Make Horde Chess more balanced

This is a call to all capable Horde chess players. Please voice your informed opinions here.

Current Horde statistics over 7029 games are:

51.9% White wins
43.9% Black wins
4.2% Draw

This could probably use some adjustment. Maybe make draw a win for black? Or give black more pawns? Or remove a white pawns? Or something else?

Please submit and discuss ideas here.

All Queens instead of pawns Run it! :p

I proposed making stalemates on black a win for black. That is when black pieces can no longer move. If it's the white pieces that don't have a legal move, then the game is drawn as usual.

However, I also understand it's a very 'gamey' mechanic and adds significant complexity to the variant. It's asymmetric, sure, but I can't think of another popular variant with asymmetric win conditions. It also doesn't really solve black's general weakness. You can in most cases avoid stalemate if you play your cards right as white if you knew this rule.

So while some players liked this proposal for an alternate win condition, I am now leaning against it.

I wonder what the statistics for normal Horde Chess (before ChessWhiz's modifications are. BrainKing.com uses normal Horde Chess. It might be worth reaching out to them to see if they have any stats on that, though the back rank is even more of a vulnerability there, it seems.

I discussed this yesterday with user GoToBed, who before I beat him (as white) was in the top 10 horde players.

We came to the conclusion that if white didn't have either their c or f pawn (or really any pawn other than the a or h) the game would be more balanced.

At my university chess club I champion Dunsany's chess and play it quite regularly. We have also discovered it is unbalanced for black, so we usually play that with a pawn handicap for white (usually the f pawn). This does balance it. We also removed white's ability for pawns to move two squares (but this can make the games pretty dull for a while with lack of tempo).

I think either the c or f pawn for white has to go. Or black requires two more pawns (I'm leaning towards a and h to keep it more balanced in the center...)

" BrainKing.com uses normal Horde Chess. It might be worth reaching out to them to see if they have any stats on that, though the back rank is even more of a vulnerability there, it seems."

BrainKing.com says:
white 6349 (71.56 %)
black 2257 (25.43 %)
Draws 266 (2.99 %)

Our version looks very balanced, compared to that.

Maybe add some knights in the last row... ?

Honestly, it wouldn't be horde when you put other piece types on the board. That should be a last resort. Don't forget that normal chess also gives a (very slight) advantage to white.

I think any changes made should aim to match that; no need to go further.

#1 - I don't think a correction is in order just yet - I don't think many players know how to handle black properly.
Can you please re-run the statistics but only for players over a certain Horde rating - maybe 1800?

Its not that radically imbalanced how it is anyway...

I think it is very good the way it is. I think if you ran the statistics for atomic chess the numbers would be far more imbalanced than this. I like it the way it is and I don't believe it should change.

Yes, I agree, I would be most interested in stats for games where both players are over 1800, and neither player is more than 200 points above the other.

I think one of these balance changes, in order of smallest to biggest boost for black, make sense:

- Move black's pawns from e5 and d5 to e4 and d4
- Move black's pawns from e6 and d6 to e4 and d4 (my recommendation so far)
- Move black's pawns from e8 and d8 to e4 and d4
- Remove white's f pawn (I don't like the idea of this as much. It's less "horde")

Does any strong player have an opinion on whether black pawns on e4 and d4 would be too cramping?