Sam Trenholme wrote on Fri, Nov 28, 2008 04:38 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
I like this variant; it's a classic 'How close can we be to normal FIDE chess while throwing out the opening book?' variant. Another variant along the same lines that Mr. Winther has proposed is chess 256, where we randomly move a pawn up one square for the eight squares on both sides of the board.
Another idea I like along the same lines is to keep black pieces where they are, but swap White's queen and king. Now, in White's OO move, the king moves right two squares (from the d file to the f file) and the h rook moves left three squares, and in White's OOO move, the king moves left two square (from the d file to the b file) and White's a rook moves right 2 squares to the c file.
Any other ideas for modest chess variants that keep the game the same as much as possible, while throwing out the FIDE opening book?
Another idea I like along the same lines is to keep black pieces where they are, but swap White's queen and king. Now, in White's OO move, the king moves right two squares (from the d file to the f file) and the h rook moves left three squares, and in White's OOO move, the king moves left two square (from the d file to the b file) and White's a rook moves right 2 squares to the c file.
Any other ideas for modest chess variants that keep the game the same as much as possible, while throwing out the FIDE opening book?