Dice chess is one of my favorite variants of chess and, truthfully, I have more fun playing it than I do regular chess. To be successful at dice chess one does not need much beyond a basic understanding of chess. So, even if one is not all that good at chess, it’s possible to play competitively in dice chess and have fun doing so.

This nugget is being written to help those new to the game to, hopefully, understand the game faster and it assumes the reader knows how to play chess.

Moving

Dice chess is called dice chess because a single die is thrown and the result tells the player which type of piece they are allowed to move for that turn. Rolling a 1 lets you move a pawn, a 2 moves your knight, a 3 your bishop, a 4 your rook, a 5 your queen, and a 6 your king.

If the result of the die throw is a piece type with no legal move or a piece type you no longer have in play, then, the die is automatically rerolled until a legal move results. For example, rolling a 6 on your first move would result in a reroll because your king has no legal move at the beginning; and later, if both of your rooks get taken, any roll of a 4 would get rerolled.

Winning

One must capture the opponent’s king or kings (if playing the 10x10 variant). There is no checkmate in dice chess.

General Strategy

It is possible to impose some order to your dice rolls by limiting the possible pieces that have a legal move. And any decrease to the randomness of your dice rolls improves your chances to win by allowing you to more quickly execute your plan to capture your opponent’s king(s).

For example, keeping one’s king, queen, bishops blocked in by not moving the six pawns between the knights reduces the possible legal dice rolls to pawn, knight, and rook (once one of your knights moves). And from there one can devise a strategy to capture the opposing king.

At the Start

On your first move there is only two possible pieces that can move – the pawn and the knight. All other pieces do not have a legal move.

The quickest way to capture your opponent’s king is using your queen side knight and requires only four (4) knight moves. By keeping the possible moves down to pawn, knight, and rook – as I outlined above – a decent amount of games can be won this way. Without crunching the numbers I would guess maybe 1 in 4 games I play of dice chess I can win very early on by using my queen side knight to attack. So, this is also a potent strategy to use and one I almost always try to pull off.

If you are blocking your king, queen, bishop in then the pawns you want to move at the beginning are the ones in front of your rooks. I normally move these pawns up two on their first move because this then allows the rooks to slide out onto the playing field. (And this gives the rooks something to do instead of just moving one square back and forth.)

Allowing one’s rook to slip out onto the playing field sets up another early way to win. This requires the rook to capture the pawn in front of the king and then capturing the king on a following move. Winning this way, however, occurs much less frequently because once the pawn in front of your opponent’s king is captured that opens up legal moves for your opponents king, queen, and bishop to move and on their next turn there is at least a 50% chance that they will get to capture your attacking rook. Winning this way is made even more difficult if your opponent slides one of their rooks in front of the king’s pawn because it increases the number of captures you have to make without getting taken. So, I tend to use one or both of my rooks on defense at the beginning.

In the Middle

If one's game of dice chess lasts more than a dozen or so turns then the game becomes more random as most piece types begin to have the ability to move since losing a few pawns that were blocking pieces is almost a given. It's hard to really give advice at this point since the pieces can end up in really odd positions. Generally, I like consolidate how many types of pieces I have to make developing a strategy easier.

Having a pawn promote occurs more often in dice chess than I initially thought possible. As such, I'm often willing to use my bishops or even a rook to take a protected pawn of my opponent if it might promote in the near future. I find this justifiable, even if I lose these pieces in the following moves, because it reduces the number of piece types I have, which increases the order to my dice rolls and it eliminates the chance of an opposing queen showing up so near to my king.

If my bishops, knights, and rooks are not needed to keep the opposing pawns at bay then I often try to pressure the opponent’s king by moving these pieces to locations where a capture is possible – even if these locations are spots that my pieces can be captured. If your opponent has most of their pieces left then there is a reduced chance that they will happen to roll the piece type that can take my piece. If they do happen to roll the right number and capture your piece then you still have the benefit of reducing the number of piece types.

At the End

If one's game of dice chess has lasted this far it's possible for a really thrilling ending.

One of the things to look out for is if your opponent is down to just a king. If this is the case every move they make will be to move their king and they may decide to send their king charging at your king. If you have a number of different piece types and they can maneuver their king to not get captured then you have only a small chance to capture their king before they can capture your king.

As such, I like to keep as much distance between kings as possible and I like to have as few piece types as possible. A king and enough pawns to ensure one of them can promote to a queen is a good set-up. If one of my rooks have survived; having a king, pawns, and a rook is another good set-up to attempt to capture the opponent's king.

Remember, no matter how few pieces the opponent or you have. As long as your king is free, it’s still possible to win the game.

10x10 Dice Chess

Personally, I'm still learning what works best in this variant. I have learned that the addition of two more kings - for a total of three - and the added size of the board makes quick victories in this variant almost impossible. The added size also makes pawn promotion much more difficult and occurs later in the game.

I think playing more defensively works better here since the games last longer. One strategy that seems to be bearing some fruit for me is slipping a queen or rook onto my opponents back row once enough of my opponent's firepower has moved close enough to my side that it's hard for these pieces to go back and protect their kings from the rampaging queen or rook.

That's about all I got for now. I hope to the potential or new players of dice chess that there was something useful to you here. I like this chess variant and hope more people would play it. I might revisit and flesh out this nugget later if I develop or discover any more insights to dice chess that can help new players.