[slphil]

Unfortunately, a lot of strong chess players do not enjoy playing Chess960 because we've already invested hundreds of hours into learning openings and how those openings transition into a middlegame. While it's certainly fair (position is the same for both sides), it gives positions which are almost impossible to evaluate. This is exciting for spectators, but for me it's excruciatingly nerve-wracking. I can't play it.

[deusofnull]

I spent hours going through this list on wiki of chess variants. are there any on there that sound compelling to you or less nerve racking? there are even historical variants I've heard of, like one from the mongolian empire where there were "fortress" squares that were immune from attack. theres also a gimick version that sounds fun called "atomic chess" where when a piece dies, it takes out surrounding squares. and another called monster chess where white plays with only 4 pawns and their king, black has all their pieces, but white moves twice per turn.

[dmurray]

I've played a lot of chess variants of various levels of sophistication. Here's one due to a friend of mine that I've been enjoying recently:

- normal chess, except you can't move the same piece your opponent just moved. So if I move a pawn, you must move a king/queen/bishop/rook/knight.

- check and checkmate are as normal, no need to capture the king. It's checkmate if the only move that would stop check is to move the forbidden piece. Stalemate also happens - king and queen is not enough to mate unless the kings are fortunately placed.

- castling is a king move

- pawn promotion counts as a pawn move when promoting, but a move with the promoted piece when considering the next player's move

- Black's e-pawn starts on e6 (alternatively, both players start the game with one free move)

My friend invented this as a way to play against beginners, where he plays with this restriction unknown to them. We refined it into an interesting competitive variant.

[genera1]

Castling is a king move in regular chess

[dmurray]

In regular chess it's incidental. It only comes up in relation to the touch-move rule and similar rules. And even there it's given special treatment: if you touch your king, then your rook, you must castle on that side if it's legal, instead of making any other legal king move.

In this variant, whether castling is considered a king move or a rook move or both has an effect on which moves are legal, so it needs to be spelt out.

[slphil]

I enjoy many chess variants. Atomic chess is quite fun (in 2012 or so a friend and I created an opening book to find forcing lines for White, where Black must know the correct line or lose by force). I have spent hundreds of hours playing bughouse, especially playing both boards against a normal team (which is a very fun way to play for stronger players). The difference is that none of these variants make a claim to be a replacement for normal chess. The seriousness of chess960 is exactly why I don't like it. Bughouse is not intended to be taken seriously.