Die Chess is a variant of chess that is played with dice. Two dice to be exact. Each player receives a special "chess die" that is six-sided with a picture of a chess piece on each side (pawn, knight, bishop, rook, queen, and king). One die is given to the white player and the other to the black player. It is played on a normal 8x8 chess board.
Each player places their die on the pawn side on the left-most black square closest to them. White goes first and each turn proceeds as follows:
Each turn a player may roll the die to change the face piece, move as the piece shown on the die, a combination of the two, or pass their turn. The object of the game is to capture your opponent's king as always, but other captures may be made.
If your opponent captures your piece, and vice versa, it is placed on the pawn face at the left black square like at the beginning of the game. But if it is captured when it shows the king piece the game is over.
When you roll the die and get the rook, queen, or king piece, you may only move that piece one time. This means that if you roll a pawn, knight, or bishop piece, you may only move twice before having to roll. But if it shows the rook, queen, or king piece, you must roll to change the piece after moving it one time. This prevents overpowering pieces the whole game.
There is no castling, en passant, or two space initial pawn move, but there is pawn promotion. When your die reaches the opposing side of the board as a pawn you can promote the piece to any other piece on the die. However, the restrictions explained above still apply.
You can easily construct your own chess dice by taking a regular six-sided die, or any other six-sided cube object, and cover it in paper. Then print out the picture of chess pieces at the end of these rules, cut them out, and adhere them to the six faces. You could also play with just a regular pair of six-sided dice and play the numbers as chess pieces: 1=pawn 2=knight 3=bishop 4=rook 5=queen and 6=king. Anyway you choose I hope you have fun!
