Other variants

Hi, I recall from the old FICS (free internet chess server) that there are other variants that are really interesting. FICS used to have all sorts of Chess960'ish type variants. 7 bishops and a king (maybe). 7 knights. 7 rooks. In other words, the major and minor pieces varied greatly. These were super-fun. Have you considered adding variants like this? I guess bughouse is complicated -- having to institute partnering, as well as two boards on the screen. But the above variants might not be so complex.

Thanks for reading and considering this. :-)

wild 5 was amusing, white and black pieces swapped places, so 1.Nh6 Na3 2.g8=Q b1=Q could be an opening.
I spent a while trying to prove that white wins in that variant, but the branching factor got crazy with 4-6 queens on the board at once.

For 960 variants go check out chessvariants.training/Variant960

The thing is, these variants can possibly be very unbalanced which would make the rating system based partially on luck (some players would get certain winning starting positions more often then others). I don't believe lichess plans on implementing 960 variants.

Aaah :-)
This used to be amazing!
However, the downside of all those different wilds (9 styles if I remember correctly) was that they been rated on same rating and there was no separate rating for Fischer Random.
Different set of pieces you mention was wild 3. I used to play it out of curiousity - what we are going to get?! - and castling was not allowed. And wild 5... ohhh please dont mention that style. They used to target me for farming and mated with an angry knight which I couldnt capture as the pawns moved backwards. :0
Bughouse`?! Oh, great game - sadly, too much partner blame and hate.

Crazyhouse and Atomic used to be popular on FICS - and they are here frequently played.
Besides that Horde, three check, racing kinds and king of the hill already exist.
It is a chess server, not a variant server after all.
I think the existing variants are enough.

PS: Please add more Chess960 tourneys :-)

You can set up different starting positions using the board editor and challenge someone to a custom game on Lichess, so even though we don't have wild ratings, they are technically playable. FICS had awesome variants, and personally I would love to see bughouse and losers on Lichess; however, I don't think lichess plans on adding more variants any time soon.

@Funkmaus no guarantee it will work, but your best bet for getting more Chess960 tournaments on Lichess is probably opening a github issue here github.com/ornicar/lila/issues

@ijh - I know but those issues scare me :<
gbtami was helpful enough to record the issue for me not only about more Chess960 tournaments but also about customized buttons: github.com/ornicar/lila/issues/5739#issuecomment-662272885
We have had our own discussion about Chess960 tourneys here:
lichess.org/forum/lichess-feedback/not-enough-chess960-tournaments?page=1
Sorry for the offtopic; I just "used" this thread to mention what I miss..

Btw. I thought that Antichess = Losers/Suicide?!

wild5 is available on www.pychess.org/ (create a new normal chess game, and under Alternate Start choose "UpsideDown").

Surely there is one chess variant that stands supreme: table booting. What is this, I hear you ask. Well, as an old timer I remember the free chess sites of the early zeroes. Each game was a "table". You could arrive at the "table" and boot the other player off. You don't need to play chess! Just turn up, boot the other player away! Can you boot or will you be booted? May the stronger booter win!

Antichess/Suicide chess and Loser's chess are two different variants. Both have forced captures, but Loser's has checks and castling; anti doesn't. This leads to completely different play in the two variants.

I created the team
Antichess 960 The team wants to introduce the antichess 960 variant in which intuition, middle and final play predominate, no need to memorize the openings.