life is kriegspiel, though it is very rarely played as it needs a referee and quite a bit of setting up.

@wolfgang59
I think "are there any?" is essential, otherwise too much time is spent with the player attempting a capture with every one of his pawns.

I don't know how you've played kriegspiel, but in the club where I played it regularly we had three small tables joined together in a line with two longer one upended in the gaps. Then a board and set would be set-up on each table, the two players positioned at either end and the referee in the middle. The rules aren't completely trivial so not everyone was able to be a referee. The games tended to be quite long and we'd rarely get more than one finished in one evening (i.e. 7:30pm to 10:30pm).

I'm don't think any other chess variant would need a referee, unless there was a dispute, but in kriegspiel it's essential to have one. If an online version was done properly then a player's attempts to play a move, whether or not it was successful, would need to be conveyed to his/her opponent - sometimes the number of attempts and even the gaps between them can give you extra information.

@mynameisklint said
@wolfgang59
I think "are there any?" is essential, otherwise too much time is spent with the player attempting a capture with every one of his pawns.

I don't know how you've played kriegspiel, but in the club where I played it regularly we had three small tables joined together in a line with two longer one upended in the gaps. Then a board and set would be set-up o ...[text shortened]... nt - sometimes the number of attempts and even the gaps between them can give you extra information.