Horde chess
Horde chess is a variant in which White has a large mass of pawns instead of the usual army, while Black plays with the normal set of pieces, and Black tries to capture them all.
In horde chess, one side is a crowd of pawns. White has thirty-six pawns arranged in the lower half of the board, with no other pieces and no king. Black has the usual pieces and pawns in the normal positions. The sides move as in standard chess, with the pawns on the first rank allowed to move two squares like other unmoved pawns.
White wins by checkmating Black's king, as in the standard game. Black wins by capturing every white pawn and piece, since White has no king to attack. This makes the game feel like a fortress against a flood. Black must break up the pawn mass and avoid being overrun, while White tries to advance and promote pawns into powerful pieces.
Horde is an uncommon variant, available on some online sites as a curiosity. It teaches how pawn chains, pawn breaks and promotion work together, which are helpful ideas in standard endgames. It is not used in rated tournaments, so treat it as a fun change of pace.
Compare it with 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.
It sits close to King of the Hill. 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.
Time controls change what a player should practice, and the improvement plans by rating band show how the habits behind "Horde chess" differ across rating ranges.
Related terms
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.
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.
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.
Promotion is the compulsory change of a pawn that reaches the last rank into a queen, rook, bishop or knight of its own color, made as part of the same move and chosen freely, whatever has been captured so far.
The pawn moves one square straight forward, or two from its starting square, captures one square diagonally forward, and is exchanged for a queen, rook, bishop or knight on the far rank.
Chess960 is a variant that begins from one of 960 randomly chosen back-rank setups, with the king between the rooks and the bishops on opposite colors, and is otherwise played with the usual rules.
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.