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Archive 1

Some comments

Some comments from my corner of the world:

  • We called it "Siamese" (not "Siamese Chess", because it isn't real chess)
  • Typically, you could place a pawn on ranks 2-7, and pieces anywhere except to checkmate, but the second of these was by agreement: not being able to even place in check, or being able to place into checkmate directly, were not unheard of -- so before each game, you'd say "pawns on 2-7, place to check but not to mate, OK?"
  • I am not sure 'Tandem chess' is synonymous with Bughouse. I thought tandem chess was a normal game of chess played between two teams each consisting of two players who are not allowed to consult eachother.
  • 95% of the bughouse in the world is played on the Free Internet Chess Server (FICS). Buggers play 24/7/365 on this site. The strongest players in the world also play there daily. The website is http://freechess.org/ -JK
    • I originally wrote the Bughouse support into FICS. The development was my first exposure to open source and Linux, running a test server on a 386/40 out of my closet. I'm glad to see that it has continued to flourish on FICS. --IanOsgood 21:36, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
  • game sometimes played on 3 boards, its fun to play in the middle

Draws

  • The rule about draws (one board a draw, entire game is a draw) I've never seen -- and can't imagine it being applied. Any stalemate can be broken by getting a new piece to place (I think). I can't imagine one board doing 50 repititions of a position in that time, especially if both sides could get extra pieces. And I've never seen anybody try to agree to a draw.  :-) When one side was in a position that would normally be a draw, that just means he's sitting on his hands until his partner gets him some more pieces.
    • I agree on all these points. I have never had a draw game( what happens with 3 consecutive repeats?) and I play where pawns can be placed anywhere. Preventing pawn from begin placed on 2nd is a custom rule. BrokenSegue 17:44, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • Draws are extremely rare in bughouse (I would say about 0.1% of games even among strong players). The most common draw is three move repetition. Often one can get a position where one can force an opposing king to move back and forth between two squares using a double revealed check with a knight in the corner, but if one doesn't have a mating position and your team is losing it is advantageous to simply force a 3-move repetition. I also heard of one case where both boards were stalemated (I think it was one of Ebenfelt's games). Sometimes people will agree to a draw as well, although this is rare since the pace of the game is so fast.
        • One other place where a draw occurs is when a player needs a piece for mate in 1, but if his partner takes this piece, he is himself mated in 1. This situation is considered a draw by many, and not a win for the one who shouts loudest, or has the best connection to the server. Ishamael 19:15, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
          • Ran some statistics on the 194528 games on bughouse.be, 674 are draw or 0.35%. About 70% of these were a draw by repetition, 20% agreed draws (two players being stalemated or the situation Ishamael describes, important here is that the clocks are equal) and 10% because two players ran out of time (this situation obviously only applies to online bughouse) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Voorlandt (talk • contribs).

Piece values

The piece values listed are more or less POV. There is no set rule as to the value of pieces in bughouse, as it is very situational and steadfast rules like a queen is worth two pieces do not make much realistic sense. I would recommend that the section be changed to note that piece values differ from the values traditionally assigned in chess, without listing specific subjective values, or perhaps by listing some of the ways in which individual pieces can offer more or less value than expected. TAsunder 22:13, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

The problem here is not with POV, but with verifiability. What source was used to give this values? I think we can check what piece values are used in Sjeng or Sunsetter bughouse engine and put them here (may be rounded to 1 decimal point afte the point). Andreas Kaufmann 17:13, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

We could also check what openings are preferred by Sjeng or Sunsetter, but that does not mean they are the correct and only answer. They may be right for the two-player variation (crazyhouse) but for bughouse there are just too many variables. The game is not like chess where piece values are relatively easy to verify. The fact is that at certain points of the game, a queen may be worth much more than two pieces or much less. This is not really true in chess. Only in rare circumstances (end game promotion races or certain sacrifices) will the value of a queen vary so greatly. So whatever the source of the piece values listed in the article are, they are quite subjective. Many players would disagree with these values or have differing suggestions, whereas a minority players disagree with the value of chess pieces. To people who are new to the game, I think the piece value section is quite misleading. TAsunder 17:55, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

some players may disagree about the piece value and it is certainly less important than in chess, but still I think piece values is one of the first things you should learn when starting to play any 'chess-like' game. One instance where the piece values are quoted, is the legendary article by ErrantFischer 'TOP TEN WAYS TO TELL YOU HAVE A BAD BUGHOUSE PARTNER' Ishamael 19:15, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

It may be a useful tool but it is still subjective. If it is not going to be removed, it could be at least qualified as a particular author's viewpoint and not necessarily as well agreed as chess point values. I would not want to play adhering strictly to the supplied chart, nor would I ever teach someone those values, even though they are as good as any. TAsunder 21:23, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, from the link given by Ishamael you can read that one strong bughouse player gives piece value suggested by bughouse god :-) and agrees at the end with them (see "#5: "I Am the God of Hell Fire!..."). So, looks like the piece values already are more or less established. Andreas Kaufmann 21:45, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, if you are comfortable calling a few people agreeing with something constituting an established fact, then by all means leave it in. TAsunder 22:15, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

This article....

The Bughouse article is just unbearably bad now. I was contemplating fixing it, but what’s to stop it from just degrading to uselessness again? To be honest this seems like a flaw with the whole Wikipedia concept. Sixty people just aren’t going to magically coalesce to write one good entry about Bughouse.


All you did was deleting information from the article. No one will say anything if you fix the article, but people usually do object and rewrite if you erase anything without a sensible reason! --Sibahitalk 18:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
What you're failing to understand is the deletions improved the article. No one plays "untimed games with a gentleman's rule is that a player may not delay his move beyond the time that it takes for his partner to make three moves." Lacking understanding of the subject, you seem to think that more text is better, even if the text itself is worthless. DrZukhar 21:10, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
If you don't know anyone who plays untimed games this doesn't mean they don't exist !! This fact is mentioned in the Chess Variants pages, so no I see no reason that it shouldn't be here. I am sure the editors there are more knowledgeable of this topic than you and me. And by the way, without this rule, chess amateurs who don't have two chess clocks won't be able to enjoy Bughouse properly. So please don't remove any information unless it was useless and against the policies of Wikipedia. --Sibahitalk 23:19, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Sibahit, “All you did was deleting information from the article. No one will say anything if you fix the article, but people usually do object and rewrite if you erase anything without a sensible reason!” The information I added about the Fizbin amendment to the untimed bughouse rules was very valuable. The entire Wikipedia is poorer because you, Sibahit, deleted it. If you don't know anyone who plays untimed games with the Fizbin rule this doesn't mean they don't exist !! So, Sibahit, please don't remove any information unless it was useless and against the policies of Wikipedia. DrZukhar 04:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Name

Does anyone know where the name "bughouse" comes from? That's what I came to the article to find out, since I've never known for sure where such an odd name came from. -Phoenixrod 05:26, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

From bughouse, it is slang for a mental hospital. The inference is that bughouse chess drives you crazy or looks like a gathering of maniacs to the casual onlooker. --IanOsgood 18:14, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Off-line bughouse

Should we mention something about off-line bughouse on computer? Zilliongames has a plugin, and there are other such as nonvi's doublechess. Voorlandt 14:28, 15 May 2007 (UTC) Updated Voorlandt 15:26, 27 July 2007 (UTC). Updated Voorlandt 08:05, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

More than two boards

I often play bughouse variants with friends where we have matched up more than two boards ... sometimes four or five -- a practice which can be extended indefinitely; the rule for team victory is generally some combination of the centreboard or the majority of the boards winning. Is this common? I thought it was, but it's not covered here. John Riemann Soong 11:02, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

It is being played (that is, I have played it), but as far as I know, not that popular. Feel free to add it to the variant section, which btw needs a total rewrite! Voorlandt 12:28, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I have added a section on this now.Voorlandt 08:05, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't understand why you would ever need more than 3 boards at a time. If you have 8 players and 4 boards, why not just make four teams and play standard Bughouse? 24.226.77.23 (talk) 13:59, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
It can be played just for fun, see this website for some pictures [1]. Voorlandt (talk) 14:31, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

A-class

This article is currently being assessed at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chess/Review, please join the discussion. Voorlandt 08:05, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

There is still one reviewer missing to make it A-class, so in the mean time I push it through GA-class. You can check the reviews (or add yours) at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chess/Review#Current candidates SyG 19:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Finally we have 3 positive reviews for A-class, and no significant issue pending, so this article has been raised to A-class. You can see the review at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chess/Review. SyG 14:41, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

For the sake of simplicity, you can also see the review directly here: SyG (talk) 08:56, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Review of Bughouse chess

This review is done in the scope of the WikiProject Chess and is transcluded from Wikipedia:WikiProject Chess/Review/Bughouse Chess. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

On the sample game

This sample game has recently been removed and I have put it back since I don't think giving an example constitutes being an instruction manual. How about Algebraic chess notation and Portable Game Notation (this last one contains an example completely analogous). Also how about for instance Regular expression examples, or any other examples illustrating something? The example here just demonstrates the notation, and the BPGN format rather than giving a complete specification, along with syntax of the format. Voorlandt 18:45, 15 August 2007 (UTC), edited Voorlandt 21:07, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I plan on removing it from every game article I find it in as it is clearly against WP:NOT#GUIDE though if this become contentious I will open a blanket RFC on this.--Isotope23 talk 23:38, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The push to FA

Now that this article has reached A-class status, I believe we should be looking at how to go one better and make it an FA. To do this I believe a formal peer review is in order - that way we can get advice from those not necessarily associated with WikiProject: Chess. Anybody else feel likewise? (read: Anybody willing to be bothered to actually set up a peer review request - I would but I don't have net at home right now and leave work in a few minutes). Addyboy 14:56, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

That is a good idea. Unfortunately I am going on holidays in two days, so I will not have the necessary time to help the article going through such an exhausting task. I will check what's happening when I come back. SyG 20:42, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

GA category

Additionnally and independently from the assessement as A-class (in the scope of Wikipedia:WikiProject Chess) and the tentative push to FA-class, I also list this article as a Good Article, so that it will be listed in the Category:Wikipedia good articles and will be in the scope of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles. This also ensures the article will receive additional scrutiny from Wikipedians unfamiliar with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Chess or even with the game of chess, in an effort to gather more interesting insight on the quality of the article.
The article satisfies the Good Article criteria and has gone through independent peer-reviews, detailed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chess/Review. SyG 22:29, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

  • GA articles get a separate review, which this article has not undergone. So I removed the template. Currently it is being peer reviewed (see link on top of this page) Voorlandt 22:40, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
    • I have reviewed the article and believe it passes to be a Good article. There are many sources, and the information is very well written. To improve the article, you should try to expand the Criticism section. Malinaccier (talk • contribs) 02:49, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Drinking variations

KTrimble, comments on Bughouse

I made an edit describing a drinking variation. I made this edit basically to see how hard it was to try editing Wikipedia. There is another subject (real estate appraisal) that I have an interest in that I think needs a substantial rewrite. The edit was reversed fairly quickly as an April fools joke. I explained that it was not a joke and undid the undo. It then got undone again for lack of sources. I guess some people guard these pages pretty closely.

I got a couple of comments also (Thank you for your comments, BTW). I am not interested in an extended discussion or expending much time or capital on trying to change anything, but I would like to respond to a couple of the comments.

First, I just want to disagree about Arkansas bughouse not being 'encyclopedic'. Although I have never edited an article before, I use Wikipedia almost every day, sometimes several times a day, to find out things that I didn't know and don't have time to try to research. I often find a wide variety of information in the articles that is both very helpful and very entertaining and usually find something that I did not already know.

I think that the fact that there is a drinking variation of the game is something that I would have wanted to know about if I had only heard of the game and was reading the article to find out more. So I put in a paragraph about it.

To my suprise, chess appears to be a subject that a lot of people in this community care very much about. I remember one thing from the short time I was participating in chess tournaments: there are two types of chess people: people having fun and the purists. The purists hated bughouse and all of the variants and did not even want anybody to know that they existed. It is the purists that are writing books about chess, being serious about chess tournaments, and probably watchdogging the chess articles on Wikip. Therefore, I wonder if there are aspects of the entire chess topic that are important to the topic, of use to the readers, true, and should be found in Wikipedia that are not documented elsewhere and therefore excluded from Wikipedia (possibly to the detriment of the users). I suspect that there are items, such as drinking variations of chess, that exist in the universe, but nobody has ever written about them in a book or devoted a website to them, so they are excluded from this part of Wikipedia.

The comments that I got on my discussion page allude to shotglass chess and a drinking variant of lightning chess. I suspect that there could be several drinking variants of chess. The fact that there seems to be people in the Wiki community that are serious about chess that know of these variants even though they are not documented elsewhere might itself be documentation of thier existence. (Would it be appropriate to have separate page listing or describing the various drinking variations??)

One of the comments that I got on my discussion page indicated that the paragraph that I wrote was probably disproportionate to its importance relative to other variations. That is probably correct, but I would argue that the fact that a drinking variation exists probably warrants a one line mention, possibly in the bullet list, if it could be sourced, possibly with a link to a description in another article describing drinking variations if one were ever created.

I would like to state that I am sensitive to the position that if this subject is not closely policed, it would probably get out of control and possibly vandalized to the point that the articles are no longer reliable or useful. I need to clarify that I am not trying to make a big stink about this, and I am not trying to make a big argument for my paragraph, but I am wondering what else is out there of interest and value to users that is not in the chess articles.

Thanks KTrimble (talk) 20:00, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree on the one line about the drinking variant, however without sources, it is impossible to tell whether this is a variant that is actual being played on a regular basis or something made up (to be clear: I absolutely believe you, but others might not). One of the main policies of wikipedia is Wikipedia:Verifiability, this as you points out, is a double edged sword. However, I think the pro's outweigh the con's. If I read an encyclopedia, I want the information to be correct, and the only way to guarantee this (in an encyclopaedia everyone can edit) is reliable verifiable sources. There is actually a good example in this article's history [2], an editor put in the following text :
In untimed games, a gentleman's rule is that a player may not delay his move beyond the time that it takes for his partner to make three moves. Also there is a rule called the ‘Fizbin’ that supercedes this gentleman’s agreement in untimed games. If a player is delaying a move on one board his opponent may call shout “Fizbin!”. At this point the moves must be made sequentially. Generally no more than four Fizbins are allowed each game. Fizbins are also used to handicap bughouse games. The stronger player is only allowed one fizbin for each 3 fizbins the weaker player uses. This is similar to the use of handicap stones in Go. These rules are not necessary in timed games.
Obviously, Fizbin is nonsense, at best something used in a local chess club. Now I suspect (I happen to know the editor from an online forum and he is a very serious person) that the editor put that in to proof a point, as he didn't like the gentlemen's rule. But without sources, the drinking variant is no better of than the Fizbin variant. So in conclusion, I think verifiability is a good policy. And in any case, even if we didn't like it, this is not the place to discuss it. I really hope this experience doesn't turn you off editing wikipedia, because you write very well. Voorlandt (talk) 20:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Strange line

I don't like this line:

Because of the possibility of dropping pieces, successful attacks in bughouse can quickly lead to checkmate.

I mean, a successful attack can lead to checkmate? If it didn't, wouldn't that make it an unsuccessful attack? Shouldn't the "success" of an attack be based on whether it mates? I think rewording is neccessary here. 24.226.77.23 (talk) 14:02, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I have deleted the word "successful". SyG (talk) 13:10, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Bug out?

I've also heard some kids calling this "bug out" or "bugout". Is that common? If so, can it be referenced and included in the article? Bubba73 (talk), 20:38, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

OTB Draws

When two players of opposite team are checkmated simaltaneously, the game is normally declared a draw. The same applies to illegal move/ checkmate, flag fall/illegal move, flag fall/checkmate etc. In short, any combination resulting in 1:1, which happens simaltaneously enough, is normally declared draw. That part should be somehow correcterd to reflect this.83.240.41.206 (talk) 09:42, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

But then, what do you mean by "simultaneously" ? How do you prove one player was not checkmated "slightly before" the other one ? SyG (talk) 21:52, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
I suspect you can't, but you've still got to call it a draw. What else can you do? Peter Ballard (talk) 23:32, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
In my experience (from many years ago), people yell "mate!", and so you can hear who yelled it first. Krakatoa (talk) 00:15, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

No, it's not about who yelled first or who yelled louder. After the game the clocks are inspected; if a team is to win, both its members must have at least 1s on the clocks. Otherwise the game is declared draw. To avoid draw, after u mate, proceed to stop BOTH clocks immediately. The same after your opp makes an illegal move, or his flag falls. 83.240.41.206 (talk) 22:11, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Castling

I removed this "In typical chess openings, kings castle. For all but expert players, this is generally not recommended in the opening stage of a bughouse game. A castled king is trapped on one side of the board, and is therefore inherently harder to defend. There are also fewer escape routes possible." It's unreferenced, unencyclopaedic, POV, and not really true. Farannan (talk) 12:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Bughouse openings

I've had significant experience in chess (USCF Master title) and am somewhat knowledgeable in bughouse openings. Do you guys think it would be a good idea to create a seperate page for Bughouse Openings? While opening theory in bughouse is indeed limited, it is definitely a significant factor in quality bughouse play. It is due to my analysis of the basic motifs and strategies in bughouse openings that has made me a better player since I started playing bughouse instead of chess. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roflplex (talk • contribs) 16:23, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

That sounds a good idea, provided we can find reliable sources. We do not want this article to become a repository of all the "advices" from bughouse players all over the world. So if you have a reliable book talking about bughouse openings, please go ahead ! SyG (talk) 13:48, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
I think a separate article might be pushing it a bit, but the section on openings in this article can definitely be expanded, as it is now very short. So please have a go at it. Like SyG says, please use reliable sources to reference all new material. I think good material can be found in the three bughouse books in the reference list, but if you have other good sources those are of course fine. Regards, --Voorlandt (talk) 19:08, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Setup time: 1 minute?

That's written below the photo. Why 1 minute specifically? An approximation probably? I think it should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.115.137.78 (talk) 01:57, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Exactly matches at Chess article now ("About 1 minute"). Ihardlythinkso (talk) 09:16, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
Not any-more in that article. Most experienced players can do it much faster, I guess. Bever (talk) 01:32, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
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