What is a chess variant?

A variant is chess with one or two rules changed, but it is a brand new game. Over 2,000 variants exist, and nobody knows them all.

Five to try

• Bughouse: two teams of two play on two boards. When you capture a piece, you hand it to your partner, who may place it on their board.
• Chess960: this game was Bobby Fischer's idea. The pieces on the back row are shuffled, so there are 960 ways to start.
• King of the Hill: you win when your king reaches one of the four middle squares.
• Atomic: every capture makes an explosion, and the pieces around it disappear too. Pawns next to the blast stay on the board. You win by blowing up the king.
• Three-check: give check three times, and you win.

Where do I play them?

You find variants at club nights, chess camps, school chess groups and at home. They are often a warm-up, or a fun round at the end. If there are only two of you, play crazyhouse on one board instead of Bughouse. It has the same rule about placing captured pieces. On Lichess, eight variants sit together on one page. You can play there on a kid-safe account your grown-up made. A grown-up who plays chess may know a variant too, so ask them.

Are variants real chess?

Yes, they are, because they use the same pieces and the same moves, with one twist. In Chess960, the first moves you learned by heart do not help you. So you have to look at the board from the very first move. World champion Anatoly Karpov played three-check as a boy. Wild games like these are training too.

How you get the sticker

Your grown-up or coach checks it and hands you the sticker. Maybe they watched you play. If they did not watch, explain the rules of each variant you played. Then say who you played with, and where. Your grown-up or coach decides how many variants is several. If you have no club yet, your grown-up at home checks it. Did you play a variant before you had the passport? It still counts.