Ukimix: Well all I can say is that your variant deserves to be playtested ! My advice would be to start some unrated Atomic games here with players who are ready to play by those rules. It shouldn't be long to see whether the variant works well or not.
Unfortunately I can't be one of those players (at least not for now), I need a lot of IRL time right now.

Fencer: Flybaboo is a low-cost company which makes it a little bit nearer !

Salkkuman: Same rules as the ones used on FICS and ICC for those who know them : pawn is promoted, remains physically a pawn but assumes the power of the announced piece. When captured it reverts into a simple pawn. No pawn drops on 1st/8th rows. Drop-check and drop-mate allowed.

For those who like Bughouse (the fast and fun 4-player version of the game called Loop Chess here), I will organize a gathering in Geneva from August 18 to August 21.
Although Geneva is know as an expensive city, the gathering is one of the cheapest possible : if you register in the following weeks, you can get free accomodation, plus the usual free sandwiches and drinks for the whole gathering.
International participation will include the swede Maarten Aronsson, one of the world's best.
All details can be found here !

Fencer: I agree, of course !

Fencer: Yes, at least the last time I played with the inventor we played with promotions. We didn't have the case of a promoted piece being taken, I don't see why it should revert to a pawn (except for being bughouse-like), but I can ask him what he thinks about it.

The player with the move selects a possible destination square, and his opponent chooses which one of the possible pieces moves to that square.
I would *very* much like to see that variant here, but I am probably biased as I invented it :-)
Details, examples and a playing board can be found here (still awaiting some updates).
I already talked with Fencer about this variant, but I am posting this in case some of you are interested to try it over the board. Transcriptions of played games that are sent to me will be included in the aforementioned web page !

Fencer: OK !

Fencer: Oops, I forgot that Bughouse was discussed here too. Do you really intend to use the synchronous version of bughouse (I don't think that it is popular at all, but it may not be that bad), or the standard version where you can play on either board at either time ? If playable, the latter would probably generate a lot of traffic, as some lost seconds can lose the game :-)

Fencer: No he can't (of course the king can capture other own pieces).

Cubs93: Yes, bughouse is most cool, but it don't think it could be played here, as it is to be played only in live mode and with very fast time controls ; otherwise, there are very long and painful double sits (you and your partner's opponent both wait for the other to play).
You'll probably have to play Loop Chess instead (and I think that its close cousins Hostage Chess / Recycle Chess are scheduled for future implementation).

Probably I am not the first one to see it, but chessvariants.com is back online - seems just a little slower than it used to be.

I also think so. It would be too much an invaluable loss if this site didn't reappear in one way or another.

Fencer: Yes, 99.99% chances he is the founder of chessvariants.org . I remember that he was from Utrecht.

Fencer: Oh I've got another one : chessvar@yahoo.com with the owner described as "The Chess Variants Pages"

Fencer: Somewhere in my mailbox I have got the editors@chessvariants.org address, but I guess it would not work either :-(

Fencer: Oh, and by the way, I recently played some Recycle Chess games with the author in the Berlin Bug Gathering, and since he wrote the rules I linked, he has switched back to allowing promotions, which is more lively.

Fencer: Hostage *and* Recycle, that is just great news. You rule !

By the way, I fully support / am looking forward to the implementation of Hostage Chess, which is an excellent game.
Sorry to be on the "user always want more" side, but Recycle Chess (http://www.chessvariants.org/difftaking.dir/recy
clechess.html) is a close and simpler relative that definitely deserves the same consideration !

Fencer: I read Hostage Chess games commented by the author and yes, this seems to be the correct interepretation.
But there is one more point in this rule (probably it was stated later and you know it) : if no piece is in the opponent's prison, then the pawn cannot move onto the last rank. It means that in this case, a pawn on the seventh rank is not even checking a king on the last rank.

<Progressive Chess is a definite candidate ! Although it is not one of my favourite variants, it has the advantages of being already very popular, and to produce fast games (games >10 moves are an exception).
I would imagine that implementing multiple moves would be more expensive in coding than some other variants. But once done, we could gain a lot more : other popular games like Marseillais Chess or Double Move Chess. These are two different two-move variants. In Marseillais Chess, like in Progressive Chess, if you check with the first of your two moves, you lose the right to play the second one. In Double-Move Chess, you can win by checking on the first move and taking the king on the second.
Other excellent multi-move variants are Avalanche (after each of your moves you have to push an enemy pawn one square forward), and various asymmetrical games where one side has only 3 or 4 pawns against a whole army, but can play two moves at a turn.