Ponderchess / Explore the game
Chess variants
Chess has never stood still. The game you know is itself a variant: a 15th-century reform of a Persian game, which came from India. Here are the versions players have invented since, who made them, and why, with 8 you can play against the bot right now.
Play against the bot
Choose a variantEvery game runs on a 2D or 3D board. Fairy-Stockfish’s rules engine checks every move, and a multi-variant Stockfish plays the other side, from Novice to full strength.
- A shuffled back rankChess960Checkmate the king, exactly as in standard chess.Play now History and rules
- Captured pieces returnCrazyhouseCheckmate the king. Pieces you capture join your army.Play now History and rules
- Captures explodeAtomicBlow up the enemy king, or checkmate it.Play now History and rules
- Three checks winThree-checkGive check three times, or checkmate.Play now History and rules
- Win in the centreKing of the HillBring your king safely to one of the four centre squares, or checkmate.Play now History and rules
- Lose everything to winAntichessLose all your pieces, or have no legal move.Play now History and rules
- 36 pawns against an armyHordeBlack must capture every white pawn. White wins by checkmate.Play now History and rules
- A race to the last rankRacing KingsBe first to bring your king to the eighth rank.Play now History and rules
Seven ways to change chess
Almost every variant changes one of a few things. Most of the famous ones change only one, which is why they still feel like chess.
- Where the pieces startChess960, Horde, odds games
- How you winKing of the Hill, Three-check, Racing Kings, Antichess
- What a capture doesCrazyhouse drops, Atomic explosions
- The pieces themselvesCapablanca, Seirawan and Grand Chess
- The board6×6, hexagons, cubes
- What you can seeKriegspiel, Fog of War
- Who plays, and whenBughouse, Duck Chess
Fifteen centuries of new rules
- c. 600Chaturanga is played in India, the earliest known game in the chess family.
- 7th c.Shatranj spreads from Persia across the Islamic world.
- c. 1475Spain and Italy give the queen and bishop long-range moves: modern chess.
- 1617Pietro Carrera adds a rook–knight and a bishop–knight on a 10×8 board.
- 1899Henry Michael Temple introduces Kriegspiel.
- 1907Ferdinand Maack publishes Raumschach, the first well-known 3D chess.
- 1920sCapablanca proposes a wider board to stave off “draw death”.
- 1956Los Alamos chess lets the MANIAC I computer play on a 6×6 board.
- 1984Christian Freeling publishes Grand Chess.
- 1996Bobby Fischer announces Fischer Random Chess.
- 2007Seirawan and Harper introduce S-chess.
- 2016A computer proof shows 1.e3 wins Antichess for White.
- 2024Elite players compete in Chess960 under the Freestyle Chess name.
Every variant
Ancestors
Regional cousins
New starting positions
New ways to win
- King of the HillPlayableWalk your king safely onto one of the four centre squares and you win on the spot.
- Three-checkPlayableGive check three times and you win, so every open line toward a king becomes a threat.
- Racing KingsPlayableNo checks allowed: both kings race up the board, and the first to reach the eighth rank wins.
- AntichessPlayableChess in reverse: captures are compulsory, and the first player to lose all their pieces wins.
New capture rules
New pieces
- Capablanca ChessWorld champion Capablanca’s fix for a game he feared was being played out: a wider board and two new pieces that combine the knight with rook and bishop.
- Seirawan ChessTwo compound pieces, the hawk and the elephant, that wait off the board and step onto a back-rank square as soon as it is vacated.
- Grand ChessChristian Freeling’s large-board chess: a 10×10 board, a marshal and a cardinal, and pawns that can promote only to pieces you have lost.
New boards
- Los Alamos ChessChess shrunk to 6×6 so the MANIAC I computer could play: the first chess-like game in which a computer beat a human.
- Hexagonal ChessWładysław Gliński’s chess on 91 hexagonal cells in three colours, once played widely in Eastern Europe.
- Three-dimensional chessFrom Ferdinand Maack’s Raumschach of 1907 to the stacked boards of Star Trek: chess played in a cube.