Fun variants you play over the board?

I thought it would be fun to share the variants we play over the board casually or at the club.

Two player Bughouse with Kibitzing:

We sometimes play four-player bughouse to relax at the club. If you win a piece you can give it to your partner, and they can put it anywhere on the board (except a pawn can't be on the promotion square). We argue about whether you can talk during the game, for example saying things like "a rook! I just need a rook to mate!". As soon as one player mates, that team wins.

Piece Reverso:

This an easier variant than blindfold chess. At the start of the game you set up the board with the pawns and pieces swapped. So pawns on the first row. Pieces on the second row. But... you play those pawns as if they were pieces, and the pieces as if they were pawns. It means you have to remember where each "piece" or "pawn" started in order to know what it actually is. After a few moves it gets pretty hard to remember what everything is. And if somebody comes and looks at your game , they will be VERY confused if they don't know its Piece Reverso.

I sometimes play 'Alice chess' variant with my friend. All you need is another (empty) chessboard. :)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_chess

@EmaciatedSpaniard said in #1:
> I thought it would be fun to share the variants we play over the board casually or at the club.
>
> Two player Bughouse with Kibitzing:
>
> We sometimes play four-player bughouse to relax at the club. If you win a piece you can give it to your partner, and they can put it anywhere on the board (except a pawn can't be on the promotion square). We argue about whether you can talk during the game, for example saying things like "a rook! I just need a rook to mate!". As soon as one player mates, that team wins.

I am fairly certain that talking is always allowed in bughouse games (unless you are trying to distract the opponent), whenever I go to bughouse Tournaments (which is admittedly not that often) the playing hall is very loud with players yelling "Should I trade queens?" "NO DON'T TRADE QUEENS" "ok", opponent talking to his teamate: "Rook incoming, I need a knight for checkmate" "Should I sac for it?" "yes".
Also while I am not sure about this point I think a teamate telling you what to do is allowed

"Gimme pawns! Gimme pawns!"

@Sahist4 said in #2:
> I sometimes play 'Alice chess' variant with my friend. All you need is another (empty) chessboard. :)
>
> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_chess
That sounds pretty mind bending!

@EmaciatedSpaniard said in #5:
> That sounds pretty mind bending!

It is! And fun too, adds another dimension to the game, literary. ;D

@MrPushwood said in #4:
> "Gimme pawns! Gimme pawns!"
I NEED MORE PAWNS!!!

#1
I have played the first one quite number of times with my friends. It was funny though.
And second one too, I have played which was insane. I won all games (out of 10) except 2 both of which were draws as we were not able to identify the pieces. The longest such game lasted around 32 moves.

This variant of chess is very fun.
A screen is placed in the middle of the board, dividing each side of the board.
The players then can place their chessmen in any position they wish, on their side. (No pawns on the back rank)
The screen is lifted and the game begins.
Kind of like starting out in middle game.
Castling is allowed if the king and rook are in their normal starting chess positions.
En passant is allowed.
It was fun coming up with various starting positions, that were effective.
Try it, fun to play! - :]

For historical variants, Makruk (Thai chess), Xiangqi (Chinese chess) and Janggi with traditional rules (Korean chess, no score counting and bikjang is draw)
For modern variants, Horde, Capablanca's chess, 3-d chess (raumschach) crazyhouse, gardener's minichess, hoppel-poppel chess and shako.

Some rules:
www.pychess.org/variants/capablanca
www.pychess.org/variants/shako
www.pychess.org/variants/hoppelpoppel