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Ask HN: Can we brainstorm a new chess style?

I've always enjoyed chess but when I was in the office today, a colleague had the NFL draft up on the screen and we started talking about economics and budgets for major league teams. What if there was a style of chess where instead of each team starting with equal pieces, each type of piece was assigned a value (e.g. pawn= 2, queen = 50, rook = 10) and each player gets a set number of points (e.g. 100 total) which they could use to spend on any piece they wanted and everyone of course has a king. So someone could end up starting a game with a queen, 4 rooks, and 5 pawns. I know this is a bit of a silly idea but thought it might be a fun twist on an old game and lend a new dimension to how people optimize their strategies.

linkdd 4y ago
Sounds like Poker Chess (or Choker) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVx8l0y8rGI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVx8l0y8rGI
PaulHoule 4y ago
You've seen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_random_chess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_random_chess ? I've thought about a variant of chess where people get the two sides of the board randomized differently. Also this http://reallybadchess.com/ http://reallybadchess.com/ The latter contains a chess engine which works for generic positions that don't arise is normal chess.
deleted 4y ago
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themodelplumber 4y ago
It's fun to think about different ways to play chess. Point- and deck-build systems are pretty interesting. I also like explosion mechanics, like your for example you could say that any one piece can keep moving (or move up to N times) as long as it keeps capturing. Similar to exploding dice, where after rolling 6 on a d6 you can roll again and add to your total, rerolling as long as you roll 6 again. Another one that could be interesting is a motivational or morale advantage, where let's say that if you capture an opponent's piece, another one of your pieces gets a free move (due to high morale on your side). I'll also confess that I enjoy turning chess into a dice-based war game at times :-) Nice idea for a post.
adamredwoods 4y ago
BoardGameGeek has quite a few chess variants: https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Chess_Games https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Chess_Games
gus_massa 4y ago
Your value for the queen is too high. There are a few "standard" tables of chess pieces values https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value As you can see, everyone has a slightly different opinion. Note that this numbers are useful as a very rough estimation of the position.

linkdd 4y ago

Sounds like Poker Chess (or Choker) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVx8l0y8rGI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVx8l0y8rGI

PaulHoule 4y ago

You've seen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_random_chess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_random_chess ? I've thought about a variant of chess where people get the two sides of the board randomized differently. Also this http://reallybadchess.com/ http://reallybadchess.com/ The latter contains a chess engine which works for generic positions that don't arise is normal chess.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

themodelplumber 4y ago

It's fun to think about different ways to play chess. Point- and deck-build systems are pretty interesting. I also like explosion mechanics, like your for example you could say that any one piece can keep moving (or move up to N times) as long as it keeps capturing. Similar to exploding dice, where after rolling 6 on a d6 you can roll again and add to your total, rerolling as long as you roll 6 again. Another one that could be interesting is a motivational or morale advantage, where let's say that if you capture an opponent's piece, another one of your pieces gets a free move (due to high morale on your side). I'll also confess that I enjoy turning chess into a dice-based war game at times :-) Nice idea for a post.

adamredwoods 4y ago

BoardGameGeek has quite a few chess variants: https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Chess_Games https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Chess_Games

gus_massa 4y ago

Your value for the queen is too high. There are a few "standard" tables of chess pieces values https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value As you can see, everyone has a slightly different opinion. Note that this numbers are useful as a very rough estimation of the position.