The following pages consist of a detailed study of the laws of chess interpreted for variants,
together with glossaries of Games, Pieces, and Terms such as chess problem themes and stipulations.
(Contents last revised May 2002, moved to this site and diagrams renewed December 2005).
Laws of Variant Chess
Variant Chess Games
All the King's Men
Chess Problem Terms
Introducing Variant Chess
This is an earlier more condensed version of the Guide.
Simple Chess Variants (PDF)
by G. P. Jelliss, August 2010, file size: 140KB.
This 14-page A4 booklet was compiled for a talk I gave on 21 August 2010 at the Hastings and St Leonards Chess Club.
It is based on the above articles but deals only with variants that can be played using normal board and pieces.
On this site (some were also on the BCVS site):
Alice Chess
Grid Chess
Circular Chess
Cylinder Chess
The following were available on the BCVS site (I hope to reinstate them here soon):
Knight Relay Chess
Reshaping the Chessboard
Space Chess
Unfortunately the BCVS site vanished into the ether around 8 May 2013.
John Beasley indicates that it is still accessible via web.archive.org:
type in www.bcvs.ukf.net in reply to the "http://" prompt,
click on "Take Me Back", and then click on the date highlighted in the calendar shown.
All 64 issues of the magazine, published 1990 - 2010, are now available for download in PDF form here.
Vol.1, issues 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
Vol.2, issues 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.
Vol.3, issues 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28.
Vol.4, issues 29, 30, 31, 32.
Vol.5, issues 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40.
Vol.6, issues 41, 42, 43, 44.
Vol.7, issues 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54.
Vol.8, issues 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63.
Vol.8, issue 64: p173, pp174-189, pp190-217, pp218-244.
For details of the contents of each issue see the website of the
British Chess Variants Society.
This collection of books and magazines, formerly the BCVS Library, was transferred to the National Chess Library in December 2011.