Buffalo Chess Association’s Grand Opening
BUGHOUSE TOURNAMENT
6043 Transit Road, Suite 101B, East Amherst, NY 14051
Not sure what Bughouse is? Scroll down for more information!
Tournament Info
When: February 9th — 9:00am - 11:00am
Where: 6043 Transit Road, Suite 101B, East Amherst, NY 14051
Entry Fee: $5.00
Prizes: Special gift bags for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place teams.
Time Control: 5 minutes, 0 second delay
Rounds: 5
Format: Swiss System
Sections: Unrated Only.
All players are welcome!
What is Bughouse?
Chess is frequently associated with silence, solitude, and intense thought. Bughouse has one of those things - you still need to think! In Bughouse you are playing with a teammate against two opponents. You and your teammate both play on seperate boards, and as opposite colors.
Bughouse follows all of the rules of normal chess, with a few extras:
If your game ends, so does your teammate’s - and vice versa! Whether you win, get checkmated, draw, or your clock runs out you’re dragging your teammate along with you.
Games will be played with a 5 minute timer. This gives each player 5 minutes of thinking time. If you run out of time you lose, so keep an eye on it!
When you capture a piece, you hand it to your teammate.
On your turn, you can place a piece on the board instead of moving.
Pieces CANNOT be dropped on top of another piece to instantly capture it. (As this would allow you to instantly capture the King and win.)
Pawns CANNOT be dropped on the 1st or 8th ranks of the board. In other words, you cannot drop a Pawn onto the end of the board to instantly promote. You also can’t drop them on your very first line, as they cannot normally get there.
Pieces and Pawns CAN be dropped to make check or checkmate, and to block check! You can even drop pawns a step away from promotion.
Due to the chaotic nature of over-the-board Bughouse, and the short timers involved, mistakes sometimes happen! As such:
Snap King: If a King is left in check, you may capture him. This instantly wins the game, just like checkmate.
If this sounds confusing, don’t worry! Come to our Bughouse class and you’ll find yourself getting used to it in no time.
For more information, check out this excellent write-up on Bughouse on Chess.com: https://www.chess.com/terms/bughouse-chess
Tournament Jargon Dictionary
Bughouse: Chess played with four players in two teams on two boards. Pieces captured on one board can be placed on the other.
BYE: A free win or draw, generally granted because there was an odd number of competitors.
Clock/Chess Clock: Specialized timers used for games of chess. These will be set to 5 minutes for Bughouse.
Open/Open Section: Anyone may play, regardless of skill level.
Swiss System: The most commonly used pairing system in chess tournaments. Round 1 players are paired based on their ratings (strongest vs. weakest, 2nd strongest vs. 2nd weakest, etc). After that you are paired based on your record (if you win, you play someone else who won).
Unrated: A chess rating is not required to play in this event, and it will not affect your chess rating.