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A classic example of a game whose popularity exceeds its actual quality. The addition of conversion to chess is a worthwhile pursuit, but the brainless mechanic of dropping a piece wherever you want, is the least imaginitive possible implementation. More specifically the freedom to drop pieces produces a higher level of convergence in the game tree versus more restricted implementations, reducing strategic connotations of moves. Piece drops in Crazyhouse are always done on primitive grounds, check blocks, pawn promotion threat etc. That it merely borrows this from Shogi is not a defense; those games are 1) somewhat aged, 2) purposely designed towards such a mechanic. Were Chess capture performed by nonreplacement, pieces could simply be converted immediately and this would likely work well. As it is, I believe there are two main implementations. 1. allow pieces of like colour to occupy common space with immediate conversion. This is not satisfactory as it simply allows the second player in a trade cycle to gain all the pieces. 2. my proposition. Captured piece is immediately converted, continues to occupy its cell and can be played on as usual. However it may not be captured at this point, and may not capture on its first move after conversion. On playtesting this idea, I further propose that converted piece must wait one turn before being played into a game-this avoids attritional cycles with little change to the board.
'How popular is crazyhouse?' Quite popular on turnbased servers, I would say. It seems popular on SchemingMinds, and on Brain King, Loop Chess (their version of CrazyHouse) is the third most popular chess variant (391 games running) (behind DiceChess (1073) and DiceChess 10x10 (1062), but ahead of Japanese Chess (316), Massacre Chess (238), Anti Chess (165), Dark Chess (157), Chinese Chess (151) and Embassy Chess (142), to compare with other chess variants popular on that server).
Bughouse is a two-player game; an example of a one-player game would be solitaire.
Confusing game, but fune.
http://www.chessvariants.org/multiplayer.dir/tandem.html is the page for the (Recognized) variant pair Bughouse/Tandem Chess. Bughouse is insanely(!) popular in Canada - kids especially. Crazyhouse requires two chess sets for only two players, which is not practical at tournaments or at small chess clubs.
Crazyhouse is not a recognized variant of the month? i don't know how that could be, it shouldn't even have to be voted on, not a hour goes by on the planet where a crazyhouse game is not being played, and that is a conservative estimate. you should make crazyhouse a recognized variant along with whatever other game you recognize in a future month
i do play crazyhouse at scheming mind. i have also begun playing 'dark crazyhouse' there and i think it is probably the only site which does it. i have just stumbled upon a problem after taking an opponents pawn. because i now have a piece to drop, i can see all the empty squares, and thus calculate my opponents moves. whereas he is still playing in the dark. i would like to know what is the best solution for this: 1. only allow drops to squares which i can see, or, 2. similar to kriegspiel, commit to moves when dropping to dark squares. if the square is empty, the move is played. if it isn't empty then you get to try again. the first option is less crazy than crazyhouse, and the second option is less dark than dark chess. is there a satisfactory compromise?
You can also play Crazyhouse on http://www.schemingmind.com/
I am very happy to have discovered that Crazyhouse exists on this site. To my knowledge, it is the only site in ' turn-based ' which allows to play it. One can play it directly on FICS for example, but in 'deferred', only Chess variants propose it. The other sites in Turn-based (Gold Token and Brainking) propose a close variant (Loop Chess or Chessgi) but, to my opinion, Crazyhouse is more interesting. What I regret, it is that it seems that this variant is little to play here. Until now, I obtained only few opponents. I am ready to receive any invitations. My pseudo : steph
Crazyhouse is one of my favorite chess variants. Zillions plays it not especially strong, so you need to download Sunsetter or Sjeng, which play really good. I even created a WinBoard adapter for Zillions (see http://www.geocities.com/andreas_kaufmann2000/winboard_adapter.htm) to have a convinient way to play against these engines.
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Crazyhouse (like Bughouse) is one of the most popular chess variants on the planet at the moment, and there has to be a reason. It's much like Shogi, but with chess pieces (and, unlike Bughouse, it's a 2 player game), making it especially popular with those who love bang-bang tactics (many or most chess players, I suppose).
{edit: below is an entry from a later post, for reference within this review:]
Fwiw, here are relative piece values for Crazyhouse that I once saw given on someone's blog:
P = 2; B = 3; N = 3.5; R = 4; Q = 6.
For comparison, and in case one might use it for Crazyhouse too, 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."