Losers
From Wildchess Wiki
Losers chess (or wild 17) and suicide chess are alike. The difference is that in suicide chess the king plays no special role and in losers it does (there is check and checkmate and castling is allowed). Losers chess was first implemented at the Internet Chess Club (ICC) as a failure to implement suicide chess. Later the game was also picked up by the Free Internet Chess Server (FICS).
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Objective
The major purpose of the game is to lose all of your pieces, except your king.
Rules
Losers differs from normal chess in the following ways:
1 If you can capture an opponent's piece, you must do so. If more than one capture is possible, you can choose which one to make. If you try to make a non-capture move when a capture is possible, you will be told "You must capture".
2 If you are in check, you must defend your king as in chess. A defense that involves a capture takes priority over other defenses.
3 The conditions for victory differ.
- Should you lose all of your pieces, except the king, you win.
- If you are stalemated, you win.
- If you are checkmated, you win.
Basic Principles
Although the aim of the game is different, losers has much more in common with chess strategy, as one might think at the first sight. Getting rid of all your pieces is not a wise strategy. Moreover, the material advantage is one of the most important steps towards success. More material gives you the possibility to surround your opponent with your pieces, thus restricting his safe moves. When there are no more left, i.e when the opponent gets into zugzwang, you should make him take all of your pieces, one by one. Of course, for such successful play, the material advantage is not enough. Space advantage and mobility also play an important role.
Openings
We usually divide the game in three parts
- the opening where the opponents confront their knowledge and prepared analysis
- the middlegame where the players are on their own and
- the endgame where theoretical knowledge is again applicable
Just like in chess it is important to develop your pieces during the opening phase. The most common openings are 1. c3, c4 and f4. One must be careful not to checkmate his opponent during opening as we will see below.
Opening tricks
1.c3 c6 2.a4 b5??
In the 1.c3 c6 opening the players will try to make the opponent's rook come out. White can use black his rook to either get checkmated with Rxf1 or Rxc1. We will show a Rxf1 checkmate here.
2 .. b5?? feels like a natural move. It is therefor a mistake that is often made. White will force a win with 3.axb5 cxb5 4.Rxa7 Rxa7 5.c4 bxc4 6.Qa4 Rxa4 7.b3 cxb3 8.f4 Rxf4 9.Kd1 Rxf1 {white checkmated, 1-0}
Another common checkmate in the 1.c3 c6 opening is the opening in which the players make the opponent's queen capture the bisshop on the c file.
1.c3 c6 2.a4 a5 3.Na3??
This is another common mistake made in the 1.c3 c6 opening. 3. .. b5! . It doesnt matter what white plays here, lets say he plays 3.axb5 cxb5 4.Nxb5 Qb6! 5.Rxa5 Qxb5! As you can see black will get checkmated with Rxc8. 7.Nf3!
1.f4 f5??
A bit more complicated is 1.f4 f5?? 2.e4! fxe4 3.Qh5! g6 4.Qxg6 hxg6 5.Bc4! Rxh2 6.Bxg8! . As you can see Rxh1 will lead to a simple win for white using black's rook. Rxg2 is a bit harder, 7. Nf3!. The move Rh6! will now lead to a win using black's bishop. See the diagram below for the position after 7. Nf3! .
Middlegame
In the middlegame it is important that you try to stay up in material. However, you will not evaluate your position by simply counting the pieces. It is not good to have a lot of pieces if the available space is restricted. Hence, you must consider space, mobility and material as three main aspects of winning strategy. There are different opinions on the importance of pawns. A passed pawn is what can win you the endgame, however pawns are also slow pieces which can cause a loss in endgame. Most engines give a big bonus in the eval for a passed pawn and a penalty for doubled pawns, since they are a major target in endgame.
Endgame
The keyword for losers endgame is zugzwang. Limit your opponent's safe moves until there is no safe move left. In the endgame a common strategy is to try to stay up in material and block one of your opponents pieces with a knight or a bishop. One must try to keep his king safe, the king can be used as a target to force zugzwang. Below I will describe an example of a blocked pawn and one of putting pressure on the king.
Blocked pawns
A new player might sac all his pieces and gets stuck with one pawn as shown below.
All white has to do here is move his bishop to b2 to block the pawn. One possible way for this might be: 1.c4 Kd7 2.Bd4 ! Kxd6 3.b3! axb3 4.Bb2! Now white can promote his pawns, sac every piece and end with sacing the bishop.
Pressure on the king
Here you can see white is putting pressure on the opponents king. As you can see black his king has to stay on the 8th rank. In fact black his king can not move at all, any move made by the king in this position is lost. Sacing the knight is the only safe move left for black. After this black must give up his rook. Now white can easily win by blocking the h pawn.
