Variants of Online Chess Games

Playing chess is for the mindful ones, who like to challenge their brains every now and then. Chess is the most famous puzzle game and all people have some interest in playing the game becoming good at it so that they can have some confidence boost.

Chess works wonders for people and there are many different ways in which a game of chess can be played. Chess is a puzzle that can be modified for pastime, competitive play, fun activities, and even extreme brain challenges.

Since it’s the time when you can’t really go out with your chessboard and play with your buddies and playmates, it is a good idea to go online to play chess with virtual chessboards. But you must know that the variants of chess played online are different than any tournament and common competition game. You can learn in-depth about the following variants of online chess while taking your chess training online.

1. Bughouse

Bughouse is a team-up variant of chess where you play with a partner. The game is played by four people on two different chessboards. Each of the teammates must play with the one opponent of the other team with the same goal as in normal chess which is checkmate or timeout.

As a rule, one teammate must take white and the other must take black thus creating a parity. The only twist is in the capturing of opponent pieces where a piece captured by a player goes into his partner’s piece bank and can be used by him in his moves further in the game and vice-versa.

2. Crazyhouse

Crazyhouse is a form of chess where if you remove the possibility of winning with a timeout, the battle of the brains can go on for hours before a player checkmates the other. The reason for this is the reintroduction of the captured pieces of the opponent on the board.

In a crazy house game, the pieces that you capture from the opponent can be reversed in color and added to your own piece bank. You can drop pieces at any time from your bank instead of making a move and use it to save a check on your king.

3. 3-Check

3 check is a variant of online chess where generally the victory of a player is determined with 3 checks on the opponent’s king. The rules of checkmate, stalemate, and timeout still count but you can’t win if your king has got 3 checks. Though a double check is added as one check to even the odds.

4. King of the Hill

King of the hill is the most interesting variant of online chess where you can win the game if you can move your king safely to the squares e4, d4, e5, or d5, which are the centermost squares or ‘hill’ of the board. There will still be checkmate on the king and the king will still move one square at a time. You can learn chess online and know about the patterns and moves that are generally used in such a game.

5. Chess 960

Late World Champion of chess, Bobby Fischer invented the Fischer Random or Chess 960 variant of chess. This might be the most popular game you’ll come around while taking chess coaching online. The games in this variant still end in checkmate, stalemate, or timeout.

Although, the impact of the general opening theory is reduced in the game by stacking the back-end pieces to the random location before starting the game. To maintain the ability to castle the king from both sides, the king should be placed between rooks in this game too. It means that the king can only be placed on squares b1 and g1 or b8 and g8 for Black.

There are a lot of puzzles in the Black and White squares which can help you to master the whole game. You can practice your moves and come up with patterns against your opponent through these game variants when you take chess coaching online. When you learn chess online it lets you record your games and analyze them for other games you play.