An Introduction to Bughouse Chess

Bughouse chess (or siamese chess) is a variant of international chess played between two player teams on two separate boards. The special feature of the game is that pieces you capture are transferred to your partner, who is playing with the opposite color pieces from yourself. He may "plonk", or drop, such a piece on an empty square on the board as a subsequent move in his game. However, there are some restrictions: Pawns cannot be plonked onto your first or eighth rank, although they may be dropped onto the seventh rank and promoted on the next move. To see how bughouse games are annotated, go to the Chess Notation page. Pieces that had been promoted revert to Pawns when captured and passed to your partner. The match is finished when one player is checkmated, resigns, or is flagged (his time runs out). His team loses.

Note that checkmate is defined differently: Now there must be no possibility of avoiding checkmate by a drop interposition. Even if your opponent is holding no pieces that he can drop, he may later get a piece to interpose from his partner. Thus, only contact and Knight checks can give a "decisive" checkmate.

Bughouse Strategy

Bughouse games are very dynamic. The position never simplifies since captured pieces are constantly being recycled. Draws are unheard of. Many of the strategies below apply:

1. King safety is paramount, so don't leave weak squares next to your King. This applies in particular to f2 and f7. Diagonal weaknesses are prey to dropped pieces.
2. Contact checks and Knight checks are best, so your opponent cannot drop a piece to interpose. This makes the Knight a very powerful piece, often worth more than a Rook.
3. Drop Pawns near the last rank, so they can promote quickly. Pawns are quite useful for dropping in, to attack and to defend. But remember, it is illegal to drop pawns directly on the first or last rank.
4. Always try to keep some pieces held in reserve, rather than dropping them in for no reason. "A piece in the hand is worth two on the board."
5. Be on the lookout for sacrifices to create weakness. The ending combination in bughouse often starts with a blitz of sacrifice drops to lure the King out of hiding, and ends with a checkmating net.

Advanced Strategy

The above tips will get you started.  Here are some advanced tips on bughouse strategy:

Holes: Avoid leaving any holes in your position. In real chess, it may take a while for your opponent to maneuver a good piece to occupy a hole. In bughouse, any hole can be occupied immediately.  This rule basically makes fianchettoing out of the question for either side, as fianchettos can be easily occupied with Pawns. For example, after 1. e4 g6 2. d4 Nf6 White can place a Pawn on h6 already, followed by another on g7. The main difference regarding holes in bughouse is that you also have to avoid leaving holes on your second rank. The main effect of this is to eliminate the Sicilian and Queen's Gambit Openings from bughouse, as both openings leave holes on the c file. For example, after the Sicilian opening 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nb5 a6 white can place a Pawn on c7 and win Black's Queen already! This applies to the f file as well. A sample game once went 1. d4 Nf6 2. Bg5 Ne4 3. h4 d5 4. f3?? and Black placed a Pawn on f2 with mate!

Initiative: This is the key concept of bughouse. A common saying is "As long as he's in check, I'm winning". Often, new bughouse players are lured by the prospect of winning material instead of continuing attack. While this may help your partner in the short run, you and your partner will both be more comfortable if you are attacking. The best way to attack is through checks that have to be met with a King move. To accomplish this, checks should either be done with Knights (which can't be blocked) or with "contact" checks (placing a piece next to the King). Once attacking, communication with your partner becomes crucial. You must tell him which pieces you need to finish your opponent off, and often, it is a good idea to warn your partner that you are about to begin sacrificing pieces to ensure that he is not under attack first. On occasion, your attack leads to your partner getting mated!

Teamwork: This is one you don't see in real chess. However in bughouse, without teamwork you will be cooked. Even if you have nothing specific to say, letting your partner know if you are under attack or not can help him or her make decisions about what to do.  Clock information is also quite good to tell your partner. This is as a result of another key bughouse technique: the stall.

The Stall: In bughouse, you often need a certain piece to mate with. It is perfectly acceptable to wait and hope your partner gets it to you. However, stalling occurs more commonly when you are being mated by force. You realize that if you move, you are mated in one. Therefore, you simply decide not to move and let your partner try to win the game. Naturally, for this to work, you must have more time on your clock than your partner's opponent, or he will also refuse to move and you will flag first.  Another element of stalling is if you know your opponent needs a certain piece to mate you, and your partner tells you that it will come to your opponent next move. In that case, it is good strategy to tell your partner not to move until your opponent moves, so that your opponent will be forced to move without that piece. Again, unless your partner has more time than your opponent on his clock, this will not work, as your partner will flag first.

Piece Values: Most serious chess players are familiar with the Piece Value Table: Q=9, R=5, B and N=3, P=1. In bughouse however, the values are completely different. While there is no general consensus on bughouse values, here is an approximation.

   Q=10, N=7, R=4, B=2, P=1

The Knight and Queen rule the bughouse chessboard. The Queen often can be placed into a position with mate. The Knight is useful as well because it can check from a distance and not be blocked. The Bishop's value is seriously diminished, as it often performs no better than a Pawn, and sometimes not even as well. The Pawn's promotion abilities may in some positions be worth significantly more than a Bishop.

White/Black: The general strategy of bughouse is for White to go for mate, and Black to try to hold it together. Black attempts to exchange pieces to reduce his opponent's attack, while strengthening his partner's. White therefore, attempts to keep pieces on the board to ensure attacking chances. Often in bughouse, space advantages built on Pawns can reach epic proportions for White, so Black would rather have fewer pieces to try and rearrange in the face of oncoming Pawns.

The above rules are obviously meant to be general. However, understanding and utilizing them will help you play much better bughouse chess!

Conclusion

Bughouse is much more informal than regular chess and all four players generally talk during games. Oftentimes, observers watch and give advice along with the games (which is illegal in international chess tournaments). A good way to see some of the principles above put into action is to observe a bughouse game in progress. Only then will you get a sense of what fun bughouse is!