Losers Chess Basics

Rules of Losers Chess

This is basically Antichess with a royal king. Hence, the aim is to get checkmated or lose all pieces except the king. A stalemate is a win for the side which got stalemated. If the king is in check, then removing it from the check is priority. For example, after e4 b5 Bxb5 Nf6 Bxd7, black has to play either of Kxd7/Qxd7/Bxd7/Nbxd7/Nfxd7, and can't play Nxe4. As the aim is to lose all the pieces, this position is in fact lost for black, which it would have been won for black in antichess:

Opening Traps

As you all may have figured out, most of the opening traps which work in Antichess, don't work here. In fact, the most common opening trap here is after 1.c3, which is a lost opening in antichess.
In this opening trap, after 1. c3 e6 2. a3 Bxa3 3. Rxa3, if black doesn't play one of the moves marked by the blue arrows here, its lost for black:

Assuming black doesn't play one of these moves, then after 4. Rxa7 Rxa7 5. Qa4 Rxa4 6. c4 Rxc4, any of these moves win for white:

as black is forced to play Rxc1 and the king can't move out of check so white wins.

Where to Play

Losers chess was available on FICS where you can download one of their clients to play it, or use the web version. It was also available on liantichess! Here you could play it by using the same username as your lichess one, and also anonymously.

It is also there on pychess-alternates. Please note that the places at which it is available might change from time to time. I will try to update this section whenever possible.

Losers Chess on Lichess

Me and a few of my friends play losers chess on lichess by challenging the other to a casual standard chess game where we look for forced captures and play them. This is easy for players who are used to playing the variant, as people have to remember to resign when their opponent gets reduced to a bare king. There are also ideas of doing a losers chess league for lichess players in a few months.

Example games

Here are a few games played/imported on lichess of losers chess:

1. I played this game against the AI on vchess:
   
2. This was a game between me and @yabbadabbadoooooo on FICS:
   
3. This was a game between me and @MagnusXL as part of the 2023 Losers Chess Championship:
   

Conclusion

Well folks, thats all for today. I will try to write more about this really interesting variant next week.

Relevant Links

Part 2
Discord Server
Lichess Team