Bughouse chess and random to the casual onlooker; hence the name bughouse, which is slang for mental hospital. The game is traditionally played as a diversion from regular chess both over the board and online. Yearly, several dedicated bughouse tournaments are organised on a national and an international level. Bughouse is a chess variant played on two chessboards by four players in teams of two. Each team member faces one opponent of the other team. Partners sit next to each other and one player has black, while the other has white. Each player plays the opponent as in a standard chess game,
Apocalypse (chess variant) Apocalypse (chess variant) Apocalypse is a chess variant invented by C. S. Elliott in 1976. The players each start with two "horsemen" and five "footmen" on a 5×5 board. The two sides make their moves simultaneously. The game was featured in Issue 53 of "Games & Puzzles" magazine. The starting setup is as shown. Horsemen and footmen move and capture the same as knights and pawns in chess, except footmen do not have a double-step option on their first move. For each turn, each player secretly writes down his move, then the players simultaneously declare them. The following rules apply: