This game is being played under Antichess rules. Click the 'info' tab for more information.
1. e3 Clock started on 03/23/2006
1... a6 2. Bxa6 bxa6 3. Na3 Black defaulted
Force your opponent to capture all your pieces. The game known also as Losing Chess (do not confuse it with Losers though). Antichess has some history - it is known to be reasonably popular in 1930s in Moscow, 1950s in Germany, and many countries afterwards. In Live Chess the game is available on Lichess, gathering more and more interest there.
Game rules
The board is setup traditionally, the pieces move and capture as in standard chess, yet the object is to lose all of your pieces.
If either player has a legal capture they must take it. If there are many possible captures, the player is free to choose any of them.
There is no such thing as check, the King is a regular piece, in particular it can be taken. You can even promote pawns to kings. Castling is not permitted.
You win by losing all your pieces.
Mind the special rule in case of stalemate (no legal move)! The side with less material wins (less material means smaller number of pieces, whatever their value is).
Game hints
The following quote from Stanislav Goldovski is crucial for understanding Antichess:
...contrary to common belief, the strategy of Losing Chess is not giving away your pieces. Instead, illogical as it may seem at first sight, achieving significant material advantage is one of the important strategic steps. Having more material gives you the possibility to 'surround' the opponent with your pieces, gradually restricting him until he runs out of safe moves (zugzwang) , and then - 'ditch' the pieces one by one. To restrict your opponent, you will not only need material advantage, but also advantage in mobility and space...
Opening theory plays very important role in Antichess, and can not be ignored even by beginners. To give an example: after 1.e4 black has forced win, same after 1.d4 and 1.d3. The sites linked below contain all the necessary information, so use it - and do not play the moves which immediately lose.
Some unsorted rules of the thumb:
- keep an eye on a3, h3, a6, h6, those squares are frequently used to force the knight or the bishop out,
- keep your king,
- carefully plan your promotions, every kind of promotion may happen to make sense (queen promotion is least frequent)
Example games
Additional info
Game Page Help
The Action Bar
The Action Bar is the most important part of the game screen, this is where you interact with the game by entering moves, conditional moves, comments, draw offers, resignations, and much more (if you are not viewing one of your own games, the Action Bar is not shown). The Action Bar is in four parts, from left to right:
- The Move Input Box: where your move or conditional move is shown; it is possible to type into this box, but not recommended, you can enter your move by dragging and dropping the pieces on the board.
- The Action Selection Dropdown: this is where you select the action you want to do, for example, move, enter a comment, accept a draw offer, claim a draw, etc. Only the actions which are relevant to the current game are shown.
- The Continue Button: this button sends your action back to our server; sometimes you might see a pop-up text box before the action is sent, this is so that you can write a message to your opponent. You can set your preferences so that this box is always shown to confirm you move (under the "Chess Board" tab "Confirm moves before committing), some people find this helpful as a "blunder check".
- The Next Game button: clicking the button will take you to the next game for which it is your move.
The Game Information Panel
Under the Action Bar, you should find the Game Information Panel. This gives you more information about the game; because there is too much information to see on one screen here, it is arranged into "tab"; you can move between the various screens by clicking the buttons, from left to right:
- Game Overview: this tab shows the full history of the game, including comments (you cannot read the comments from another player's game, unless the game is marked as "public"), leave taken, etc. You can click the moves to see the position on the chess board.
- Hide Comments: this tab shows the moves of the game only, without the distraction of the comments shown on the game overview tab.
- Material Balance: this tab shows the captured pieces in the game. If you are playing CrazyHouse chess, or a similar game, you can drag pieces from here to the board to make a "drop".
- Tags: You can "tag" games, this makes it easier to come back to games, you can find the games you have tagged from the game database screen.
- Variant Information: this tab is available for some chess variants, it will show you a description of the variant.
- Opening Book: In standard chess games, this tab will show you information about the chess opening you have been playing, taken from the Game Explorer.
- Analysis Board: Opening this tab will overlay an "analysis board" on the main chess board; you can move the pieces around freely on this board to try out various ideas in the game.
- Engine Analysis: This tab allows you to analyse the game using a chess engine; because the use of engines is not allowed on SchemingMind, this tab is not available for ongoing games.
- Share: The share tab will allow you to share your game on social media (if someone becomes a member by following one of your links, you will be rewarded with a complimentary extension to your full membership); you can also download the game as either an animated GIF or in PGN format, and you can copy the current position to your clipboard in FEN format.
- Help: If you are reading this, you have already figured out what the help button does!
The Chess Board
The chess board shows the current position in your game; if it is your move, or if you can enter a conditional move, you can drag and drop the pieces on the chess board.
If you wish to castle, simply drag your king over the rook on the side you wish to castle on. When you promote a pawn, you will see a pop-up prompting you to select the promoted piece.
We have a number of different designs for chess boards and pieces, you can select the one you prefer from your personal preferences.
Under the chess board is a navigation toolbar (this toolbar looks slightly different if you are looking at the analysis board).
From left to right:
- Settings: This button will bring up your chess board and pieces display settings.
- Move to Start: This button will show the start position of the game.
- Previous Move: This button will move position shown on the board back one move.
- Next Move: This button will show the next position on the board.
- Last Move: This button will show the current position on the board.
- Flip: This button will show the board from the other player's perspective (by default you see games from White's perspective unless you are Black; you can select an option to always show the board from White's perspective in your personal preferences).
- Animate: If you are not looking at the last move in the game, this button will animate the game from the shown position to the last move.
- Stop Animation: This button will stop the animation.
View this article in the Knowledge Base.