Play Siamese Chess
Ever wanted to play chess with your friends, but felt limited by the fact that you could only play one person at a time? Siamese chess is a variant of chess with four players, commonly known as "bughouse", (a Find the Definition of Slang Words term for "mental hospital"), because it's often played at a fast time control and looks "crazy" to spectators.
This game is not related to the variant of chess played in Siam (now Thailand), which is called Makruk.
Contents
Steps
- Divide the players into two teams. Try to divide the stronger players evenly.
- Sit each team across the table from the other. Have the stronger players on each team sit across from each other, and the weaker players face each other as well.
- Place a chessboard between each opposing pair of players. Remember that the bottom right square should be white, like in a normal chess game.
- Set up the boards as in normal chess. You and the teammate next to you play different colors: if you're playing as black, he or she will be white, and vice versa.
- Start your clocks. Place the clocks on the outsides so that all players can see them. The players with black pieces typically start their clocks simultaneously. A move is completed only when the clock is pressed. This step is optional, see the Tips below.
- Begin play as if it were a normal game. However, when you take an opponent's piece, you hand it to your teammate.
- Place the pieces you receive from your teammate in reserve, or use your turn to put it on the board. You can place a piece anywhere on the board, unless it would put your opponent in check. Also, pawns cannot be placed on the first or last row. You don't have to place a piece immediately after you receive it; you can place it on any turn, but it uses that turn.
- Checkmate on any board ends the game. The player that checkmates his or her opponent wins the game for his or her team.
Tips
- You can thwart checkmate by placing another piece in the way of the piece threatening you when you couldn't otherwise in regular chess. For example, if you would have normally been checkmated by being trapped behind three pawns (e.g., when you castle) by a rook or queen, you can now place a piece taken by your teammate in a blocking position, preventing checkmate.
- Clocking the game is optional, and is mainly useful to prevent a player from stalling their moves while waiting for a piece from a teammate.
- While it is easier to prevent checkmate, it's also easier, if you know what you're doing, to checkmate someone; you can put them in a position that may seem relatively harmless, until you create a new threat by placing a piece.
- You may not "place check" even unintentionally. No piece may be added to the board that places the opponent in check.
- This game has been hailed by some chess teams and players as being able to sharpen skills normally not exercised by the "normal" game.
- This game can also be played on one board, commonly known as Crazyhouse chess, in where you can drop pieces you captured.
- Some other names for this type of chess are: exchange chess, tandem chess, bughouse, transfer chess, team chess, and flying chess (pieces "fly" across boards).
- You can experiment with variants of Siamese chess:
- Place pieces only on your own half of the board
- Continue until both games are complete, then determine the winning team by adding up the scores
- A team wins only by capturing all the kings on the board
- A checkmate doesn't end the game, only actually capturing the king does.
- Stricter or more relaxed rules about where the pawns can be placed
- Play with more than two boards (and hence, more players). Note that if you have more than two boards, you can pass to any member of your team.
- There is actually a Bughouse competition in the United States Chess Federation.
- You can communicate with your teammate, asking them for a specific piece, for example, but you can't actually make any moves on their board. The best strategy, however, includes keeping an eye on your teammate's board to anticipate what pieces might be needed or provided by either player.
Warnings
- This requires a much different strategy than regular chess. It will probably be more difficult in your first few games. You may have to learn how to make wise sacrifices of your own pieces so that you can obtain a certain piece for your teammate.
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