Chess Variants/Atomic Chess

Introduction

Atomic Chess is an explosive variant that changes how captures work - all captures result in an explosion that removes nearby pieces from play.

History

Atomic chess was introduced in 1995 by the German Internet Chess Server (GICS), based on rules a GICS member collected from friends. From there it spread to other smaller chess servers before being added to Lichess.org in 2015 and Chess.com in late 2020.

Rules

In normal chess, when a piece makes a capture it moves to the square the enemy piece was on, and the enemy piece is removed from the board. However, in atomic chess when a piece makes a capture, an explosion occurs which covers a three-by-three radius of squares around the square where the capturing piece lands. Any non-pawn pieces caught in the radius of the explosion are removed from the board. The capturing piece is also removed.

Pawns are only removed if they are involved directly in a capture.

If an en passant capture takes place, the centre of the explosion is on the square where the capturing pawn would have otherwise landed.

A player may never make a capture that would result in their own king being blown up in the resulting explosion. As a result, kings are not allowed to make captures in atomic chess, and kings may position themselves on adjacent squares. Also, a player may not make a capture if the resulting explosion would expose their king to check.

If a player's king is blown up, they automatically lose the game.

A player may respond to check by making a capture that blows up the enemy king, if such a capture is available.

Sub-variants

This chess variant does not not have any notable sub-variants.