Bughouse Chess
BGG rank
BGG #5,672
BGG rating
7.3

Bughouse Chess

1960

Rules assistance for Bughouse Chess

Plain-language explanations of turns, card effects and disputed situations, with official source references and saved question history.

  • 4 players
  • 10 min
  • 10+
  • Complexity 2.8/5

For 4 players

Rules assistant for Bughouse Chess

What would you like to know?

Answers come from the official rulebook, with the page to check.

Bughouse Chess is a board game released in 1960 for 4 players, 10 minutes per game, and ages 10 and up. Its main mechanics are Grid Movement, Team-Based Game, and Real-Time.

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About the game

Bughouse Chess is a variation of chess played with two teams of two people on two chess boards. Chess clocks are used, generally with 5 minute time controls. Team members sit beside each other playing opposite colors. Each player plays his opponent as in standard chess, except that whenever a piece is captured, it is given to the teammate. The teammate can then decide to play a normal move, or place the captured piece on any unoccupied square of the board (exception: pawns cannot be placed on the 1st or 8th rank). Team members have to work together and against the clock to win. The first person to lose by checkmate or time loses for his or her team, thus ending both games.

Publishers

  • (Public Domain)

Questions and answers

Bughouse Chess supports 4 players according to the catalogue. This is the publisher’s listed player count, so the game is designed for exactly that number of participants. Variants for other group sizes, if any, are described in the rulebook of your edition, so check it before setting up a different configuration.