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

Since Java is no longer supported in most browsers, our Java applets probably will not run unless you install an extension that will run them. We recommend installing the CheerpJ Applet Runner extension on Edge, Chrome, or another Chromium browser. If your browser still does support Java, and you're not using this extension, make sure this site is listed in your Java exceptions list. You should find this in the Security tab of your Java control panel.

Shrink Chess

If you had a Java-capable browser, you could play Shrink Chess here.
Keys "s"=save "l"=load "b"=back once

If your move empties a rank or file, it disappears permanently.

Pawns can make the initial double move only if there are still eight ranks.

To save programming space, I decided that all pawn promotions produce queens, and I have disallowed castling if any involved columns are lost.

Thanks to Emiliano Venturini for help with the debugging (Oct. 2003).

Chess Variants

These are simple illustrations rather than strong opponents. Shrink Chess

Bug Reports -- Thank you! Keep them coming!

Written by Ed Friedlander

WWW Page Added: Sunday, December 30, 2001