Chess.com has added a handful of new variants, and one of them is understandably sweeping all the video bloggers. Duck chess sounds kind of dumb, but I am finding it addictive – basically, it’s just like a normal chess game, except every move you have to move a little duck around the board. What does the duck do? It’s basically a brick sitting on a square, blocking anything that tries to go through it, other than knights jumping over it.
The net effect, as best I can tell so far, is substantially increasing the tactical possibilities of positions.
This has apparently actually been around since 2016, so, not so new, but new to me anyway, and new to chess.com.
If someone threw a chess set at my head, I’d be sure to duck chess.
It’s been awhile since I’ve played chess, but this sounds like an intriguing variation. Much more so than Madhouse Chess or Cylindrical Nuclear Chess.
So, you make your normal move, and then choose how to move the duck, and then the opponent makes their normal move, and then chooses how to move the duck? How does the duck move, like a king?
The concept reminds me of “Duck Shakespeare”: At a public outdoors Shakespeare play I was at some years back, the action was interrupted by a pair of very enthusiastic mallards, and the actors all proceeded to ad-lib off of them.
It can go to any empty square, and it can’t stay still. There’s no check, so you can expose your king then immediately rectify it with the duck.
The answer is in the link in the OP,
- To play Duck Chess, you need two players, a standard chess set, and one rubber duck (small enough to occupy a single square of the chessboard).
- Each player’s turn always consists of two actions: (1) making a standard chess move, and then (2) moving the duck to any empty square on the board. (The duck must be moved – it cannot be left where it is.)
If anyone in my county played it, the board would be full of buckshot.
12 gauge takes ducky. Check!
“To be or not to be, that is the quacktion.”
Do you have to move your piece first, then the duck, or can you do it either way?
Yeah, I think moving the duck piece first would completely invalidate the whole point behind the game, which would be to place the duck in a strategic location to limit your opponent’s movement. If you could just move it right out of the way on the first move, there’s really no new game there.
I’ve played a bunch more, and I’m pretty mediocre at it…low 1500s so far. The tactical possibilities make my head hurt.
It would appear to give knights more value.