idea for a variant strategochess

you are not forced to put pawns on the first rank

Can I put two pawns on the same file? Maybe there is some advantage in opening a file and putting two rooks on it from the start.

you can put all your pieces where you want on the first and second rank for your side

I have seen a similar chess variant before, it was called "tuerto", which translates to something like "One-eyed", in an old chess website called "buho21", the idea was that you could see only as far as your pieces could move and you were blind for the other squares. It was posible to capture the other king. And it was really interesting, you might take a look on youtube if you search for "ajedrez tuerto".

Maybe you can get a better idea :)

thx! i gonna look at it

No prob.

My favorite variant is called avalanche. You make your normal move, and then as the second half of your move, pick up one of your opponents pawns and move it towards you. Opponent takes turn, and then grabs one of your pawns and moves it forward one square, etc.
Special rule: if no pawns are able to move a square forward, they do not avalanche during the turn.
You'll notice a few other rules probably need to be hashed out.. regarding checks with pawns especially,

There's something similar on itsyourturn.com called "screen chess" .The variant mentioned by Paul is called "dark chess" over there.
http://www.itsyourturn.com/t_helptopic2020.html#helpitem1276

Sounds awesome @opperwezen ! We should try to work this out somehow, check the possibilities. Currently I'm away from home, so maybe I have some time next week to take a look.

@TricksOnlyNL cool! but i think you should take black vs a viewer with a lot less elo because i think white have a hugh advantage in this variant