My favourite chess variant
Originally I wanted to write something about the Dortmund tournament with all big names except Kasparov participating. But it is too much hassle to replay grandmaster games. And it is quite boring usually especially when Kramnik leads. Maybe when the tournament is over I will comment on it.
For now I would like to explain Touch and Move or Touche Bouge as we called it in French when we played it in Luxembourg. We met once per week in a pub and in the beginning we only had one chessboard. But after a while three or four people came and we invented this variant which is not mentioned on the chess variants page. It is two against two. In each team one person touches the piece which should be moved and the other one moves the touched piece. That is all.
I really fell in love with this simple adaptation for four people. Suddenly chess becomes a social game. It is not only brain against brain but the connection of two brains against two brains. Almost a network game. Of course the person who touches decides on the main direction of the game. The mover only executes and tries to read the mind of the toucher. When there were mixed teams usually the male touched and the female moved (no offense intended). I really would have liked the idea of playing with my girl-friend in one team. Unfortunately I was on my own at that time. The games usually do not develop as logical and smooth as normal games but they can still be quite interesting.
What I also like about this is that it was born out of poverty, out of scarcity. In German we say Not macht erfinderisch ( necessity is the mother of invention). That is one of the few cases where German is much shorter than English.