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Bughouse has many regional rules, but most of the rules given on this page do correspond to the international and widely accepted ones. For tournaments you need to be a little more precise about the handling of some potential problems, but here I would just add that : - I never heard about 'serious' bughouse played without a clock or at a time control exceeding 5 minutes per player and per move. - Verbal communication between partners is always unrestricted, and is the absolute spirit of the game. So you can advice (or flame) your partner. And I advice everybody to keep an eye on the publishing of Georg's book, which will probably be the definite saying about bughouse !
This site unfortunately is getting out of date, it for example still links to my old d2d4.de page which doesn't exist anymore for years now. I have mailed months ago about this.
In my high school chess club back in the 1970s we used to play this with multiples of 4 players--up to 16 players. You pass pieces to your right and the player on the right end throws them to the player on the left end. It's a great game for a whole chess team to play one fast exciting game.
Here are some Bughouse variants by me: 1. Some possible turn variants (they can be played by 4 or 2 players, and it's possible to play these with GC): a. In each turn, player must move one piece on both boards (in any order), possible to make one or two drops. b. Player must chose one of boards to move or drop piece on it. c. Turn order: p1 moves/drops on b1, p2 moves/drops on b1, p2 moves/drops on b2, p1 moves/drops on b2, p1 moves/drops on b1... Turn variants, of course, have no advantage that original bughouse have: it can be solved. But even normal chess was not solved yet, and these will not be solved soon (if someone will try to solve them, of course). 2. Kings can be captured and dropped (it's still not allowed to castle trough check). Team loses when it have no kings (when it have king(s) in reserve only it also loses). 3. You gives captured pieces to opponent's teammate! In this game, there is no material advantage. Perhaps, it's better (for balance) to move black on one of boards first. 4. This variant was probably already invented before me as one of these many regional variants: pieces can be dropped only to starting squares of pieces of same kind. 5. Bughouse, combined with it's own 2-players variant Crazyhouse: after each capture, player must chose to give captured piece to teammate or leave for himself (probably, it's better to play it with shogi-like set). 6. And most unusual variant: Bughouse, combined with Alice chess! When piece moves, it appears on another board without changing sides (see Alice chess rules for details)! Of course, it's better to play this according to one of turn variants above, but it's possible to play with normal bughouse rules to: piece appears when move on corresponding board is finished, if square is occuppied, piece on that square gets captured (it's possible to capture king, and it's team loses). In Russia this variant is commonly known as Swedish chess (i don't know why, maybe, it was brought to USSR by Swedish players). Naming is, of course, not important, with one expection: i don't like name 'Siamese chess'! Siamese chess is Makruk (Makruk, of course, also can be played in Bughouse style, as almost any other chess or checkers-like game)! And who is inventor of Bughouse? Looks like, it's inventor is unknown. Interesting, did he knew about shogi when invented this?
Bughouse is an excellent 4 player variant that can be played with a different number of players, or (as a Bughouse variant) even a greater number of boards & sets than just two, if desired. Fwiw, I've seen on internet chat sites talk that Bughouse is hard for engines, as there are two boards & sets + drops, multiplying the possibilites compared to standard chess. If ever one of the two boards has a player sitting (refusing to move), however, the computer may then have an advantage if playing against a human on the remaining board (provided that person doesn't already have a big advantage).
From the wiki entry on Bughouse: "A valuation system, first suggested by FICS-player Gnejs, often applied to bughouse is pawn=1, bishop=knight=rook=2 and queen=4."
Bughouse tournaments seem to be happening all the time now, at least in North America (especially at scholastic level) - anyone who might want to organize chess variant(s) events over-the-board could start with having bughouse games/events; here's a link that shows what happened when I Googled 2019 Bughouse tournaments USA:
I am a bit worried about this paragraph that states a dropped Rook is considered virgin (and thus fit for castling). As far as I know there doesn't exist any on-line server that uses this rule, or any engine that plays by this rule. It is also a very weird rule: when you move a Rook you lose castling rights, and moving it back to a corner normally doesn't restore them. And a drop move is a move like any other.
Oddly the wikipedia entry for Bughouse Chess (which is given there as synonymous to Tandem Chess or Siamese Chess, unlike in CVP's entry for Bughouse plus Tandem Chess [which notes some differences in rules between the two variants]) does not appear to discuss drops of captured rooks at all, unless I missed it:
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