Check out Balbo's Chess, our featured variant for October, 2024.

This page is written by the game's inventor, Michael Ward.

Drawless Chess

by Michael D. Ward
Lexington, KY
(email removed contact us for address) .uky.edu

These are three rules which may be added to standard chess to create a variant in which draws are impossible:

  1. The two squares on which the kings begin are marked with an "X" and are throne squares. A player can win the game by mating his opponent OR moving his king to his opponents throne.
  2. No player may make a move which causes a previous configuration to be duplicated.
  3. If a play has no legal move, he loses. (This includes both stalemates and situations created by rule "2".)

WWW page created: August 16, 1996. Last modified: November 5, 1996.