How to play Bughouse Chess

Learn the rules to the 4 player Chess variant: Bughouse Chess quickly and concisely – This video has no distractions, just the rules. For a refresher of the original Chess rules, check out this video:

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RULES:
The object of this 4 player chess game is to be the first team to checkmate either opponent. Layout 2 chessboards side by side and setup the pieces normally on each board with opposite colors next to each other. 4 players divide into 2 teams. Teammates sit next to each other with one teammate controlling the white pieces and the other controlling black. Each board’s game runs independently from the other board. Each teammate has one opponent who is directly across from them. Players are allowed to talk to their teammate with strategy or moves, BUT they may not touch a piece on the other board, nor may they change seats to swap which board they are playing on.

When you capture a piece, you immediately give that piece to your teammate to add to their pool. On your turn, instead of moving a piece, you may add a piece from your pool to any empty space on the board. This is called dropping a piece. You are allowed to drop a piece into check or checkmate, but you may not drop a pawn on the first or 8th rows. Dropped pawns may promote as normal, but when a promoted pawn is captured, it is converted back to a pawn when added to their teammates pool. If you drop a pawn on the 2nd row, it is allowed to move 2 spaces on its first move. All pieces in your pool must remain on the table in front of the board, visible at all times.

To prevent a player from stalling by not playing, Bughouse is typically played with chess clocks, with each board using its own clock. If you don’t have a chess clock, then players are not allowed to delay their move beyond the time it takes their teammate to make 3 moves. If they do, then they lose the game.

The first team to checkmate a king on either board, wins. If both boards are checkmated simultaneously, then the match ends in a draw. Also, a team wins if an opponent on either board resigns or makes an illegal move. Stalemates on either board result in a draw.

89 Comments

  1. I would love your explanación of chess with multiverse and time travel

  2. I don’t know why I find this channel so interesting, I’m not even gonna play most of the games here

  3. Instead of clocks, why don't you alternate between moves from one board to the other?

  4. Me: How many varities of chess are there
    Triple S Games: Inhales

  5. I like how you can skip first 10s in every "How to play … chess" video =D

  6. This version of chess is similar to shogi in some aspect.

  7. Ive been playing bug house for like 5 months now and im still addictef

  8. Oh wow, I used to play this back in middle school, it was always a massive fustercluck because the two players on each team would play as fast as possible to capture as many opposing pieces as possible, pawns and knights and bishops would fly between them and it was so chaotic, nobody really cared about strategy it was just "play faster than your opponent and overcome the board with sheer numbers." Very silly, kids would actually get angry if their team mate hesitated to consider their next move, and you'd see them with their hand held out ready to receive a piece immediately as soon as their team mate took it.

    We did have a variation on the rules though, which I'm surprised weren't mentioned here. In my school the extra rules were 1. You cannot place a piece so that it puts your opponent in check. 2. You had to place your pieces within your two back rows. This ironically required more strategy and foresight, two things that couldn't be further from anyone's mind. There was also a third rule: Promoted queens stay promoted when captured. This meant a team could theoretically have 9 queens on the board, although most games ended once someone amassed 3 or 4. Allowing your opponent to promote queens just so you could take them 2 turns later was a common tactic, and led to much schoolyard rage when your buddy is suddenly fighting 3 queens you allowed your opponent to take.

    At some point my school banned this rule set, too many kids were getting butthurt over it and the adults just didn't want to deal with it, told us to just play by the rules. Also the "captured queens stay promoted" mechanic meant we often took queens from other chess sets and lined them up beside the game just in case, which could be a problem if there were lots of kids wanting to play chess.

    Ah, memories….

  9. Hey great gameplay! If you like chess give my channel a look if you get some time

  10. Lets add 3 man CHess . With the extra player a judge . Or 3 d chess Where thoose picses can go Down to any Of the regular boards

  11. At my school you have to capture the king like a normal piece to win in bughouse

  12. My chess team in highschool used to call this siemese chess- never heard the term "bug house" before

  13. I had an idea on a chess game.

    Mastermind Chess. Basically, you take the 'kill the king' part and turn it into 'get the mastermind'
    but the mastermind is a secret, specific piece.

    The rules of the game are the same, with the following changes.

    At the start of the game, write down your mastermind piece. This piece can still be the King. This piece must be specific. For example, if you make your mastermind a Rook, you have to specify and track which Rook it is. Thus, you cannot do something like making your mastermind a Pawn, and only lose when all of your pawns are captured.

    The Kings role of being the target piece is relegated to your mastermind piece. Checkmate can be achieved against the mastermind piece, but does not automatically win the game. The King only serves as a piece that can move one space in any direction. Your king can be captured, and matters as much as a pawn.
    If you made your King the Mastermind, you're effectively playing normal chess on your end, but you only lose when your King is actively captured.

    Neither player knows the other players mastermind. If your mastermind is captured, you lose the game. If checkmate is achieved against your mastermind, it is not necessarily the end – your opponent may not know they have a winning position, and thus you can play accordingly to save your mastermind.

  14. Absolutely awesome game! We used to call it "swiss chess" back at school (I don't know why), played it a lot during breaks between classes

  15. So this is a 4 players chess.

  16. This feels like a chess version that me and the bois would invent during recess

  17. Mistake: if 3 illegal moves are done, then the team wins.

  18. i remember playing this a long time ago on chess class

  19. Stalemates on either board results in a DRAW.

  20. That’s a very amazing game I’d love to have my own

  21. In Greece we call that φυτευτό, "plant game", and dropping a piece is called "planting"

  22. I'm going to talk to the guys at work about this.

  23. It's been so long since i played this version of chess, i had forgotten the rules. We use to play it during chess tournaments. Kids especially loved this form. Often played at blitz time controls or quicker.

  24. Wait, how does stalemate happen? Couldnt you just drop a piece to make it not a stalemate?

  25. So basically, the pieces get banned from their own existence, and end up in another universe.

  26. Galaxy Brain variant: it's a 1v1 bughouse game. You must achieve checkmate on both boards to win — preferably at the same time.

  27. This is basically the Chess Multiverse lmao

  28. I played this back in my elemelementary school chess club, i did noy think it was a real thing!

  29. Imagine checkmating both boards at the same time.

  30. I Recommend do this on a similar or equal chess sets because, imagine a OCD players looking at you playing a nice wooden chess with you friend on a microscopic plastic board

  31. When I played this 20 years ago, the win conditions were different: Instead of checkmate, you captured your opponent’s king, and moving into check (or voluntarily failing to get out of check) was legal. When you captured your opponent’s king, you gave it to your teammate to use as a spare. If a player had no kings, play on that board stopped until and unless that player got a king from a teammate. If your team had all four kings, you won.

  32. 1:13 imagine you are in the middle of a war and suddendly a giant hand drops out a pawn almost your size ready to kill

  33. ᴀᴜᴅɪᴏʟɪʙʀᴏꜱ ᴘɪʀᴀᴛᴇᴀᴅᴏꜱ ꜱ.ᴀ ᴅᴇ ᴄᴠ says:

    Great explanation, thanks!

  34. This is my favorite way to play chess yet I often use the normal way since most don't use this.

  35. Whenever I was taught by my chess teacher the rules were different, mainly just that you couldn't drop a pice to put the opponent in checkmate or check and that you couldn't drop a piece in the opponents kast three rows.

  36. i used to call this Australian Chess.

  37. You can play this two-handed, but player 1 makes their white move before player 2 makes their black move & white move, then player 1 makes their black move, and the process repeats until the game ends.

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