Answers.Body: <p>Browsing the "modest variants" at chessvariants.com, I found <a href="https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/option-suicide-chess" rel="noreferrer">Option Suicide Chess</a> by A. Black as the closest match. Besides self-capture it allows also captureless removal of own pieces and even self-capture with removal of the own capturing piece.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-02-16T22:47:54.540Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2020-02-16T22:47:54.540Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Sir Cornflakes
Answers.Body: <p>There are several such chess variants.
  One is "<strong>free capture chess</strong>" which is almost the same as "<strong>bicapture</strong>" (only different in the way to check the own king). In german the first one is called "<strong>Reformschach</strong>". 
  For the german definition see
  <a href="https://www.dieschwalbe.de/lexikon.htm" rel="noreferrer">https://www.dieschwalbe.de/lexikon.htm</a></p>
  
  <p>All this kind of funny variations are used in chess problems.
  Actually I know only one problem using free capture chess, see <a href="https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1317666" rel="noreferrer">https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1317666</a></p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-02-17T23:05:40.947Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2020-02-17T23:05:40.947Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Oliver Sick
Answers.Body: <p>There is a variant called 'Recycle Chess' which allows that.<br>
  You can play it at <em>brainking</em>: <a href="https://brainking.com/en/GameRules?tp=98" rel="noreferrer">https://brainking.com/en/GameRules?tp=98</a>; it's actually a lot of fun.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-02-17T02:30:25.203Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2020-02-17T02:30:25.203Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Aganju
Answers.Body: <p>A <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.04374.pdf" rel="noreferrer">recent paper investigating how chess variants change the game</a> calls this variant simply <strong>self-capture</strong> chess. This paper used neural-network AIs to play through many games to find patterns of play. According to the paper's authors, they found that self-captures happened not infrequently and in some interesting ways.</p>
  <blockquote>
  <p>Self-capture moves can be used to open files and squares for the pieces in the attack; opening up a blockade by sacrificing a pawn in the pawn chain; or in defence, while escaping the mating net.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2021-01-16T04:18:02.043Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2021-01-16T04:18:02.043Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: ryanyuyu
Answers.Body: <p>On chess.com it is called Any-Capture on the varients page
  Just go to Custom on Most Popular then Custom Rules and turn Any-Capture on
  or use this link <a href="https://www.chess.com/variants/capture-anything" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.chess.com/variants/capture-anything</a></p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2023-07-01T09:44:15.850Z
Answers.Text: +1 The name of the variant is given as **Capture Anything**. When making a custom chess variast, the rule 'you can capture anything' is written as 'Any Capture'.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Cyriac Antony
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2023-04-07T11:56:12.003Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2023-04-07T11:56:12.003Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Theo Chalmers
Answers.Body: <p>In German, we would call this "Schlagschach". The <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schachvariante#Schlagschach_oder_Capturechess" rel="noreferrer">German Wikipedia</a> translates this to "Capturechess".</p>
  
  <p>However, I could not find an English resource that describes this variant.
  But there is a <a href="https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/quottake-your-own-piecesquot-chess-variant" rel="noreferrer">thread on chess.com</a> where someone asked about the exact same thing.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Edit</strong>: Thanks to @bitchaser who dug that thread more thoroughly and found a link to another page that calls this variant "<a href="https://www.chessvariants.com/difftaking.dir/selfeliminator.html" rel="noreferrer">Self-Eliminator</a>", which states:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>John Gallicano and Steve Mann invented this variant in 1997.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>There is also a <a href="https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/SelfElim.html" rel="noreferrer">Java applet on that page</a>, which is not easy to use nowadays, since for security reasons, modern browsers just don't support Java applets anymore.</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>I hope, this is not too off-topic for Chess.SE, but for those of you, who are interested, here follows a short instruction on how to run the game, nonetheless:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>first, make sure you have the tool <code>appletviewer</code> on your PC. If not, you have to install the Java 8 JDK or earlier, since the tool is deprecated since Java 9. Make sure, it's the <em>JDK</em>, not <em>JRE</em>.</li>
  <li>second, download the following files of the applet and put them all in the same folder:
  
  <ul>
  <li><a href="https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/SelfElim.html" rel="noreferrer">https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/SelfElim.html</a> (the html code is enough, no pictures, CSS or scripts are required)</li>
  <li><a href="https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/SelfElim.class" rel="noreferrer">https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/SelfElim.class</a></li>
  <li><a href="https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/EasyChss.class" rel="noreferrer">https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/EasyChss.class</a></li>
  <li><a href="https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/Chsq.class" rel="noreferrer">https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/Chsq.class</a></li>
  <li><a href="https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/Chmo.class" rel="noreferrer">https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/Chmo.class</a></li>
  <li><a href="https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/CB10_10.class" rel="noreferrer">https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/CB10_10.class</a></li>
  </ul></li>
  <li>last, navigate to that folder and run the following command in a terminal: <code>appletviewer file:SelfElim.html</code></li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>The applet should pop up and show you the game screen:</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/jH9Sa.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/jH9Sa.png" alt="applet screenshot"></a></p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-02-17T05:11:34.637Z
Answers.Text: Post #38 of that thread links to http://www.chessvariants.com/difftaking.dir/selfeliminator.html which claims it was invented in 1997. The site also has a page where you can supposedly play it in a Java app. I'll leave this for you to write up if you wish.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Bit Chaser
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-02-17T09:33:36.010Z
Answers.Text: hm I learned a more aggressive term "Fress-Schach" - but still it only allows opponents figures to be eaten
Answers.UserDisplayName: eagle275
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-02-17T10:47:53.883Z
Answers.Text: @bitchaser Make your comment an answer, it should be visible and upvoteable
Answers.UserDisplayName: Sir Cornflakes
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-02-18T23:10:04.490Z
Answers.Text: @bitchaser - if you make your comment an independent answer, I'll upvote and accept it, as it's the most direct answer to the question so far.
Answers.UserDisplayName: patbarron
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-02-19T04:22:54.220Z
Answers.Text: @patbarron I preferred to leave it as a comment, assuming Stanley or someone else could write a better answer. I didn't attempt to get the Java to work. If you get it working, you can probably write a much higher quality answer than I would.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Bit Chaser
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-02-16T09:51:11.510Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2020-02-19T06:34:35.277Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2020-02-19T06:34:35.277Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Stanley F.
Body: <p>I occasionally think it might be fun to play a chess variant that is exactly the same as regular chess, except that it is permitted to capture your own pieces as well as your opponent's pieces - so, for example, if your king was alone on the back rank with some pawns in front of it, and your opponent moved a rook or queen to the back rank and that attacking piece could not be legally captured (which would be checkmate in normal chess), it might be possible in such a variant to escape checkmate if the king could "capture" one of it's own pawns in front of it.  In the way I imagine this variant, "friendly" pieces captured in this way would be removed from play permanently, just as an opponent's piece would be - so (in this example), you've jettisoned some of your own material (which is now gone for good), but at least you were able to save yourself from checkmate...</p>
  
  <p>I can imagine other scenarios where it might also be useful to give up some of your own material by "capturing" it like this, in support of the greater good....</p>
  
  <p>Is this a known chess variant, does it have a name that people might recognize?  I've tried searching around and haven't been able to locate any discussions of a variant like this - but I can't be the first person to think about this.</p>
  
  <p>Just as full disclosure, the only variant I really know anything about is bughouse, I'm not familiar with other variants, so I'm not sure I'm even Google searching for the right words...</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2020-02-16T14:13:44.310Z
Comments.Text: @edwinaoliver Why would you think that any chess variant would be useful or fun? It just adds another (interesting) tactical element.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Stanley F.
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2020-02-16T18:06:03.697Z
Comments.Text: @edwinaoliver Some people play to have fun, full stop. There's no need to be elitist or dismissive towards such an attitude.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Chris Hayes
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2020-02-16T19:08:15.760Z
Comments.Text: Not either.  I play real chess for fun.  Others play checkers or tiddlywinks or whatever game they find fun.  Isnt it great we are all free to choose what games we want to play and not be told what we have to do by some supreme authority.
Comments.UserDisplayName: edwina oliver
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2020-02-17T02:37:43.873Z
Comments.Text: @edwinaoliver - I personally find this concept interesting because it adds an additional element of balancing advantages with disadvantages to the game.  Of course, classical chess has opportunities for that already, but it's another element of "this is what I can accomplish, but this is what it will cost me - is it worth doing?" to be considered.  I find that interesting.
Comments.UserDisplayName: patbarron
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2020-02-17T19:53:34.027Z
Comments.Text: You know of [Bughouse chess](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bughouse_chess) but not of [Fischer random chess](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_random_chess) and [Four-man chess](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-player_chess)? There are *a lot* of variants out there and some of them are played fairly actively.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Mast
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2020-02-17T20:25:18.440Z
Comments.Text: I'm aware of Fischer Random (Chess960) but have never played it (and AFAIK, don't personally know anyone who has).  The other that you mention, I've never heard of.  I only know anything about Bughouse because at large tournaments that have lots of kids, it tends to be played a lot between rounds, so you kind of can't avoid it.  :-)
Comments.UserDisplayName: patbarron
Tags: <chess-variants>
Title: Is there a name for a chess variant where you are allowed to capture your own pieces?
ThreadText: # Is there a name for a chess variant where you are allowed to capture your own pieces?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2020-02-16)
  
  I occasionally think it might be fun to play a chess variant that is exactly the same as regular chess, except that it is permitted to capture your own pieces as well as your opponent's pieces - so, for example, if your king was alone on the back rank with some pawns in front of it, and your opponent moved a rook or queen to the back rank and that attacking piece could not be legally captured (which would be checkmate in normal chess), it might be possible in such a variant to escape checkmate if the king could "capture" one of it's own pawns in front of it. In the way I imagine this variant, "friendly" pieces captured in this way would be removed from play permanently, just as an opponent's piece would be - so (in this example), you've jettisoned some of your own material (which is now gone for good), but at least you were able to save yourself from checkmate...
  
  I can imagine other scenarios where it might also be useful to give up some of your own material by "capturing" it like this, in support of the greater good....
  
  Is this a known chess variant, does it have a name that people might recognize? I've tried searching around and haven't been able to locate any discussions of a variant like this - but I can't be the first person to think about this.
  
  Just as full disclosure, the only variant I really know anything about is bughouse, I'm not familiar with other variants, so I'm not sure I'm even Google searching for the right words...
  
  **Tags:** chess-variants
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: @username_3 Why would you think that any chess variant would be useful or fun? It just adds another (interesting) tactical element.  
  > **username_2**: @username_3 Some people play to have fun, full stop. There's no need to be elitist or dismissive towards such an attitude.  
  > **username_3**: Not either.  I play real chess for fun.  Others play checkers or tiddlywinks or whatever game they find fun.  Isnt it great we are all free to choose what games we want to play and not be told what we have to do by some supreme authority.  
  > **username_0**: @username_3 - I personally find this concept interesting because it adds an additional element of balancing advantages with disadvantages to the game.  Of course, classical chess has opportunities for that already, but it's another element of "this is what I can accomplish, but this is what it will cost me - is it worth doing?" to be considered.  I find that interesting.  
  > **username_4**: You know of [Bughouse chess](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bughouse_chess) but not of [Fischer random chess](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_random_chess) and [Four-man chess](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-player_chess)? There are *a lot* of variants out there and some of them are played fairly actively.  
  > **username_0**: I'm aware of Fischer Random (Chess960) but have never played it (and AFAIK, don't personally know anyone who has).  The other that you mention, I've never heard of.  I only know anything about Bughouse because at large tournaments that have lots of kids, it tends to be played a lot between rounds, so you kind of can't avoid it.  :-)  
  
  ---
  
  ## 6 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2020-02-16. Score: 23 | Accepted answer
  
  In German, we would call this "Schlagschach". The [German Wikipedia](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schachvariante#Schlagschach_oder_Capturechess) translates this to "Capturechess".
  
  However, I could not find an English resource that describes this variant.
  But there is a [thread on chess.com](https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/quottake-your-own-piecesquot-chess-variant) where someone asked about the exact same thing.
  
  **Edit**: Thanks to @username_11 who dug that thread more thoroughly and found a link to another page that calls this variant "[Self-Eliminator](https://www.chessvariants.com/difftaking.dir/selfeliminator.html)", which states:
  
  > John Gallicano and Steve Mann invented this variant in 1997.
  
  There is also a [Java applet on that page](https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/SelfElim.html), which is not easy to use nowadays, since for security reasons, modern browsers just don't support Java applets anymore.
  
  ---
  
  I hope, this is not too off-topic for Chess.SE, but for those of you, who are interested, here follows a short instruction on how to run the game, nonetheless:
  
  * first, make sure you have the tool `appletviewer` on your PC. If not, you have to install the Java 8 JDK or earlier, since the tool is deprecated since Java 9. Make sure, it's the *JDK*, not *JRE*.
  * second, download the following files of the applet and put them all in the same folder:
    + <https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/SelfElim.html> (the html code is enough, no pictures, CSS or scripts are required)
    + <https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/SelfElim.class>
    + <https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/EasyChss.class>
    + <https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/Chsq.class>
    + <https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/Chmo.class>
    + <https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/CB10_10.class>
  * last, navigate to that folder and run the following command in a terminal: `appletviewer file:SelfElim.html`
  
  The applet should pop up and show you the game screen:
  
  [![applet screenshot](https://i.sstatic.net/jH9Sa.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/jH9Sa.png)
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_11**: Post #38 of that thread links to http://www.chessvariants.com/difftaking.dir/selfeliminator.html which claims it was invented in 1997. The site also has a page where you can supposedly play it in a Java app. I'll leave this for you to write up if you wish.  
  > **username_12**: hm I learned a more aggressive term "Fress-Schach" - but still it only allows opponents figures to be eaten  
  > **username_5**: @username_11 Make your comment an answer, it should be visible and upvoteable  
  > **username_0**: @username_11 - if you make your comment an independent answer, I'll upvote and accept it, as it's the most direct answer to the question so far.  
  > **username_11**: @username_0 I preferred to leave it as a comment, assuming username_1 or someone else could write a better answer. I didn't attempt to get the Java to work. If you get it working, you can probably write a much higher quality answer than I would.  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_5 on 2020-02-16. Score: 11
  
  Browsing the "modest variants" at chessvariants.com, I found [Option Suicide Chess](https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/option-suicide-chess) by A. Black as the closest match. Besides self-capture it allows also captureless removal of own pieces and even self-capture with removal of the own capturing piece.
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_6 on 2020-02-17. Score: 7
  
  There are several such chess variants.
  One is "**free capture chess**" which is almost the same as "**bicapture**" (only different in the way to check the own king). In german the first one is called "**Reformschach**".
  For the german definition see
  <https://www.dieschwalbe.de/lexikon.htm>
  
  All this kind of funny variations are used in chess problems.
  Actually I know only one problem using free capture chess, see <https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1317666>
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_7 on 2020-02-17. Score: 6
  
  There is a variant called 'Recycle Chess' which allows that.  
  You can play it at *brainking*: <https://brainking.com/en/GameRules?tp=98>; it's actually a lot of fun.
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_8 on 2021-01-16. Score: 5
  
  A [recent paper investigating how chess variants change the game](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.04374.pdf) calls this variant simply **self-capture** chess. This paper used neural-network AIs to play through many games to find patterns of play. According to the paper's authors, they found that self-captures happened not infrequently and in some interesting ways.
  
  > Self-capture moves can be used to open files and squares for the pieces in the attack; opening up a blockade by sacrificing a pawn in the pawn chain; or in defence, while escaping the mating net.
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_9 on 2023-04-07. Score: 3
  
  On chess.com it is called Any-Capture on the varients page
  Just go to Custom on Most Popular then Custom Rules and turn Any-Capture on
  or use this link <https://www.chess.com/variants/capture-anything>
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_10**: +1 The name of the variant is given as **Capture Anything**. When making a custom chess variast, the rule 'you can capture anything' is written as 'Any Capture'.  
  
  ---
  
  