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Crazyhouse is a chess variant similar to bughouse chess, but with only two players. Whenever a player captures a piece, that player receives a piece of that type but of his color. Promoted pawns turn back into pawns, when captured. Rather than move during a given turn, a player may place one of his acquired pieces (called "pocket" or "reserve") on the board on any unoccupied location. Pawns may not be placed on the first or eigth rank.
There are variations of the game, which are known under different names:
- Loop Chess - promoted pawns keep their rank when captured.
- Chessgi, Neo Chess - promoted pawns keep their rank when captured; it is allowed to drop pawns on the first rank.
For recording games, the usual algebraic notation of chess is extended to allow specifing the drop of a piece. For example, "p@d5" means "pawn is placed on d5 from reserve".
The game was played by many chess grandmasters, including Bent Larsen, Tigran Petrosian and Boris Spassky.
Strategy and tactics
Crazyhouse is very tactical game with initiative playing most important role. The engames as known in chess don't exist - the queen exchange does not simplify the position, but on contrary, usually sharpens it to a high extent.
Gambits, like king or queen gambit in Crazyhouse should usually be avoided. For example, after 1. d4 d5 2. c4? dxc4 3. Nf3, black can simply play 3. ... p@d5 (place captured pawn on d5) with white having no compensation.
Pieces in crazyhouse have different values to that in chess. Their approximate values are as follows:
- knight - 2 pawns
- bishop - 2 pawns
- rook - 3 pawns
- queen - 5 pawns
How to play
The game can be played over internet on BrainKing.com (http://brainking.com) (Loop Chess) or SchemingMind.com (http://www.schemingmind.com). To play over the board you either need two chess sets or a special set of Neo Chess (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/10500#articles). In the latter pieces can be turned over, like in Reversi to change the color.
External links
- Crazyhouse (http://www.chessvariants.org/other.dir/crazyhouse.html)
- Loop Chess (http://brainking.com/game/GameRules?tp=6)
- Chessgi (http://www.chessvariants.org/other.dir/chessgi.html)
- Sjeng (http://sjeng.org/indexold.html) - strong Crazyhouse engine
- Sunsetter (http://sunsetter.sourceforge.net/) - another strong Crazyhouse engine
- 5th Japanese Sake Tourney, Halkidiki 2004 (http://www.aloofhosting.com/wccc2004/sake/sake.html) - Crazyhouse problems
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