Chess Variant Idea

The player moving can either move normally or remove one of their own pieces from the board as if it was captured. I know it's rather subtle but it could lead to interesting mates, forks, skewers, forcing checks, etc. Could be called Phantom Chess or Ghost Chess or something like that.

Anyway, I thought it might be cool but I leave it to better chess players to tell me why it's a bad idea!

Good Games to all,

Tom

I think it's an interesting idea.

The "removing" moves would be unusual because they would have a high price from the material point of view, but for sure at key points, they can help discover an attack or making room to escape for the king or a trapped piece.

Some usually permanent strategical factors like a bad bishop or a grip would be more temporary, favoring (I assume) tactical play over positional grinding play.

Endgames might be reached sooner as well, and I assume that in this variant the bishop pair and the rooks might have a slight increase in value since it's easier to open lines.

Another interesting variant, close to this one but a bit less random, would be one where you can capture your own pieces.

Your variant is something similar to crazyhouse,which already there is in Lichess.If you take your opponents piece,then it goes to your pocket and you can put it anywhere on the board if it is your move.I am not sure if this new variant is needed right now,because there is a crazyhouse variant.

People were discussing about another variant idea,which is "Storm chess" lichess.org/forum/lichess-feedback/storm-chess#5

Rule is that after every 10 moves the outter border of a board disappears,making less space,and pieces that were on that side,disappears.I played and tested this variant with @Puredication and it was quite exciting one.Hopefully lichess decided to create "storm chess" any time soon.

The suggested variant is nothing like crazyhouse, but I've seen it played before.
Another variant is called sneaky chess, where once you can make an illegal move, except for capturing the king. The most common mistake beginners do is play pawn (usually from h2) x queen on the first move. Great material exchange, but this move is almost always losing.