How to Play Horde Chess

KOTH is actually the most like regular chess, with the exception of keeping your king close to the center in KOTH but far away from the center in regular chess. 1.) Either side can be checkmated in KOTH For the record, masters such as NM ChessNetwork point out that in KOTH, just as in regular chess, one main goal is to control the center, of course the reason being to keep the opponent's king away from the center. He also points out that one should not make a mad dash towards the center with their king in the very beginning of the game, because it will not work if the opponent follows the basic principles of piece development and center control, with the additional reasoning that the king may be checkmated early. For those reasons, he AND NM ImprovingSkill, who is particularly famous here on lichess, play KOTH almost the same as they play regular chess. With all that information in mind, KOTH is very similar to regular chess, and is certainly more similar to it than Horde.

That's because koth is literally the same game with one additional win condition.

I love checkmating in KOTH. The Kings get so wold in KOTH, Thats why I play it.

"That's because koth is literally the same game with one additional win condition."

Yeah. Exactly. I was just pointing out to the OP that KOTH is the most similar to regular chess, rather than Horde, hence the first sentence in her post.

Yea, Koth is neat but I don't personally think it counts. It's like calling bullet chess a variant of standard chess. A bit of an exaggeration but you see the point.

Koth is quite different from standart. If you take the 2nd 3rd rank with the king, cool sacs can appear at the board. But as said you have to be carefull when you decide to open the center, as hard players could have counted on it, and you can be forced to get back if the other player has strong pieces to control main files and diagonals, where your sac will become just a nosense one.

I fully agree. It has a very different feel to regular chess, and games of KOTH evolve much differently to games of chess.

It's rather more restricted than regular chess. While the freedom and depth of normal chess are part of why it's such a fantastic game, KOTH restricts your options by having you constantly watch for any king runs to the centre. And that is more desirable than analysis paralysis at times. :)

I recommend KOTH to anyone who enjoys attacking chess -- it's a hella fun variant, if not the most distinct. But its simplicity is its strength, and the additional win condition adds a great deal of tension and excitement to the game. I think no-one can deny that games of KOTH play out _very_ differently to games of regular chess -- a testament to KOTH's good design as a variant.