King of the Hill
A second way to win: march your own king into the center and it's over, checkmate or not.
How the Rules Change
- All standard chess rules apply, with one addition: a player also wins immediately if their king reaches any of the four center squares (d4, d5, e4, or e5) — regardless of whether checkmate has occurred.
- This completely inverts one of chess's most basic instincts: keeping the king safely tucked away. Here, the king is sometimes the single most valuable piece to actively advance.
History
The variant has existed informally for a long time as a teaching and casual tool, and gained significant modern popularity through online chess platforms offering it as a standard variant option.
Why Play It
It's an excellent, low-stakes way to practice king safety awareness in reverse — you have to calculate exactly how to protect a king that's marching straight into the danger zone on purpose.