The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants

An excellent book, a must have for chess variant enthusiasts

Really fantastic - some of the rulesets/variants in here are incredibly rare and interesting.

At this moment (June 2024) you can read this (and download it as a PDF) for free, legally, via the JSB - John and Sue Beasley website: http://jsbeasley.co.uk/

Its a book, not a game; but it does describe many great chess variants.

Just so many things to study about chess

Knight court chess - tiny board and likely easily solvable. But a fun step up ftom tic tac toe. 7

It's essentially impossible to rate a book like this - I enjoy browsing it on a regular basis, but I haven't really tried the variants posted in it. That said, the variants that exist in this book run the gamut from compelling to bizarre to downright unplayable.

The taxonomy, summaries, and notes make for enjoyable browsing and inspiration for creating variants of other games, though I wish there was more emphasis on commentary. It can be read as a study in game design.

It was tought to improve on the first edition, but I think this version did it. More games, better classification, good historical notes.

A huge amount of work went into this book. Many many variants are completely unplayable, but this is the fault of the respective authors: they are included for completeness. The rules of some games are incomplete, but this is more of an historic-scientific research than a book for playing. Moreover, for the good games (Shogi, Xianqui, Capablanca chess,....) there are complete rules, example games and even strategy hints.