Youthful Bughouse tips from Brooklyn

[Jonathan Berry]

http://main.uschess.org/content/view/11243/141/

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Re: Youthful Bughouse tips from Brooklyn

http://main.uschess.org/content/view/11243/141/

What a simple game is bughouse :D "1 e4 c6 2 d4 This is almost winning."
However chess is much more simpler: 1 e4 and White wins :p

[David MacLeod]

Re: Youthful Bughouse tips from Brooklyn

I think that I've managed to put aside some time to play in the Canadian Open Bughouse Tournament. I'll have to find a partner first. Hopefully some of the old boys are still around and willing to play. Only a month to go, so I will have to start working on my hands which have a lot of injuries over the years from volleyball, soccer and hockey. (Picture me working the arms and hands back into bughouse shape with one of the Rocky themes playing.)

[Ken Kurkowski]

Re: Youthful Bughouse tips from Brooklyn

I remember this game being called "Double Chess", at least in the Toronto area back in the 70s-80s. Is this another example of American usage taking over?

[Jonathan Berry]

Re: Youthful Bughouse tips from Brooklyn

I remember this game being called "Double Chess", at least in the Toronto area back in the 70s-80s. Is this another example of American usage taking over?

It was called "Siamese Chess" when I learned it in 1970 at Boston from Lawrence Day, Bruce Amos, and Dr. Winterton. Siamese is the name it came to BC on. IMHO, "Double Chess" is too generic, it could be stakes chess using a backgammon doubling cube (which is in fact known as "Contra"), or it could be a form of four-handed chess, or alternating-move chess. I rather like the punkness of "bug" or "bughouse". Just like the vapid "Modern Defence" moniker wouldn't be used by anyone who channels the Rat.

[Hugh Brodie]

Re: Youthful Bughouse tips from Brooklyn

In Montreal, it was called "double replacement". After a brief flurry of popularity in the mid-1970's, in Montreal, games between/among adults are now quite rare. We still see it a lot at kids' events - with the occasional adult taking part.

(popular was the "[Marek] Szczepara Opening" in which White played 1. Nf3 2. Ng5 3. Nxf7 (or from the Black side, capturing on f2) - or as quickly as possible.)

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Youthful Bughouse tips from Brooklyn

I remember playing a chess variant that was known as 'Bughouse' (as opposed to Double Chess) in Toronto back in the 1970-80s.

This 'Bughouse' game refered to a form of chess that was only different from regular chess in that, in Bughouse, when one side captured an opposing piece/pawn, he could put it back on an empty square (I forget if there were any restictions such as not putting a pawn on a player's first rank, or giving an opponent two bishops on the same coloured squares).

The strategy of the game, besides ultimately delivering mate, involved trying to denude the opposing king, as well as entombing the opponent's pieces (especially his queen) within a prison of his own pawns that you had gradually constructed with accumulating numbers of captures (assuming the opponent made little effort to correct the problem that was developing for him).

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Youthful Bughouse tips from Brooklyn

I remember playing a chess variant that was known as 'Bughouse' (as opposed to Double Chess) in Toronto back in the 1970-80s.

This 'Bughouse' game refered to a form of chess that was only different from regular chess in that, in Bughouse, when one side captured an opposing piece/pawn, he could put it back on an empty square (I forget if there were any restictions such as not putting a pawn on a player's first rank, or giving an opponent two bishops on the same coloured squares).

The strategy of the game, besides ultimately delivering mate, involved trying to denude the opposing king, as well as entombing the opponent's pieces (especially his queen) within a prison of his own pawns that you had gradually constructed with accumulating numbers of captures (assuming the opponent made little effort to correct the problem that was developing for him).

I remember this game as well, we played where each separate game had their own clock and 5 minutes / side. Pawns could not be put on the 1st or 8th rank. Sometimes, one player would deliberately not move so that his partner could capture and hand him a piece he could place on the board to deliver a mating attack.

Just from reading this post, I thought of what might be a cool idea: a bughouse clock that gets placed between the two boards, and it has 4 separate buttons, one for each player. Instead of the two games being totally separate in terms of their clocks, there is a definite sequence. White Game 1 moves, then White Game 2, then Black Game 1, then Black Game 2. This cycles over and over until one of the games decides the match.

What this means is that the entire match game now becomes a game of perfect information. There could become an opening book... it would all be much more complex than standard 2-player chess. There you go, Kevin, start working out variations! :)

[David MacLeod]

Re: Youthful Bughouse tips from Brooklyn

We named it sort of independantly of the Americans. They might have even been calling it Bughouse a little before we named it. There is really only one difference between the two games that I can thing of. In Double Chess when you promote a pawn it stays as that piece if it is captured. This can make you think twice before promoting because of the effect that it could have on your partner. In late 1972 at the Pan American Intercollegiate held in Columbus Ohio some team from Buffalo won the Bughouse Championship 5 - 0. Second place were H.Kaminker - G.Burk and P.Matsi - D.MacLeod at 4 - 1. Within a year I don't think there were any teams in the USA that could match up against the best Toronto players. I used the term USA rather than North America because I'm trying to be diplomatic towards the guys out in BC.

[Jonathan Berry]

Re: Youthful Bughouse tips from Brooklyn

I don't think there were any teams in the USA that could match up against the best Toronto players. I used the term USA rather than North America because I'm trying to be diplomatic towards the guys out in BC.

All regionalism aside, I have no idea. Maybe there should have been more cross-pollination, in the day. Then there was another generation. There was an excellent bug website, authored, IIRC, by none other than Benedict "Next Year in Newark" Daswani. I played a few games on *ics and must say that I lagged in opening theory, in technique, in board visualization, and in mouse speed. I don't recall being that dominated in face-to-face Siamese games, back in the day, in the 70s, by anybody in BC.

Oh yes, Siamese also had a different rule, didn't it?

[David MacLeod]

Re: Youthful Bughouse tips from Brooklyn

I seem to remember that you guys in BC used to play both games to a conclusion resulting in scores like 2-0, 1.5-0.5,1-1,0.5-1.5,0-2. Combine that with the Toronto rules and you probably get a game that reflects the greatest degree of skill and reduces the relevance of just moving quickly by a certain degree.

When I first got an internet connection I played on FICS for a while but found that to maintain good board visualization I had to make the board so large that I couldn't see my partner's board and it took longer to move the mouse. I once played with David Ottosen (aka: No Joking) in a "World Cup" on FICS. When we played the Americans (aka: WhoamI and Jkiller) who were ranked in the top five or ten at that time our lack of communiction was our downfall. I looked at the games afterwards and saw that in both games we were up between 30 and 45 seconds (3 minute games) with David's board in a somewhat bare position where I could have sat and provided him with enough to mate. If that was OTB I doubt that our opponents would have escaped.
The biggest problem is when you stop playing speed chess on a regular basis your skills can drop off dramatically. I always just played speed chess for fun and would play some very slopply chess. One year I decided to just play in 15 minute tournaments at the Toronto Chess Club. I played about two tournaments per week. My normal scores were usually 3 or 3.5 out of 5. After about 3 or 4 months of playing opennings that suited my style I had won five tournaments in a row and my speed rating had placed me third behind Day and Nickoloff. I might have been able to pass them, if they didn't wise up in time to my style. I stopped playing 15 minute chess and switched to 5 minute speed chess tournaments. The summer was spent in much the same manner of two tournaments per week and just before going back to university I did manage to be leading two 7x2 Saturday Swiss tournaments going into the last round. Alas as I was getting tired, Peter Murray was just getting warmed up and he beat me 2-0 both Saturdays.
The moral of the story is that practice makes perfect and a good set of speed skills will always help somewhat in bughouse. Alas now my speed chess skills have dropped somewhere between 300 and 600 points from their peek. Maybe I should play in the Canadian Open speed chess tournament and scare the young kids by demonstrating what happens when you get old and out of practice.