Presenting a revolutionary new chess variant – Chess, but good

In this video, I present a revolutionary new chess variant which I hope will change the game forever.

Some links that may be of interest to you:
The Python script to generate Good Chess boards:
The list of pre-generated Good Chess boards:
My Twitter:

Normally this is where I’d ask if people are able to translate this video, but YouTube’s getting rid of Community Contributions. Maybe tell them that’s a terrible idea?

Table of Contents
0:00 – Introduction
1:06 – Setup
3:30 – Analysis
4:40 – Testimonials
5:29 – Outro/How to Play

200 Comments

  1. Pulling en passant off in this is a certified chad move

  2. You forgot the most important rule: black goes first

  3. I hope this is just a joke, because this variation would be so horrible.

  4. Could you not also eliminate the advantage given to the player who moves first, by making both players move simultaneously? Like, they each have to make a move on a steady interval. I call it Chess Chess Revolution.

  5. Is it possible to run every chess 960 variation in an engine and determine the most balanced dozen or two variations?

  6. Good chess is bad for it is two complicated to set up and for this prevent any leader board system. Just add one raw with no new piece, it just change the shortcoming pressure over openings.

  7. I don’t know what bad chess is but this is definitely worse lmao

  8. I've tried a game with a regular opponent. I set up a double randomised 960 set up – both sides are randomised separately, or I just set each side up arbitrarily to be different, but within 960 rules. We then look at the board. My opponent gets to decide: either take which side they'd prefer, or go first. I take the other side and go first, or I take either side but go 2nd, respectively. I like asymmetrical games and this works.

  9. cant white going first just be fixed with a coin flip

  10. This is retarded. You have to invent a game with ZERO technology.

    Poker is already a game of chance.

    Backgammon is also a good compromise of chance and logic.

  11. I already have an idea.

    Make chess a bi-athlon.

    Western Chess and Chinese Chess.

    For a championship, 5 games of each, add up the score. Flip a coin to see who goes first in one and thus second in the other for each pair of games.

  12. The direction of play also should be random 😂

  13. Wanna play some good chess?
    Sure, let me get the board set up..
    Next Tuesday : move 1, Stalemate.
    What?
    0.0, what did you expect?

  14. A simpler solution to both problems would be to flip a coin to see who moves next.

  15. I just throw the pieces at the board and see where they land

  16. This is shit. Alternatively white still goes first but after whits first move black has the choice to switch control of the armies.

    White still gets to go first. But if their first move is part of some well known tactic for an easy victory black can just take it and punish white for doing it.

  17. "Chess when played perfectly is a draw" so in a short statement it depends on the level of chess and who the "advantage" goes to.

  18. Dat too complicated … it's not a game … but a "situation" during a game.

  19. No, this would inherently create an even larger advantage due to chance.
    Imagine opponent has 3+ pawns right next to the final row

  20. Math isn't real and chess should let me murder instead of trying to keep a king from moving

  21. so this is great, i honest to god love this idea.

    however, clearly the computer is stupid and doesnt know what a good board is. so i propose an update

    *good chess deluxe*

    its the same concept but both sides gets all pieces and we make the board 16 by 16 size to make the chaos expand greatly. all you need is 4 boards and a d4 to support the scale

  22. This is easily the stupidest thing i watched with chess in the title. Great video

  23. I'm honestly disappointed that this is meant as satire as I think it's actually a good variant.

  24. It’s weird cuz black has the exact same advantage.

  25. memorized every combination of randomness in a book lol

  26. I think that white starting first isn’t much of an advantage plus you can chose which you play but even if you can’t, back can have an idea of what white is planning to do since white plays first

  27. This plus nightmare chess bundle is perfect.

  28. "chess but it takes an hour just to setup the board"

  29. Best thing I can say about CBG is that at least it's better than CRT.

  30. Wow, why did it take 8 days to upload? 🙃

  31. You are aware there is a possibility that machines could predict the correct paths as well, no?

  32. i have a serious version: randomise both back rows and also then evaluate them.

  33. finally, somebody made a version of chess that's good

  34. I'm a 2k fide rated player and there's lot wrong with the ideas in "chess, but good"

    1. Starting positions that register as the most balanced, 0.00 can and probably often are threefold repetition draws. It's more likely that one side will be down in material but can force a draw than randomly placed pieces happen to be at 0.00 eval.

    2. Just because an engine evaluated the position as equal doesn't mean it is equal for humans. There are a ton of positions that register as equal but every GM would rather play one side because that is the only side that can make progress, while the other side can only defend, or one side has only one hard-to-find path that leads to equality, while the other side can play whatever they want. It happens fairly often in chess.

    3. Chess openings shouldn't be viewed as a barrier of entry but as a means to get to a middlegame that both players have played into. The opening is just a bus that takes you to an interesting position already. When you run out of opening prep, what you're left with is an interesting position. If you're facing an opponent that's better than you, he might win in the opening by knowing theory, but if he knows that much more theory than you, he probably would have crushed you anyways. Plus, theory is so impossibly diverse that the vast majority of games are different by move 10, and it's vastly diminishing returns to learn a lot of theory. You can get to 2000 by learning virtually no opening theory, as I have done.

    4. The position created is so chaotic, it only is fun for tactical players. If you are more positionally minded which is half of all ideas in chess, then it takes some of it out for you. There's no pawn structures, you can have two same colour bishops. Beautiful positional ideas like bishop pairs and minority attacks and backwards pawns and weak squares and forcing outposts are just thrown out the window.

    5. The half point advantage is imbalanced, but it dissuades the two sides from behaving similar to each other. Black generally plays aggressive and there can be some great imbalanced positions like Evans gambit, smith morra, najdorf, Marshall gambit, grunfeld, KID etc. It's kind of like Ts vs CTs in CS:GO, unbalanced but still fun to play both sides. I have met people who like playing black more than playing white. Plus, if you play chess anywhere online or over the board, they alternate white and black.

    Overall, I get the feeling you are not much of a chess player and more a mathematician or coder. I am a CS major myself, so I get the beauty of randomizing the pieces, but it just doesn't work for my chess mind. Maybe it's a fun alternative game for people who have never played chess, but not many chess players would enjoy your variant.

    Thanks for reading my long ass feedback/criticism, I meant no offence, so please don't take any.

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