Are variants "real" chess?

Well, it actually improve on one part of chess
Crazyhouse: Attack and Defense
Chess960: Defense
KOTH: Not to expose your king
Three check: Look at all check and find the checkmate
Antichess: Thinking how to win
Atomic: Learn how to not sacrifice excessively.
Horde: Pawn storm
Racing Kings: Trading and making the king escape when someone attacks the king. Thinking how to win.

The benefit for chess is overrated; in some cases like Horde or RK zero or even negative.

After playing Atomic chess, I can't really play normal chess anymore. It's ruined normal chess for me. But I quite like Atomic chess.

@natbee56 said in #11:
> Chess960: Defense
Huh?
> KOTH: Not to expose your king
Thus is a joke, right?
> Three check: Look at all check and find the checkmate
Precisely not. You don't need to checkmate in 3-check.
> Antichess: Thinking how to win
Hum, hum.
> Atomic: Learn how to not sacrifice excessively.
Curious as to how you reached that conclusion.

There are people whp believe crazyhouse or antichess is the real form of chess but ı don't know if they are right or they are jsut fanatic variant lovers. For me, ıt could be both. Antichess, a different approach to the whole chess "algorithm" and crazyhouse is just deeper and more "fancy" to play and more importantly enjoy.

@JKS369 said in #1:
> While I like variants (atomic and racing Kings) I have gotten some criticism about them not being "real" chess. Are variants "real" and do they help improve our standard chess skills?

Variants do actually help improve standard chess skills (I speak for all the variants currently on lichess).

Crazyhouse is ofcourse more dynamic as standard chess and white favoured due that piece in your piece pocket can be dropped anywhere that simply make the extra tempo very valueable for white.
I think crazyhouse also got a positional play and this is why Yasser Seirawan very good due his positional understanding for good piece placement there are some players who are maybe better with mates
(Jasugi99 is incredible with mates often find mates with no time leftthat is also why he is the bughouse goat for the quick and deadly attacks).
Jannlee and Mastertan are good with mates with no time left too.
but Yasser simply take all the pieces of the opponent :D and missing all the mates no dissrespect at all ^^ just wanna share my ideas of his crazyhouse and he got a elegant positional style.
And he is also is very good when it comes down to having the crucial tempo to get in.
In the positional crazyhouse part Yasser is atleast top 2 and its nice a legend of the game plays crazyhouse!
Gotta say i was surprised a classical player like Yasser plays crazyhouse and a honour i got like i dunno 300-400 games with him :)
So in my view crazyhouse also got a positonal part but ofcourse kingsafety play a major role in crazyhouse that why the piece evaluation is different a old legend of the game says a pawn is worth one point a knight rook bishop 2 a queen 4 it all depends on the position.
Due the tactical nature in crazyhouse + the positional element in it Jannlee is my favourite opponent with little moves he can put a lot of pressure on the opponent and he combined it with deadly tactics in it.

I just published a blog post on this question. I analyzed 1.3 million games and it turns out variants do not help you win at standard chess. Most variants make you worse.

lichess.org/@/piazzai/blog/do-variants-help-you-play-better-chess-statistical-evidence/0tAPXnqH

Three-check and Racing Kings seem to be the worst. Crazyhouse does not hurt that much. Chess960 practically makes no difference.

@RichieTozier said in #9:
> I think there are 3 diffrent catogieres. The ones that have not so much to do with chess (game-changing rules), i would include Antichess. Atomic chess and Racing Kings. These don't really help, because they don't have to do a lot with chess anymore. It can be argued that they help with calculation but that is only a small part.
> Then there are variants with extra rules but similar goals to normal chess: King of the Hill, Three Check, Crazy House and Horde (not to sure if this should count). Imo these can help with your std chess if you take them serious and calculate thoroughly. Especially Crazy House can really help with tactical calculation if done right.
> And then there is the last category of just diffrent starting positions what is Chess960 which is just chess with a diffrent starting position but same rules.

Good guess. There are indeed three categories: one includes Racing Kings and Three-Check. These are the worst in terms of decreasing your likelihood to win at standard chess. They lower your odds of victory by about 50% if you play them instead of standard. A second category includes King of the Hill, Atomic, Antichess, and Horde. These decrease your odds of victory by about 30%. The other category includes Crazyhouse and Chess960. Crazyhouse only decreases your odds of victory by about 15%, and Chess960 makes no difference. None of them help.

More details here: lichess.org/@/piazzai/blog/do-variants-help-you-play-better-chess-statistical-evidence/0tAPXnqH

@cFlour said in #16:
> Variants do actually help improve standard chess skills (I speak for all the variants currently on lichess).
not all of them, antichess doesnt help with standard skill.