In an answer concerning “Free Parking” in Monopoly, Cecil noted an alternative chess rule allowing a player to move both rooks a single space forward in one move.
Has anyone played this option?
I am wondering what the strategic effect would be. And, more importantly, is it fun?
I take it it’s only allowed before the rooks are moved from their original corner?
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It would be a tad presumptuous to say that no one plays with this odd variation, however, I have never seen it – hadn’t even heard of it until the Cecil column, and I have played competitive chess for the psat 5 or 6 years. Furthermore, plugging “two-rooks rule” into a Google search yields a grand total of one hit – Cecil’s column. This seems to me to be a very isolated, very homegrown rule. Cecil’s tone indicates that he’s not too sure about it himself:
In addition, this rule seems nearly pointless to me. There is precious little advantage to advancing both rooks forward a square excepting extremely rare situations. (At best you will have gained control of the second rank, which is normally obstructed by pawns anyway.) This is unlike, say, castling or en passant (other “strange” moves), which both have numerous strategical uses and have the potential to occur with great regularity. The strategic and tactical implications of such a rule seem practically nil. It would almost never take place anyway – one would have to have moved both his a and h pawns forward at least a square each, and even then, barring an opponent’s ingression onto his seventh (second) rank, I don’t see why he’d want to make this move.
I can’t say he goofed, but if anyone at any time actually played with this rule, well, I just don’t see the point. It certainly is not in the same class as the Monopoly “Free Parking” idea. There are very few variant chess rules that are actually played with, but here are two that one might come across with some regularity, especially among younger players:
[ul]
[li]Bughouse (also known as doubles blitz, among other things): Two teams play each other. Teams usually consist of two players. One player plays white, the other plays black. As one captures pieces, he hands them to his partner, who can then place them as he would an ordinary piece. Pawns cannot be placed on the first or eighth rank. Some people play that you cannot place mate – you cannot checkmate by placing. This variant is invariably played at five minutes or faster, so that stalling cannot become too big of a factor, and to keep the excitement up. There can be more than two players per team…I’ve played at least one game with ten to a side, but they end very quickly – a checkmate on any board ends the whole game. Many of the online chess clubs have this variant.[/li][li]“Dragon Chess”: White gets all his pieces and plays normally, trying to checkmate black. Black has only his king and four pawns, but he gets to (has to) make two moves at a time. You’d be surprised at how hard it is for white. For example, if white has his king on e1, and black his his on e3, that is considered checkmate for black. He may check and mate with his king. If one of those pawns manages to promote, white is doomed, but fortunately those can be picked off fairly easily. They actually tend to prove more of a hindrance for black, as he wants to mobilize his king quickly.[/li][/ul]
Odds, such as giving a younger/weaker player a pawn and a move, are relatively common, but not really in the same category as games with wholly different rules.
Actual tournament chess is very standardized, and probably has been so since the Renaissance. I believe that is when castling was introduced, in Italy somewhere. Any game that you will ever come across – that is, any whose moves have been written down – from the time of Philidor on will follow the exact same rules as we do today.
I’ve known how to play Chess for over 25 years, have read 20 or more chess books, and I’ve never even HEARD of this option. This doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist somewhere, but I’d say it’s safe that it’s pretty obscure.
I also agree that it’s of extremely limited value strategically and/or tactically. It precludes castling, for one thing.
I’ve played this version of chess when I was in college and would occasionally attend the UCLA chess club. We WOULD allow you to “place mate”.
Hint for anyone who tries this game, especially in versions allowing one to “place mate”: be EXCEEDINGLY CAREFUL to protect the square your King Bishop Pawn originally occupies (King Bishop Seven), at least until you castle, or otherwise move your king away. I helped steal a surprising number of games sacrificing a piece to eliminate the King Bishop Pawn (or luring my opponent into moving said pawn) and then checkmating my opponent by having my teammate capture a bishop, queen or even PAWN and dropping said piece on King Bishop Seven (with protection).
Not to mention that castling precludes it. Castling occurs in the overwhelming majority of chess games: in all of my tournament experience, I can probably count the number of times I haven’t castled in a game on one hand. Andy Soltis published an actual figure for the percentage of games in which castling occurs in his “Chess to Enjoy” column, but I can’t remember it and I’m not going to rummage through magazines just to find it. It was pretty high though.
Heh, so true. A favorite trap to ensnare beginners:
A couple of other variants that I thought of last night:
[ul]
[li]Atomic Chess: Each player selects a pawn to be his “atomic bomb” and writes its file (a, b, c, etc.) on a piece of paper. If you trust each other you don’t have to do this – it’s an anti-cheating measure. When that pawn captures or is captured, everything in a two-square radius must be removed from the board, even “friendly” pieces and the enemy king.[/li][li]Fischer Random: The game touted by Fischer. He believes it could throw out the extensive opening preparation employed by modern-day GMs. Funny, since he was one of the first to use this strategy extensively himself, but I digress. Pawns are placed in their normal positions. White’s first rank is shuffled at random, the only conditions being that white’s king must be between his rooks, and his bishops must be on opposite colors. Blacks pieces are set up as white’s are. From there it is played like a normal chess game.[/li][li]Others: I just stumbled across this site. Giant catologue o’ variants: http://www.chessvariants.com/[/li][/ul]
I prefer the old fashioned regular game myself. I have yet to even approach mastery of its depths. I do engage in some bughouse from time to time though. 
In my limited chess experience (I was in the chess club in high school in Switzerland) I never heard of Cecil Adams’ suggested rule either.
How about this variation: you order your serfs to dress up in chess costumes, and move them around a giant field with alternating squares of grass or bare earth, and when one of the pieces takes another piece, the serf that’s the capturing peace has to beat up the captured piece. Or has that been done before?
At some big chess events, they do have giant boards where people dress up as pieces. They don’t beat each other up when captured though. 
Poking around that site that I mentioned, I noticed “Progressive Chess,” which I’ve played and which can be fun. White makes one move, blacks makes two, white makes three . . . ad infinitum. YMMV with all of these variations. In my opinion, none of them are good enough in their own right to do anything more than provide an occasional diversion for “normal chess.”
Just in case the question was serious…
Virtually every Renaissance Faire has a “Living Chess Game”. They come in several variations:
Scripted, with victories going either way.
Scripted, with victories always to the attacker.
Unscripted (sometimes with the controlling players chosen from the audience).
Usually played for laughs, and often linked in as one act of a plotline running through the entire day at the faire. Often ending in an uncontrolled brawl instead of a proper chess ending.
Arnold,
for a fictional treatment, read “The Chessmen of Mars,” by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
I played tandem chess from high school. We played you didn’t have to announce check, and could win by capturing the opponents king.
We also occasionally played a variant, which I don’t recall if it had a name, where the pieces swapped identities. Kings were queens and queens were kings. Rooks were knights, knights were bishops, bishops were rooks. And you played with the pawns of the opposite color. Apart from using the wrong pieces, it was standard chess, (e.g. the piece which represented a knight started on the knights square, etc.) but it was easy to not notice potential attacks.
Actually, not having to announce check is also a variant of “speed chess” (each player gets five minutes on his clock, and you win if the other person runs out of time, or you capture his king. “Discovered” checks (checks where you move a piece from between your king and another one of your pieces, with the second piece checking the king) are a great way to “steal” victories, especially when your opponent is under time pressure and isn’t as attentive as normal.
A great way to LOSE is to forget to stop your clock after you’ve moved (“Heh, he’s taking a long time to move. He’s gonna run out of time. SHIT!”).
Done both of 'em.
Burroughs’s The Chessmen of Mars is a good read, and his “Martian” variant of chess is supposedly playable; I even painted a board for it once, but haven’t gotten around to actually playing a game.
Does anyone know where I could buy a chess clock? And how much they cost?
And where, in the Atlanta area, I could find some people to play with?
Thanks for the info guys! (Though I was kidding above, I’ve seen fictional treatments of “live” chess games. Isn’t there one in Bergman’s movie “The Seventh Seal”?) Though I didn’t know that it was still done at Renaissance Festivals. I’ve been a couple of times to the Renaissance Fair in the Los Angeles (California, USA) area and they don’t have a “live” chess game there. I’ll look for the E. R. Burroughs book. I’m aware of his “Mars” series of novels but have never read any.
Five - you can get a chess clock here:
The Chess Store - Chess Clocks
(disclaimer - I am not affiliated with, and do not benefit from any sales made by, The Chess Store)
Or any good store that sells games might have chess clocks.
The variation of chess I used to play in high school - I played against the champion (who became the first French-speaking swiss to attain international master status), and he would play me “blindfolded” or else play me without one or both rooks. He would almost always beat me. :o
Thanks for the Chess Store link, Arnold.
Are Francophone Swiss notoriously bad at chess or something? I don’t understand why the first one becoming an International Master would be noteworthy in itself.
No, Five, we’re not notoriously bad at chess. But it’s a small population from which to draw. I mention it because it’s a matter of small-town pride (e.g. if you’re from Cleveland, Ohio, the first IM from Cleveland, Ohio would be noteworthy), and I was in classes with him in high school. So I bask in the reflection of his glory.
And the first person to do anything is noteworthy in itself.
Five, I made a Martian chess set years ago in high school, and played it a few times with my buds. It was interesting, but it was so clearly derivative that we went back to regular chess.
Well, like the other posters on here I haven't ever heard of it despite playing tournament chess through high school.[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by SDP *
[list]
[li]Bughouse (also known as doubles blitz, among other things): Two teams play each other. Teams usually consist of two players. One player plays white, the other plays black. As one captures pieces, he hands them to his partner, who can then place them as he would an ordinary piece. Pawns cannot be placed on the first or eighth rank. Some people play that you cannot place mate – you cannot checkmate by placing. This variant is invariably played at five minutes or faster, so that stalling cannot become too big of a factor, and to keep the excitement up. There can be more than two players per team…I’ve played at least one game with ten to a side, but they end very quickly – a checkmate on any board ends the whole game. Many of the online chess clubs have this variant.[/li][/QUOTE]
Well, I never ran into the name "Bughouse", but I've played this many a time with 4 players--I can't imagine the mess that results from more! We generally played it with 5 minute clocks, although if unavailable we would modify the rules--you couldn't place a piece you didn't have when you started your turn. If it ever reached a deadlock ("you move", "no, you move"), the first person who quit moving was the loser (yeah, that could be abused, but never was.)
If you really want to see wild--a couple of times I took on a couple of definintely inferior players at the same time.
We never played with the no place mate rule.So no one other than Cecil himself has heard of this?
It must be pretty rare.
We are pious toward our history in order to be cynical toward our government - Garry Wills
Would it be really bad form to ask Cecil for a cite? (Seriously.)
It does seem rather like lèse-majesté, doesn’t it?
But we are involved in fighting ignorance here, aren’t we?
[kneeling before the throne]
“Enlighten your inquiring followers, O Great Cecil! Increase our knowledge!”
[waiting for thunderbolt]