Crazyhouse
Crazyhouse is a chess variant in which a captured piece changes sides and joins your reserve, and on any later turn you may drop it onto an empty square instead of moving.
Crazyhouse uses the normal board and starting position, but captures work very differently. When you capture an enemy piece, it turns into your color and goes into your reserve. On a later turn, instead of moving a piece, you may place one from your reserve on any empty square, with the usual restriction that a pawn cannot be dropped on the first or last rank.
This changes how everything feels. Trading pieces is dangerous, because each exchange gives your opponent something to drop next to your king. Attacks are very fast, since a dropped knight or queen can appear with check at any moment, and material is less important than speed and king safety. Defending often means trading nothing and keeping your pieces compact.
Crazyhouse is the single-board, two-player version of the idea behind bughouse, and it is a popular online variant. It is an enjoyable way to train tactics, because forks, pins and mating patterns appear constantly. It is not used in standard rated tournaments, so treat it as a fun side format rather than a main training method.
A neighboring idea is Antichess. Antichess is a variant that turns the aim upside down: you must capture whenever you can, and you win by giving away every piece you own or by being left with no legal move.
A neighboring idea is Atomic chess. Atomic chess is a variant in which every capture causes an explosion that removes the capturing piece and all non-pawn pieces on the squares around the captured piece.
A neighboring idea is Chess variant. A chess variant is a game played on a chessboard with pieces that move as in chess but with at least one changed rule, setup or goal, such as Chess960, Crazyhouse or Three-check.
Time controls change what a player should practice, and the improvement plans by rating band show how the habits behind "Crazyhouse" differ across rating ranges.
Related terms
Bughouse is a four-player chess variant on two linked boards, where each capture hands the taken piece to your partner, who may later place it on their own board instead of making a move.
A chess variant is a game played on a chessboard with pieces that move as in chess but with at least one changed rule, setup or goal, such as Chess960, Crazyhouse or Three-check.
Antichess is a variant that turns the aim upside down: you must capture whenever you can, and you win by giving away every piece you own or by being left with no legal move.
King of the Hill is a chess variant in which a player wins immediately by moving their king onto one of the four central squares, d4, d5, e4 or e5.
Three-check chess uses the normal rules with one added way to win: the first player to put the opposing king in check three times wins at once, in addition to winning by checkmate.
A capture happens when a piece moves onto a square held by an enemy piece, which is removed from the board as part of the same move; the king can be attacked but is never captured.
Guides that go further
See whether a base time and increment counts as bullet, blitz, rapid or classical.
Average chess rating and a good chess rating
What share of active Lichess players are rated above 800, 1200, 1500, 1800 or 2000, by time control.
What a rating measures, how FIDE, Lichess, US Chess and chess.com compute theirs, and why the numbers differ.
Want to spot this in your own games?
A first lesson starts with your games: George reviews them and builds a study plan around what he finds.