Solitaire dice chess
Here's a solitaire chess variant I came up with, if no one else has thought of it. It's to play a normally 2-sided game of chess (or chess variant, or possibly another board game of skill) against yourself, selecting the other side's moves only somewhat randomly.
Rules
You (as White or Black for the whole game) select 'your side's' moves normally on 'your turn'. For the other side's turns, select six moves which you think are among its best moves. Assign each move (in writing or by memory) a number from 1 to 6, then roll a widely available six-sided die to select the actual move for the other side. In case you think the other side has less than six good moves, limit the number accordingly and select randomly from them. Thus the other side's moves are 'psuedo-random'. At any point you may decide yourself (and/or by random means) if the other side should resign (or offer/accept a draw, if you allow that as an option). If you wish for more than what you think are six good possibilities for the other side to be selected from during its turn, a variation on this is to use a die with more than six sides, if available, or some other random number generating method (e.g. using a computer).
Notes
Because the move selection process for the 'other side's' moves is determined by you, the strength of your opposition may well be roughly at your level. Another way to pick the possible moves to choose from is by using a chess playing engine that shows various move sequences as they are being tree-searched by the engine (along with their various first moves, from which you might select randomly at a given moment), but this is going to likely prove closer to playing against an engine than against yourself. Note that my basic concept above can possibly work in principle if applied to create solitaire versions of many chess variants (or board games of skill) normally having more than 2 sides playing. If one desires to keep a record of any such solitaire dice game played (e.g. in a private chess database, if playing solitaire dice chess), one can make a note of the type of game played (e.g. 'Solitaire dice chess game') and refer to the psuedo-random-move side in the game as "Dummy" (or use "Dummy1", "Dummy2" etc. if there are 3 or more sides involved in the game played). A link that includes links of mine mentioning solitaire dice chess: http://www.chesscanada.info/forum/entry.php?89-Solitaire-dice-chess-(chess-variants)-(board-games-of-skill)
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By Kevin Pacey.
Web page created: 2015-10-29. Web page last updated: 2015-10-29