My original idea was not good because the kings on a3 and h3 could be put in check right on the first move. This one is better: pawns on a3 and h3 and kings on a2 and h2.

But 10 x 10 sounds even better.

As to pawns promoting to kings: I proposed it simply because I saw no point forbidding it when there are several kings on the board anyway. However, if it were allowed, there would be a problem in positions where a promoting pawn can capture the opponent's last king. In that case, the player on the move would win, no matter what number he'd throw. For instance, in the position W: Ka1, Pb7; B: Ka8, Nh8, if black on the move throws a 2, it will be certain that white can capture black's king on his next move, no matter what. To give black at least some chance, as I think he should have, there should be some kind of a limiting rule, for example: the opponent's only king may not be captured by promoting a pawn to a king. In that case, the other player would still have a 1/6 chance to survive, as he has in standard Dice Chess.

Or if you think it makes things too confusing, we could keep the rule that pawns are not promoted to kings. Promotions are very rare anyway.

As everyone's probably realised by now, Dice Chess is quite random. It's not bad to have a game where even a very weak player has a reasonable chance of beating a very strong player. However, if you really want to find out who's better, you have to play two- or even three-win matches. So I think people might be interested in a game that would use the general idea of Dice Chess but wouldn't leave so much to chance.

There has already been proposed a variant of Dice Chess where the player on the move rolls two dice (as long as there are legal moves with at least two kinds of pieces), and gets to choose which one he wants to move with. I think that would be very interesting to play. (We could call it Two Dice Chess, unless it already has a name which I don't know.) But to me a different idea occurred just recently.

I propose a Dice Chess variant which could be called, for instance, Three Kings Dice Chess. The game is started with two extra pieces – white kings on a3 and h3, and black kings on a6 and h6. To win the game, a player has to capture all the opponent's kings. A pawn can be promoted into a king. Everything else is like in Dice Chess.

Apart from requiring at least three captures instead of just one, this variation would also have the advantage of blocking the pawns a and h in the initial position which would certainly make the opening strategy more challenging.

What do you think?

Sorry, andreas, I think it was 25 moves: from white's 27th to black's 52nd. Anyway, more than 20, obviously.

All right, 20 is not enough, but in my opinion, 50 moves is far too long for DC. Perhaps 30 or 40? Anybody ever had a game with 60 or more half-moves without a capture?

And I still can't understand why does a draw have to have anything to do with pawn moves. What is the point of making a draw dependent on something the players can't know?

I wrote an article about what might be sensible draw rules for Dark Chess:
http://brainrook.com/archives/82-Dark-Chess-draw-rules.html


I propose the following rule:
if 40 consecutive half-moves are made without any pieces being captured, the game is declared a draw upon request of either player.

Please express your opinion.

I haven't played the game yet, but it would seem more logical if empty squares were filled with ice cubes after they've been unoccupied for a number of moves – say, five. That variation might be called Ice Chess, for example. It would have to be tested first, of course. I have no idea what it would be like to play such a game.

mangue:
Indeed, this is a very important questions. It absolutely has to be 1/2, not 8/10. That's because when you play with a real chessboard and die, the chance is 1/2.

panzerschiff:
Maybe you would like six dice, each with a different number?