Crazyhouse
Crazyhouse Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Rules
Crazyhouse follows the rules of regular Chess with the following exceptions:
- Captured pieces change sides and are held in hand by the capturing player, who may on a subsequent turn drop a captured piece back on the board.
- Except for Pawns, pieces held in hand may be dropped on any empty square.
- Pawns may be dropped on any empty square which is not part of the first or last rank.
- When a promoted piece is captured, it changes back into a Pawn before it is put in hand.
Checkmate with a Drop
Since the game is similar to Shogi, one important difference from Shogi is noted here:
- It is legal to checkmate a King with a Pawn drop.
Supplementary Notes (FICS Help File)
The following notes are taken from the FICS Help file "crazyhouse" and cover the same rules as above, with additional play detail.
Drop Notation
- A drop is written as the held piece letter, an
@sign, and the destination square. The held piece letters are P (Pawn), N (Knight), B (Bishop), R (Rook) and Q (Queen). For example,N@f5drops a Knight on f5. - Drops follow the same rules as in Bughouse: any piece may be dropped on any open square, except that Pawns may not be dropped on the 1st or 8th rank.
Checkmate and Drop Interposition
- For checkmate to occur, there must be no possibility of avoiding checkmate by a drop interposition. This means either the opponent is not holding any pieces, or, in the case of a check along the 1st or 8th rank by a Queen or Rook, the opponent holds no pieces other than Pawns.
- Checkmate is also possible by contact checks, Knight checks, and double checks.
Draw by Repetition
- A draw may be claimed when the same board position is reached 3 times with the same player to move.
- The repetition count restarts whenever a Pawn is moved, a capture is made, or a piece is dropped.
- The FICS Help file notes that this rule may be inadequate for some situations where each player drops a particular piece, which is immediately exchanged, and then dropped again.
Promoted Pieces
- Pieces that had been promoted revert to Pawns when captured.