Tim Mann's Chess Pages

Main Chess Page XBoard and WinBoard Frequently Asked Questions Chess Engines Extensions and Drivers GNU Chess Crafty Deep Thought Internet Chess Servers Zippy Bughouse Links and Web Tools Back to Tim Mann's Home Page

Bughouse

Bughouse (aka Siamese or Transfer chess) is a fun chess variant that involves two boards placed side by side, two sets, four players, and two clocks. The players sitting side by side are partners and play opposite colors. When you capture a piece, you give it to your partner. When it's your turn, you can either move one of your onboard pieces, or drop one of your offboard pieces on an empty square. Your team loses if you get checkmated or run out of time. Games are wild and woolly!

Both FICS and ICC support bughouse now, and XBoard/WinBoard has simple but effective support for it. For best results with XBoard and WinBoard, start a second copy of the program and log in as a guest to observe your partner's games. To observe them automatically, use the ICS follow command. Alternatively, you can turn on Auto Observe in the program's Options menu and put your partner on your ICS gnotify list.

Here are some Web pages with bughouse information:

• FICS help files: Bughouse - Bughouse strategy
• ICC help files: Bughouse - Bughouse pointers
• Anders Ebenfelt's Bughouse page
• Flesh's Bughouse Page
• Bughouse.net
• Bughouse in Europe
• Tandem Chess and Bughouse, from The Chess Variant Pages
• Laws of Bughouse
• ErrantFischer's Bughouse Page
• Thief interface
• FICS Bughouse Records
• Sunsetter bughouse chess engine
• Sjeng bughouse chess engine
• Bughouse Java applet
• NonVi Games: Double Chess Demo
• Zillions of Games: Bughouse
• NetBlitz