I played bughouse in the early 90s. It’s far better than chess. My teammate and I were really good. We would beat chess grandmasters because the game is so different. At the time we had bughouse Elos of something like 2300, which don’t make any sense because it was such a niche game.
When you get good at bughouse, you make your own openings and you each know who’s playing what. The openings are synchronized and you can plan out until a certain move where you sacrifice a bishop or knight on the opponents king bishop pawn, exposing them, then your teammate just trades as much material as possible.
We also got really really good at the clocks. We’d just have a winning position and sit on the clock on the other board in a zugzwang-like time force.
That game, and kriegspiel, occupied my time in much of the 90s. If you like chess, and can play in person, try bughouse. It’s the best.
This is, I suppose, off-topic from the main premise of the article.
I've never heard of Crazyhouse before, but the drop rule is clearly inspired by Shogi (sometimes colloquially referred to in English as "Japanese Chess"). Shogi is very good. I find it to be much more enjoyable than Chess. I would suggest giving it a try if you prefer Crazyhouse to normal Chess.
This article is really well written. I like how it defines a new concept (bughouse chess), then uses it to help describe an emotion they’ve been feeling wrt more popular culture.
I also think bughouse seems cool (aside from the issues mentioned), and want to give it a shot now. Probably in-person.
I played bughouse in the early 90s. It’s far better than chess. My teammate and I were really good. We would beat chess grandmasters because the game is so different. At the time we had bughouse Elos of something like 2300, which don’t make any sense because it was such a niche game.
When you get good at bughouse, you make your own openings and you each know who’s playing what. The openings are synchronized and you can plan out until a certain move where you sacrifice a bishop or knight on the opponents king bishop pawn, exposing them, then your teammate just trades as much material as possible.
We also got really really good at the clocks. We’d just have a winning position and sit on the clock on the other board in a zugzwang-like time force.
That game, and kriegspiel, occupied my time in much of the 90s. If you like chess, and can play in person, try bughouse. It’s the best.
This is, I suppose, off-topic from the main premise of the article.
I've never heard of Crazyhouse before, but the drop rule is clearly inspired by Shogi (sometimes colloquially referred to in English as "Japanese Chess"). Shogi is very good. I find it to be much more enjoyable than Chess. I would suggest giving it a try if you prefer Crazyhouse to normal Chess.
This article is really well written. I like how it defines a new concept (bughouse chess), then uses it to help describe an emotion they’ve been feeling wrt more popular culture.
I also think bughouse seems cool (aside from the issues mentioned), and want to give it a shot now. Probably in-person.