Chess variants supported by XBoard

Next to orthodox Chess (aka FIDE or Mad Queen), XBoard supports many other Chess variants. This includes the World's major forms of Chess: Chinese, FIDE, Japanese, and Thai Chess. But also many popular western variants (Suicide Chess, Crazyhouse, Chess960, Gothic/Capablanca Chess, Seirawan Chess).

Full support by XBoard means that the latter is fully aware of how all pieces move, and what the winning condition is. This means the variant can be played with the option Test Legality switched on, and that it can accurately check any result claims that engines make. Non-supported variants can often be played with legality checking switched off. Then any of the 22 piece types known by XBoard can be used in ways XBoard does not expect. The only real drawback of this is that the game notation looks a bit crummy, with many spurious or missing disambiguators, check and checkmate symbols. XBoard will always be able to read suh games back, however (as on reading it suffers from the same misconceptions on piece movement). This can be kept baerable by choosing XBoard supported pieces to represent the unsupported ones that move as similar as possible.

Some variants are only partially supported. This means they have to be played with legality checking off, although XBoard knows they exist, and even implements some of their rules that no other variant would allow. For instance, in Berolina Chess Pawns move diagonally, and in any other variant this would lead to disappearence of other Pawns during the game, as normally XBoard interprets a diagonal Pawn move to an empty square as e.p. capture.

The following list tries to group all variants by properties. Some duplicates occur when a variant fits in more than one group.

List of supported variants

	= recommended
FIDE Chess	The modern international game, second in popularity only to Xiangqi
Shuffle games with normal pieces
Wild Castle	Shuffles the initial FIDE setup, leaving King and Rooks in place
No Castle	More aggressive shuffling of the initial FIDE setup, without castling
Chess960	A Shuffle variant where even Kings and Rooks in non-standard location can castle
Variants with piece drops
Crazyhouse	Pieces you capture are added to your army, by dropping them back onto the board
Bughouse	four-player game that XBoard can only play with the aid of an Internet Chess Server
Shogi	Japanese Chess, where pieces you captured can be dropped to strengthen your own army
mini-Shogi	Highly simplified and very tactical mini version of Shogi (on 5x5 board)
Unusual winning conditions
Suicide Chess	Win by getting rid of all your material by mandatory capture
Give-Away Chess	Win by getting rid of all your material by mandatory capture
Losers Chess	Win by being left with a bare King
3-checks	Lose by being checked 3 times
Variants with various intrusive rules
Atomic Chess	Pieces that capture explode, destroying anything in the vicinity
Cylinder Chess	The a-file and h-file connect to make the board a cylinder
TwoKings	Play with two Kings, changing which one is royal during the game
Variants where just a few pieces move in unorthodox ways
Shatranj	Ancient Arabic/Persian Chess, with primitive Queen and Bishops
Berolina Chess	Pawns capture straight ahead, and move diagonally
ASEAN	South-East Asian Chess, a modernized version of Makruk
Knightmate	Try to checkmate a single Royal Knight with (amongst others) two non-royal Kings
Falcon Chess	Two (Rook-class) Falcon pieces augment FIDE on a 10-wide board
Mighty-Lion Chess	All-powerful Lions can capture other pieces en-passant, or two pieces at once
Variants with extra Rook-Knight and Bishop-Knight compound pieces
Seirawan Chess	Two extra super-pieces can be 'gated' onto the board during the opening
Capablanca Chess	Two super-pieces are added to FIDE on a 10-wide board
Gothic Chess	Two super-pieces are added to FIDE on a 10-wide board, with stream-lined initial setup
Janus Chess	Two Janus super-pieces (B-N compounds) are added to FIDE on a 10-wide board
Capablanca Random Chess	Capablanca Chess with shuffled initial setup, with generalized castling rules
Grand Chess	Chess on a 10x10 board with two extra super-pieces
Oriental forms of Chess
Xiangqi	Chinese Chess, where the King is confined to a Palace
Shogi	Japanese Chess, where pieces you captured can be dropped to strengthen your own army
Sho Shogi	Ancient precurser of the modern Japanese 9x9 Shogi game (without drops)
Chu Shogi	Ancient Japanese Chess with many pieces on a 12x12 board, and a Lion super-piece
Makruk	Thai Chess, with an interesting Elephant piece
ASEAN	South-East Asian Chess, a modernized version of Makruk
Variants with mostly un-orthodox pieces
Courier Chess	Mediaval precursor of Chess, combining Shatranj with modern pieces on a wide board
Superchess	Randomly picked unorthodox pieces of many kinds replace some of your FIDE pieces
Great Shatranj	Version of Capablanca Chess that replaces all sliding moves by 2-square jumps
Spartan Chess	Two different armies (Persians and Spartans, the latter lead by two Kings) battle each other
Chess with Different Armies	Pick one of a set of (mostly) unsual armies to battle a completely different army
Chu Shogi	Ancient Japanese Chess with many pieces on a 12x12 board, and a Lion super-piece
Chu Chess	Intermediate between Chess and Chu shogi, on a 10x10 board
Cambodian Chess
Ai-Wok Makruk