What happens when you work closely with someone on a really difficult project—and then they seem to just fuck it up?
This is a post about two Chess variants; one very special emotion; and how life is kinda like Chess Bughouse. Let's goooooo!
1. Crazyhouse
My favorite time-waster is Crazyhouse Chess. Crazyhouse Chess is mostly like regular Chess. In regular Chess, players take turns making a move, Bishops go diagonally and Rooks go straight, and you try to trap your opponent's King to win the game:
(From Lev Milman vs. Joseph Fang courtesy of https://www.chess.com/article/view/10-most-beautiful-checkmates.)
In Chess, if you take a piece, it just leaves the board. In Crazyhouse, the difference is that when you take an opponent's piece, you get to use it. Say you take a Black Bishop; then you get a White Bishop in your hand. When it's your turn, you can either do a regular boring Chess move (with one of your pieces already on the board)—or you can drop a piece from your hand onto the board. To illustrate, watch how when I take the opponent's Bishop, a Bishop appears in my hand at the lower right hand corner; and then next turn, I place it on the board:
(My moves here may not be the most accurate way to play, but they are the funniest.)
You can drop pieces absolutely anywhere, including to give check. (You just can't put Pawns on the very top or very bottom rows.) So, the game can end by surprise:
(You can't hear because it's a .gif, but I'm saying "Oh... I didn't realize that was mate.".)
Those last two gifs were from the same game. The opposing King moved all the way across the board, at the behest of my pieces dropping from the sky. I kept taking pieces from my opponent, so I kept having pieces to drop on the board to continue my attack. (Full game here.)
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