Check out Atomic Chess, our featured variant for November, 2024.

This page is written by the game's inventor, Jeremy Gardiner.

Monte Carlo Chess

Named in honour of the Monte Carlo method. Player with the move enumerates all legal moves and chooses one at random from the list.
Can be played as standard chess, or any selected variant, with either one or both players playing Monte Carlo style.
There is no connection with the Monte Carlo chess tournament.

Setup

Standard, or any selected variant.

Pieces

Standard, or any selected variant.

Rules

Standard, or any selected variant.

Notes

The celebrated paper Prog ramming a Computer for Playing Chess by Claude E. Shannon (1949) describes the strategy of selecting moves at random.

Playing Tips

All legal moves should be enumerated on an equal basis, including special moves (castling, en passant).

Computer Play

Some chess programs provide a capability for random play.

Equipment

A means of selecting a random move, such as dice or a pocket calculator with a random number function.

Sample Game

1. e2-e3a7-a6
2. b1-c3g7-g6
3. c3-e4g6-g5
4. g1-e2d7-d6
5. e2-g3c8-h3
6. f2-f4f7-f6
7. d2-d4h3-d7
8. d1-h5mate

Note that typical games may be much longer than the sample shown, involving extended trade of pieces and resulting in a draw.

This 'user submitted' page is a collaboration between the posting user and the Chess Variant Pages. Registered contributors to the Chess Variant Pages have the ability to post their own works, subject to review and editing by the Chess Variant Pages Editorial Staff.

By Jeremy Gardiner.
Web page created: 2009-05-04. Web page last updated: 2009-05-04