Chess Variations - Various Derivitives of Traditional Chess

Modern or 'Orthodox' Chess has only been around in it's current from for just over 100 years, having developed over the preceding centuries, we'll just briefly touch on the history before exploring current variants of the rules.

Chess is thought to have originated in India, in about the 6th century and was known as chaturanga, which translated means "four divisions of the military", infantry, cavalry, elephants and chariots, represented respectively by pawn, knight, bishop and rook. In Persia around 600CE the name given was shatranj and rules were further developed. Shatranj was a popular game adopted up by the Muslim world after the Islamic conquest of Persia, with the pieces largely retaining their Persian names.
The Knights Templar where introduced to the game during the crusades and this allowed the spread of the game across the remainder of Christian Europe.

There is a theory that chess actually originated from a chinese game xiangqi, known to exist in China about in the 2nd Century BCE. And this was the game which developed into the indian game of chaturanga.

Between the 11th and 15th Century, the modern rules took shape through developments in southern europe, particularly Spain & Italy. The only rules left to finalise were the ones regarding Stalemate, which were adopted in the 19th century.

This variant is another often lightning quick game. The main rules being the same as normal chess, with the variant being if you can take a piece from your opponent you must. The winner being the first player to have all their pieces taken.

This game can appear to be very fun and fast, but be warned it only takes the slightest blunder to give the game away entirely, as once a powerful piece is drawn into a trap the game can quickly be over. For this reason players familiar with opening moves can be at a distinct advantage.

This is played and set up pretty much as normal. The main rule change here is that you have to consider the board as cylindrical and that pieces can disappear off one edge of the board and appear on the other.

This one is a real brain stretcher for even the most experienced of chess players!

The game is set up as normal, with the addition of a penny being placed on the board in either d4 or e4 (for those unfamiliar with the code for chess pieces this is the two center squares just over the half-way line between white & black)
The movement of all pieces is now restricted as a piece can only move if the coin can copy the exact move legally. For example, if the rook moves 3 spaces to the right, the coin has to be able to move 3 spaces to the right too.
Check does not matter in this game, as the ability to capture the king is the decider, which often can not be completed if the coin can't make the appropriate move.
This game can last for hours, and it is possible that there will be moves where a player can not move their piece, if this also results in both players being unable to move, the last move must be reversed.

The aim of the game is no different to the usual aim of capturing the oppositions king. All normal rules are valid, with the exception that it is no longer required to move out of a check or to avoid moving into a check.

Each chess piece is assoiciated to a number on the dice. For example - one for the pawn, two for the knight, three for the bishop, four for the rook, five for the queen and finally six for the king.

The dice is rolled in turns and the number thrown indicates the piece the player can move, for example throwing a 1 allows the movement of a pawn, a 6 the movement of the king.
If the player isn't able to move that particular piece, because they are no longer in possession of it or because the piece is blocked in, they have to skip or wait a turn. The one who first manages to capture the other one's king wins the game.

Dice Chess is ideal for those wanting a fast game as by throwing a dice the choice of what piece to move is made for you. It is also quite a good way of leveling the playing field between a novice and experienced player due to the random nature of play.

Another entry to medium level variant.

The pawns are set up as normal, though the order of the pieces on the back row is chosen almost randomly, though there are some restrictions on what are legal placements. The method of set up is open to choice, from picking the pieces randomly out of a bag, each player taking turns, and having black mirror white. Conventionally when setting up bishops must be on differing colours and the king must be between the rooks.

This game was further developed by world champion Bobby Fischer and is called Fischer Random Chess, the rules on randomizing the back row are somewhat more developed and usually involve a computer providing a random set up, or throwing dice and consulting a table.

Both shuffle and Fishcer Random Chess can be quite a bizarre way to play chess, but what they both do is level the playing field when playing against a person who has a number of set openings perfected and plays a good opening game. This turns what was a game of memory, into a game of skill.

Tandem Chess is a team game played by 2 teams of two on two separate boards. Each team being the opposite colour on each board. Each game starts independently of the other, following the usual rules of chess, until a piece is captured. The capturing player then passes this piece to their teammate who uses it as one of their own on the other board. It can be placed anywhere on the board, with the exception that pawns cannot be placed on the first or last row, and this counts as the player's normal move.

The team who first manages to decide a game at one board wins. This is a great way of playing amongst groups and turns chess into a team sport.

In more competitive matches access to chess clocks is essential for the game to flow, though it is often claimed to become more of a battle of time & stalling than skill.

This is a quick and fairly simple game to play. The rules and set up being as normal with the twist happening on a piece being captured. Once captured that piece can then be placed anywhere back in the field of play as a legal move. Placement does not have to be immediate and pieces can be 'stockpiled', though only one piece can be added per move, the addition of the piece being the entire move.
Placement can put the king in check, or checkmate, but placement cannot be made on an opponents piece as though to take it.

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Atomic or Nuclear Chess is for those who want a quick game, most games will be completed before 20 moves.
The rules are the same as normal chess with the exception of when a piece is taken. What happens then is the taking piece can be considered as delivering a nuclear payload destroying the piece being taken, the taking piece as well as any piece in the adjoining 8 squares. This does lead to very fast game play with the number of pieces on the board being reduced rapidly until the king is attacked directly or is a victim of a neighboring 'explosion'.

nb I have been kindly contacted by the 'inventor' of Nuclear Chess to clarify an additional rule I had not realised existed, though some may see it as optional - "the (explosion) square also is a "Dead Square" in that it's no longer a part of the board. Pieces cannot move onto or through the dead square."

This variation was suggested to me by Fritz of LearnToPlayChessWithFritz.com.
It's a really simple method of teaching the moves of each chess piece. It's called Queens Battle as it's simplest and easiest to play with the queen.
The board is set up with queens in opposing corners and a number of pawns scattered randomly around the board. The objective of the game is to capture the most pawns. You are not permitted to take the other players queen.
In this it is probably the most simple chess variant I have come across and therefore ideal for introducing chess to the very young.
You can substitute the queens for other chess pieces to introduce the patterns of movement for other pieces, though the advantage of starting with the queen is that it's range of movement allows for quite fast games.

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