How to fix chess

[aurora]

I've long been of the opinion that chess is one of the most boring and unpleasant games to watch. It's devoid of action, with the entire game boiling down to two people moving pieces across a board. It's formulaic, with the game heading closer and closer to being solved with every passing day. Most pressingly, though, it's stale, with a stagnant set of rules that is rarely, if ever, refreshed to suit the times.

As an on-the-rise chess player who had a breakout year during 2021, successfully achieving an elo of 480 on chess.com, I know that I have what it takes to bring an exciting new vision to the game of chess. No more will the most interesting part of chess be nonsensical conspiracy theories about cheating methods. I am confident my ideas would revolutionise the way the game is played for the better.

I think I've gone on for long enough about why I'm here. Here are a few of the ideas I have thought of that would catapult the game, not the drama, of chess into legitimate relevance.

• Critical hits: 1/16 of the time, a piece should be able to move twice in a turn. No longer would you be able to count on your hundreds or thousands of times playing the same sequence to know where to move your piece. This change would force players to think a bit harder, as they would constantly need to be on the alert for the chance that their opponent gets two moves in one turn. It could inspire stirring comebacks from guaranteed checkmates, as players with seemingly no hope could be thrown right back into the game. Doesn't this sound great?
• Status: Imagine your queen has a 1/4 chance to not be able to move on a given turn and, when you can move it, it can only move 1/4 the length of what it would normally be able to. Imagine if your bishop had to take two turns to be able to capture another piece. Imagine if your king was completely stuck fast to its tile and only had a 1/5 chance of being able to move again. I'll stop right there. I shouldn't have to elaborate further on the positive impacts of such a game-changing and intriguing chess mechanics change.
• Instant checkmate: Once every 10 or 20 turns or so - I've still not decided on what would be more optimal - one player would have a 30% chance of just instantly winning the game with any move. This would alternate between players each cycle. Chess games can sometimes go for far too long, so this would incentivise faster and more aggressive play to prevent the opponent from getting too many chances to maybe end the game through so much as moving a pawn one space.

While I am still thinking of further improvements to chess, I think these three ideas should give you an idea of what angle I'm going for here. What do you think? Any other ideas I might not have thought of? Interested to read your thoughts on this.

 

[KaenSoul]

I think they should introduce a weather mechanic, all games should be played outside and depending on the weather some pieces may act differently, limited movement on rain, horses may have to be killed and eaten by other pieces of their own team to survive in the snow and stuff like that.

 

[Ducky]

As an on-the-rise chess player who had a breakout year during 2021, successfully achieving an elo of 480 on chess.com,

ive been stuck in the 300s for a while, you must be really good!
i change i have been thinking of to help solve the problem of long, repetitive games is to randomly decide how the board starts. this would force players to learn to adapt quickly and would stop rewarding memorizing certain patterns

 

[faint]

they should make the pieces sexier by giving them fur and tails. as it stands i don't know why anyone would play chess instead of genshin impact.

 

[boo836]

what we need, comrades, is a revolution against the monarchy! we must bring pawnnunism to the lower pieces and liberate them from the king's yoke, seize the bishops' spaces, and put an end to knighthood and the landed gentry. The only way forward is self-checkmate!

 

[Mathy]

chess.com uses glicko actually

 

[DiannieRatson]

Yeah I agree. It also feels unfair that only the Pawns can use an Ability. They can Transform like Ditto. The highest elo that I got is 396 iirc so you must be really so good and nice that you brought up these ideas. Maybe the King also needs an item like a choice scarf. It can move not only one tile but can go from row 1 to row8 but can only move in one direction. This way, the King is now buffed and won't get checkmated in 1.5 move.

 

[dreepy]

Yeah I agree. It also feels unfair that only the Pawns can use an Ability. They can Transform like Ditto. The highest elo that I got is 396 iirc so you must be really so good and nice that you brought up these ideas. Maybe the King also needs an item like a choice scarf. It can move not only one tile but can go from row 1 to row8 but can only move in one direction. This way, the King is now buffed and won't get checkmated in 1.5 move.

I think tr43 would be more suitable for the pieces (it's the tm for overheat). Wooden boards would have to be put aside, as well as chess pieces of flammable material. It would be worth it though if necrozma dusk mane ever becomes meta.

 

[Albatross]

I feel as though the solution here is obvious

First of all; Americans love violence. That's a well known fact. No American on the face of the earth can resist some good old-fashioned unnecessary gun violence in their board games. So this small change (adding firearms) will bring in a lot of new American consumers. They'll probably be shit but they'll buy our upcoming expansion packs so who cares really


But now we've alienated our European audiences, who are not allowed guns. Which brings me to my next amendment

Knife violence is on the rise in European countries. At least, it is in England. I don't really care about the other countries. Giving the pieces knives, shanks, and other sharp objects will increase the immersion of Chess by an estimates 100%. You'll really feel like you're being stabbed and also shot several times in the chest, head and throat when you play this game

But now, I fear we may have pushed away the more... pacifist side of the two continents that matter. What about the people who don't like violence in board games? How do we pander to them? Well it's quite simple

Bears are cute. People like bears. Adding bears to our board games will make people want to buy them. Obviously bears will have to be subject to the bloody torrent of violence and maiming that now features heavily in Chess, but we won't advertise that. Now those anti-gun and anti-knife freaks will be all over our game!

But wait; a new demographic is raising complaints! Oh bloody hell, it's those 11 year olds on Call of Duty who say slurs on the voice chat!! Who the fuck let them into our nice, clean, family friendly board game???? Oh, no matter, we might as well make something gory and violent for them too while we're here

The addition of nuking the board was originally going to be included in the main game, but after further deliberation we decided to make it downloadable content. This way we can punish players who don't like our game enough to spend a couple extra quid on it with a horribly unbalanced gameplay option that only 11 year olds with a fistful of stolen parental credit cards can afford

And with that, chess is fixed. We've gone from a boring, dull, repetitive strategy board game with 0 violence to a boring, dull, repetitive fps board game with multiple violence. I'd call that a victory

 

[Fishy]

I feel as though the solution here is obvious

View attachment 460842

First of all; Americans love violence. That's a well known fact. No American on the face of the earth can resist some good old-fashioned unnecessary gun violence in their board games. So this small change (adding firearms) will bring in a lot of new American consumers. They'll probably be shit but they'll buy our upcoming expansion packs so who cares really


But now we've alienated our European audiences, who are not allowed guns. Which brings me to my next amendment
View attachment 460844

Knife violence is on the rise in European countries. At least, it is in England. I don't really care about the other countries. Giving the pieces knives, shanks, and other sharp objects will increase the immersion of Chess by an estimates 100%. You'll really feel like you're being stabbed and also shot several times in the chest, head and throat when you play this game

But now, I fear we may have pushed away the more... pacifist side of the two continents that matter. What about the people who don't like violence in board games? How do we pander to them? Well it's quite simple

View attachment 460847

Bears are cute. People like bears. Adding bears to our board games will make people want to buy them. Obviously bears will have to be subject to the bloody torrent of violence and maiming that now features heavily in Chess, but we won't advertise that. Now those anti-gun and anti-knife freaks will be all over our game!

But wait; a new demographic is raising complaints! Oh bloody hell, it's those 11 year olds on Call of Duty who say slurs on the voice chat!! Who the fuck let them into our nice, clean, family friendly board game???? Oh, no matter, we might as well make something gory and violent for them too while we're here

View attachment 460850

The addition of nuking the board was originally going to be included in the main game, but after further deliberation we decided to make it downloadable content. This way we can punish players who don't like our game enough to spend a couple extra quid on it with a horribly unbalanced gameplay option that only 11 year olds with a fistful of stolen parental credit cards can afford

And with that, chess is fixed. We've gone from a boring, dull, repetitive strategy board game with 0 violence to a boring, dull, repetitive fps board game with multiple violence. I'd call that a victory

 

[shnowshner]

Man you know what'd be awesome? There should be a new type of piece in chess. I think the limited movement and approach options within chess is what alienates so many people: a game having such massive history and talented players (some I've heard even reach past 500!) makes it difficult to make any sort of play that doesn't have some optimal play you must make, boiling chess down to a textbook-style sequence of events and limiting the creativity each player can employ to win a game.

The current piece typings include Pawn, Bishop, Knight, Rook, Queen, and King. I like the medieval theme going on here, and since we're adding onto this system, I think it'd be cool for our new type to be a bit more mythical in its theming (since it's not a traditionally "real" piece). For that reason I am suggesting the creation of a Fairy-type piece. The Fairy piece shall be designed to rebalance the chess metagame while inventing new positioning options that a player can take advantage of.

First of all, the Queen is by far the strongest piece in the game, and has no clear counters. The popular DragQueen strategy of "dragging" your Pawns over to the other side of the board to promote them into Queens has had devastating effects on the chess metagame, and is clearly not how the game was intended to be played. Our new Fairy piece will serve as an effective counter to Queens. Because Fairies are often depicted as cute, feminine creatures, a Queen is not willing to capture them out of admiration. This "Magic Guard" allows Fairies to not only be immune to the most powerful piece in the game, but also provide its team a valuable defensive answer to such a strong offensive force.

Secondly, the Fairy will be designed to make weaker pieces have additional value. Despite their unique ability to promote, it's quite clear Pawns are rather useless, having very limited movement options. If anything, the fact that promotion exists makes it clear that Pawns are very weak and this mechanic was introduced solely to add the façade that Pawns are useful–at least once you've turned them into something else. Our new Fairy piece will help give Pawns the boost they need, as any Pawns in a 3x3 area centered around the Fairy are able to move and capture an additional square in that same direction. This should help make your surplus of Pawns have more impact on a game-to-game basis.

We do need to cover the core mechanics of Fairies in order for them to fit into chess gameplay. First, each player will get two Fairy pieces replacing the Pawns on each end of the board. Secondly, Fairies move by traveling alongside the flat edges of two squares, giving it a diamond-shaped area of influence, and because of their magical properties, are capable of passing over other pieces much like knights. Think of this like teleportation, it's what I do. On that subject, Fairies can also swap places with other pieces, though an individual Fairy can only do this once per match. Finally, capturing. Fairies can capture any piece that it could reach in three or less moves. This means that Fairies can only move so much when enemy pieces are far away, but have greater options when said enemy is nearby. Finally, Fairies are unable to capture Knights because horses do not believe in any sort of mythology, religion, or superstition.

Overall I find this to be a solid piece that will certainly shake up the stale chess meta, it has defined weaknesses in what it can and cannot do while solving a lot of the biggest issues people have with chess gameplay.

Honestly though, this is just one of many ideas I've had to make chess way more attractive and balanced as a competitive game. Once I've finished testing my Stealth Rook concept I'll try to release a public build for others to enjoy.

 

[Let's go shuckles]

I think chess should introduce a rule where I can undo all the mistakes I make as many times as I want but my opponent can't undo theirs.

 

[BIG ASHLEY]

i think the chess pieces should be able to suck me off

 

[Cratersmash]

As an 800 on Chess.com, I believe that it would be a good idea to add single-use abilities for each side. These would be relatively small things (compared to the other things suggested here at least) such as:

• Being able to move two pawns in one turn, which would create stronger play in the early game. Name: Double Up
• Allowing the knight to move up to 2 squares vertically, diagonally, or horizontally. This would add a new level of threat to knights that doesn’t exist currently and gives the ability to threaten pieces in the immediate vicinity of the knight. Name: Horse Steroids
• An ability that allows you to “bind” two pieces together. Trying to take either of them will bounce back the attacker to its previous square. On the second take, however, both will be taken at once. It opens up more uncontestable offense for a small price. Name: Soulmates or Soulbind, not entirely sure on this one
• Being able to take both queens off the board for a turn. After the turn, they will return to the board in the places they were in before the ability. This would give you some much needed time on defense to reposition and potentially avoid a mate. Name: Teatime!
• Being able to instantly put the rooks on the e and d files using short castle. Not having to take the time to do this can give you some very cool offensive pressure while protecting your king by castling. Name: Megalaser
• Limiting the opponents rooks and bishops to moving only 3 squares for 3 moves. A defensive power that can give you much needed time similar to Teatime!. Name: Sealing Spell​

These abilities would be selectable before the beginning of a game, and I think they would add more dynamic play. There’s definitely a lot more room for creativity and balancing here, but I think this is a good start.

 

[Layell]

I think chess would benefit from both mega forms and dynamax play.

Just imagine you could mega-evolve your pawn so you can move more spaces and hit further away. Or your knight could go mega and make a larger L shape move.

If space on the board allows, they should also allow for dynamaxing pieces so they take up 2x2 squares, Just imagine clearing out a larger section of the board with your dynamaxed rook going into the opponents side of the board.

 

[shnowshner]

i just audibly said G-Max En Passant to myself and cannot stop giggling like a schoolchild

 

[Arcticblast]

I thought the best way to fix chess was to pay the other person to throw

 

[Fishy]

I thought the best way to fix chess was to pay the other person to throw

ah so YOU provide the super illegal chess based buttplugs

 

[Bughouse]

add one duck

 

[Ironmage]

• Being able to move two pawns in one turn, which would create stronger play in the early game. Name: Double Up

You know what's funny? This basically already exists as one of the very few rules variants that actually made it into standard play. Being able to double a starting pawn move was not in the original ruleset, which is why a specific edge case was introduced so that it can't be used to skip threatened squares.

 

[TyCarter]

Chess obviously needs entry hazards where bishops take initial damage when they leave their starting position and can only move 2 squares perpendicular from it's starting position. It would force interesting midgames. Every other position would be slowed down as well.

Hans Niemann' idea of using anal beads for chess was a great foundation to making the game much better!!!

 

[K302]

Instant checkmate: Once every 10 or 20 turns or so - I've still not decided on what would be more optimal - one player would have a 30% chance of just instantly winning the game with any move. This would alternate between players each cycle. Chess games can sometimes go for far too long, so this would incentivise faster and more aggressive play to prevent the opponent from getting too many chances to maybe end the game through so much as moving a pawn one space.

First of all; Americans love violence. That's a well known fact. No American on the face of the earth can resist some good old-fashioned unnecessary gun violence in their board games. So this small change (adding firearms) will bring in a lot of new American consumers. They'll probably be shit but they'll buy our upcoming expansion packs so who cares really

Just let the players to duel each other with revolves, if they play in the US and 10 turns passed without a king getting moved.

• Also fix the German names, while we are at it.
• Old:

Bishop = Läufer = "Runner"
Knight = Springer = "Jumper"

• New:

Bishop= Bischof
Knight= Reiter

 

[ThatOneSpork]

Honestly, chess needs a whole rework. First things first, we make the board black and red as opposed to black and white. Same with the pieces. Then we takeevery piece and normalize it so that they can only move one space diagonally, unless they're attacking. When they attack, they do it diagonally (like a pawn), except instead of outright murdering the piece we should make it jump over it to kill it. And you know what, as long as it can jump over another piece I think it should be able to continue jumping over them. You know what, I like this pawn theming. Let's make it so they can only move diagonally forward, no going back. Make it a full commitment. Also, let's make it so both players pieces can only be on 1 color. Both either have all their pieces on black at one point or red at one point. This makes a small problem though. We have too many pieces now. Hmmm... Ah, we make it so we use 3 rows and just fill that 3rd row up with extra pieces. That'll work. What else... I like how getting a pawn to the other side of the board gives you a queen, how about we do that but the piece becomes a king? And kings are special because they can move any diagonal direction, including backwards. Though having multiple kings would be weird, let's make it so kings are the same as the rest of the pieces but... well, let's make all the pieces small, flat circles. Then the king is when you flip that piece over. Seems good. One more thing. The name isn't fun, let's name it... Chessers. Yeah, now that's an exciting name!

 

[faint]

looks like they made a sequel. it looks better than chess 1 but the pieces could still use more sex appeal. i hope Riot fixes this in the next patch

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1586720855467479040

 

[AM]

I think they should introduce a weather mechanic, all games should be played outside and depending on the weather some pieces may act differently, limited movement on rain, horses may have to be killed and eaten by other pieces of their own team to survive in the snow and stuff like that.

This mechanic is called Boston, the city welcomes you, the people definitely won't though.