New Variant Idea: Ahab Chess

I originally proposed this idea less than two weeks ago (posting it in the official Variants club in this thread), and I got a bunch of really positive feedback. I wanted to post it here on the public forum, too, to see what other thoughts, input, and reactions other people might have.

The name "Ahab Chess" comes from a wicked king of Israel in the Bible (named Ahab, of course). In 1 Kings 22:29-38, it tells of an event when Ahab went to war with another country, and he disguised himself as a regular soldier. When the enemy army realized that the "king" up in the chariot was Jehoshaphat of Judah -- a decoy -- and not Ahab, they were confused and didn't know what to do. However, Ahab was struck at random, and ended up dying.

Now that I've finished that little Bible history lesson, perhaps you see where this is going.

My idea is that the board would have a standard chess setup, and at the beginning of the game, each player selects any one of his pieces (even a pawn if he really wants to) to be his royal piece (his "Ahab," if you will). Neither player would be able to know which piece his opponent has selected as a royal. This is a capture-the-royal variant, so you can knowingly put yourself in "check" pretending your piece isn't the royal, taking the risk of possibly losing, or just throwing your opponent off. The only pieces that cannot be royal are the king and queen. (The king cannot be royal because, in the story, the enemy realized that the king was just a decoy; and the queen cannot be royal because it would be very difficult to capture a royal queen (thanks @noahfavelo for that suggestion), plus Ahab was very obviously not pretending to be a queen 😆). Even though the king is just a decoy and is not royal, it can still castle like a normal king in standard chess. Though castling is normally meant to protect the king in standard chess, the purpose of castling in Ahab Chess would be to get your rooks into a better position.

I'm hoping that chess.com will code the ability to add this game to the variants server if the idea is popular enough. As of this moment, this game is only truly playable over-the-board with a standard chess set. (What I did was I took two small pieces of tape, gave one to each player, and had each adhere his tape to the bottom of the royal piece while his opponent had his back turned.) Here is an example game that I played with my little brother otb, and I notated it to share it.

Do you like this idea, and would you like to see it implemented here on chess.com? Leave your comments below or in the Ahab Chess thread in the Variant club.

Make sure to join Variants club and play some games on the server while you're at it

https://www.chess.com/variants

Brilliant idea! Can't wait to try it with my little brother! Hopefully chess.com will add it soon hehe

A Rook will also be way to powerful to checkmate it, even if you would know that it is royal. Even royal Bishop or Knight would be very hard to catch. E.g. in Knightmate, where the royal piece moves like a Knight, a Rook is not enough to checkmate it. Have you tried how many Queens you need to catch a Rook, if your own royal is also a Rook?

I think this is a very cool idea, though like @HGMuller said, it might need some balancing work done. Perhaps they can win by killing "Ahab" King of Israel but also win by killing Jehoshaphat King of Judah, ie checkmating the normal king piece? That said I've never played it yet, and so it might be more balanced than one would expect.

given that ahab was killed accidentally, what if the royal piece is chosen at random and neither player knows

or, given that he was disguising as a normal soldier (not a chariot or a horse or an elephant (suspend disbelief coz i know that rook = elephant)) maybe you have to choose a pawn, this also reduces the balancing

and with this the "can be left in check" rule is perfect coz pawns are trapped easily (but need to be captured) and bluffs are better (i mean you play vs the scandi then play g3 or a3 or Bd3.... its obvious)

I like that idea

Well, there are two problems with that.

First, if neither player knows which piece is royal, then the game will truly be firing at random with no strategy whatsoever. It becomes a game of chance more so than of strategy.

Second, if Ahab is always one of the pawns, then every game player will just sacrifice all their major pieces immediately to capture as many pawns as possible. Every game would end very quickly.

It’s an interesting suggestion, but I just don’t think it would work out.

you have 7 pieces

you have 8 pawns

also its a race

and is it better than having to take a piece (very hard)

id say the "you can also go for the king" rule better

Also, one detail of the story that I left out. Ahab was disguised as a normal soldier, but he was still riding in a chariot.

1 Kings 22:34-35 (ESV)
But a certain man drew his bow at random and struck the king of Israel between the scale armor and the breastplate. Therefore he said to the driver of his chariot, “Turn around and carry me out of the battle, for I am wounded.” And the battle continued that day, and the king was propped up in his chariot facing the [enemy army], until at evening he died. And the blood of the wound flowed into the bottom of the chariot.

Yup

I considered this when making this variant; however, I foresaw a problem with that as well. If the king is royal, plus Ahab is royal, then every game will basically just be a normal game of chess, which sometimes ends suddenly because Ahab happens to be captured.

Plus, if capturing/checkmating the actual king could end the game, it would no longer match the story. In the story, Jehoshaphat (though he was technically the king of the allied nation of Judah) was simply a decoy in this battle, and when the enemy army recognized that he wasn’t Ahab, they didn’t care at all about attacking him.

1 Kings 22:31-33 (ESV)
Now the king of [the enemy army] had commanded the thirty-two captains of his chariots, “Fight with neither small nor great, but only with the king of Israel.” And when the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, they said, “It is surely the king of Israel.” So they turned to fight against him. And Jehoshaphat cried out. And when the captains of the chariots saw that it was not the king of Israel, they turned back from pursuing him.

I still doubt that the advantage of having a concealed royal would outweigh the advantage of having a strong but known royal. E.g. if one player must from the start say "this Rook is Ahab", and the other can pick any piece other than Queen or Rook secretly, I think that latter player would lose more often than not.

If this is the case it would be stupid to ever pick anything else than a Rook, so that the only hidden information is which Rook was made Ahab. It would not be that obvious which one is the Ahab, as Rooks would normally evade attacks by most other pieces even if they weren't Ahab.

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/is-it-okay-to-have-a-hitler-profile-picture

Seeing that you posted that, I'm hardly listening to anything you say.

what if both players get one chance per game to capture any of the opponent s piece(instead of making a move)? like the lightning.like this, a pokerface will become more important.

also, it can t be the king/queen

I don't understand. Are you saying that a player could just randomly remove one of his opponent's pieces?

conclusion: unless someone finds a major improvement, this game will just end up extremely drawish if both players are reasonable and choose rooks

yes