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Bughouse (or siamese chess) is a variant of chess
played between two player teams on two separate
boards. The special feature of the game is that pieces
you capture are transferred to your partner, who is
playing with the opposite color pieces from yourself.
He may drop such a piece on an empty square as
a subsequent move in his game. Bughouse games have a
separate rating.
STARTING A BUGHOUSE MATCH
First, find a user who is available for a bughouse
partnership. The command
bugwho u
will list users with bugopen set to 1 but who do not
have bughouse partnerships. Next, use the
partner
command to select a partner. After that, find an
opponent team. You may use the Bughouse channel for
this purpose (channel 24), and the command
bugwho p lists players who are members
of a current bughouse partnership.
Then, one of your team challenges his desired
opponent on the other team to a bughouse match.
(A useful alias for this is
alias bug match @ 2 12 bughouse
where bug user_name is all you would need to type
in order to match user_name to a bughouse game having
2 12 time controls.)
When the match is accepted and all four players are
present, then two games are initiated simultaneously:
one between the challenger and the challengee with
the desired colors, and one between the other
partners, with colors opposite from their partners.
The same time control applies to both boards, though
moretime
can be used independently on each board. Each player
is notified of the game number of their partner's
game, so he may observe it as well as playing in his
own game.
To help you form bughouse partnerships and bughouse
matches, a special channel is available: channel 24
Bughouse channel. To enter this channel, type
+channel 24.
Please note that unregistered players cannot talk
in chan 24, they can only talk in channel 4.
PLAYING BUGHOUSE
During bughouse play, you will be periodically
notified when your partner passes you captured
pieces. You will be told the type of piece that was
passed, and the set of pieces that you are currently
holding. You are also notified when your opponent's
holdings change. Both player's holdings are displayed
whenever your board position is refreshed. Strength
assessment takes held pieces into account, not just
pieces on the board.
A special move notation is needed to drop one of your
held pieces onto the board. The notation for making a
drop is P@fr, where P is a piece you are
holding [PNBRQ] and fr is the empty
destination square. Example: n@f5 would drop a
knight on square f5.
You may talk to your partner during a bughouse
match. It is recommended to set up convenient aliases
for common messages, such as I need a knight!!
Don't give him a bishop! and
Are you out of your mind?! The
ptell
command is used for this purpose; only your partner
will hear a ptell.
Special bughouse related server aliases have been added
recently. They are listed in this newsletter
upgrade
article.
The match is finished when one player is checkmated,
resigns, or is flagged.
At that point, both games end and the bughouse
ratings of all match players are adjusted, whether
or not the team result was because of their game. A draw
request should be made and accepted at both
boards before the match is ended as a draw (a near
impossibility).
Note that checkmate is defined differently: there must be
no possibility of avoiding checkmate by a drop
interposition. Even if your opponent is currently holding no
pieces that he can drop in order to avoid mate, he may later
get a piece from his partner and use it to interpose the
check. Thus, only contact and knight checks can give a
decisive checkmate (meaning that no interposition or
drops are ever possible).
For notes on strategy in bughouse chess, see
bughouse_strat
Observers should observe both games in order to see the full
match. You can observe your partner's game using
several commands:
follow,
observe,
pfollow
or
pobserve
Pfollow and pobserve are special commands especially
for bughouse games, so become familiar with them.
Kibitzes and whispers go to observers (and players) of
both games even if you are observing only one game.
Observers will also be notified of pieces transferred to
each player's reserves. Note that kibitz can be used as a
shortcut to tell your partner something if you don't mind
your opponents hearing it. It also makes the game
more exciting for the observers. A say will go to
your opponent, as well as to your partner and your partner's
opponent.
RESTRICTIONS
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Pawns cannot be dropped onto your first or eighth ranks,
although they may be dropped onto the seventh rank and
promoted on the next move.
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Pieces that had been promoted revert to pawns when
captured and passed to your partner.
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Your partner variable is not saved between logins.
Use the partner command to get a partner after you log on.
SPECIAL NOTES
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Bughouse is not be supported by all interfaces. Contact
the author of your interface to determine if you can
play bughouse with it. If an interface relies on the
board position rather than moves, things should generally
work out. No new styles have been added to support
bughouse.
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Because bughouse is such a nonstandard type of play,
there are a number of commands that are not applicable to
a bughouse game:
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Adjournments and disconnections end both games and
the match cannot be resumed. (This leaves a lot of
room for abuse, but hey, bughouse is just for fun,
guys!) The adjourn command is disabled during play.
Bughouse games can be now adjourned
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Simul commands cannot be used for bughouse games.
[FDA regulation to avoid frying the brains of the
participants.]
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Takeback is disabled (for now). At best, takeback
would work only on noncapture moves (including
drops) in order to avoid having to take held
pieces away from the other game.
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Switch is disabled (for now).
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Moves, oldmoves, mailmoves and mailoldmoves do work
during a game, but they now break the PGN format,
which doesn't allow drops. Moves are shown as
P/@@-fr and P@fr in the old and
PGN formats. Only moves and drops are recorded, not
changes to a player's holdings. Theoretically,
knowing the duration of each move in both games
allows you to reconstruct the holdings as well.
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Except for commands that terminate a game or involve
certain forms of communication, commands affect only
one of the two games in a bughouse match.
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