mangue: I'm not willing to say that it should be prohibited.  (I would say so, if it occurred any more frequently than it does at present.)

But I think it's unfortunate when one player can find that they have lost a game on move 4, when none of their 3 moves have been faulty.

mangue: I admit to having a particular fondness for defensive play and for endgames in nearly all variants.  Variants in which those are less frequently seen, or which call for no skill in those areas are less appealing to me.  I consider the thematic Dice Chess Nc3-Nb5-Nxc7-Nxe8 (and mirror image for Black) maneuver to be a blemish in the game itself.  In my experience, it's only executed in about 5% of games, but is threatened in perhaps 25%.  It reminds me of the scholar's mate in chess: fascinating to beginners, but a horrifying thing for a knowledgeable kibitzer to behold.

I'm also not thrilled by compulsory king moves in the single-die version, although one can adjust one's play to account for it, both offensively and defensively.  Two-dice versions typically don't suffer from this defect; dice rolls alone cannot compel a king move, in versions I know of.

As usual, I'm playing way too much Dice Chess here.        Yes, it's making my head spin!

And lately I've taken up Backgammon here as well, and now I'm beginning to think that Dice Chess would be pretty cool if matches could include the use of a doubling cube.

It's just a half-baked notion, and not at all a serious request.

nabla: For Compromise Chess, I had never heard of your "forced move ends the game" rule option, until you mentioned it.  I would still prefer the "forced moves must be played without compromise" option, for two reasons: (1) it was what the game's inventor specified, and (2) my admitted personal bias in favor of endgames, and the way endgame theory changes in specific variants.  I'm afraid that in the "forced move ends the game" version of Compromise, very few endgames would ever be reached--we would virtually lose an entire phase of the game, for no good reason that I am able to see.

1. Is castling allowed on a roll of 4 or 6 (assuming neither the king nor the rook has moved)?


2. Is promotion to a second king allowed?

I'm interested in playing/testing a couple of variants that aren't available at BK: Compromise Chess and Move-and-a-Half Chess.

We could play Compromise Chess here by means of unrated games of standard Chess, coupled with the use of BK messages for "compromising".  Checks and piece movement are as in normal chess, except that:
--Whenever only one legal move is possible, it is to be made without any "compromising"
--Otherwise, the player to move must propose two legal candidate moves; the opponent then chooses which of these two moves shall actually be played
--A pawn possibly promoting to a different piece should be considered a different move candidate (for example, in a position where e7-e8 is legal, e8=Q and e8=R could be put forward as a legal pair of candidate moves)
--Win by making a move that produces a standard chess mating position, or by proposing a pair of legal moves--both of which are standard mates.

Move-and-a-Half Chess would have to be played via BK messages or email, as no variant here would allow us to mimic move sequences.  (A computer-supported version of this variant would be ideal, because of the additional move accounting requirements.)

Move-and-a-Half Chess    [rules and remarks from The Chess Variant Pages]
--Each turn, each player gets enough gas to make 1.5 moves.
--Each turn, each player must make at least one move.
--If you only make one move, you get credit for half a move.
--Each turn, each player may make as many moves as he can afford.
--Check must be respected, and your first move of a turn must get you out of check.
--The very first turn of the game, White gets only enough gas for one move.
--[not stated on the Pages, but I presume that if a player makes a sequence of moves, only the last of them can be a checking move, as in rules for progressive chess variants]

Remarks on Move-and-a-Half Chess
--This could be the best game of all.  [the author may only have been speaking about Doublemove variants--wetware]
--The primary strategic tension here is between saving and spending. If you save up enough gas to make ten moves in one turn, surely you can checkmate; but in the meantime, your opponent might be able to win by making a few extra moves here, a few there.
--How embarassing it would be to get checkmated with 8 moves in the bank!
--I think that the average game will be 20 moves or fewer.

If we play Move-and-a-Half Chess, I'd suggest mentioning your accumulated move total with every move (sequence) made.

I'd be happy to play 4-6 games with both of these variants, at any one time.  And 3-5 days per move max, please.

Message me if you're interested.  I've played Compromise Chess, but never heard of Move-and-a-Half Chess until today.