Chess could easily be one of the oldest games out there, but while it mostly trains your brain, it also has some weird rules that make it so much fun! Chess is one of the most versatile board game. It offers interesting challenges to worthy opponents where the person with the best battle strategy, intelligence and wit winds. Moreover, chess is also a great way to test your patience. However, just because this age old game definitely does wonders for the brain and for inducing human values, does not make it any less fun. The basic rules of chess are pretty basic but it also has some weird rules that would make your mind go nuts!

The Touch-Move Rule

Say you are person with OCD and you just don’t approve of the way one of your pieces is kept inside the tiny box on the board. So, you try to arrange it accordingly and dang! Now you have to play that piece. The touch-move rule states that if a player intentionally or accidentally touches a piece, they have to play the piece regardless but only if there’s a chance for a legal move. However, one upside to this rule is that if you touch your opponent’s piece, you have to take it but only if you are allowed to.

Promote The Pawn

In professional chess games, if your pawn somehow manages to reach the opposite end of the board, you can promote it. That means, you can turn your pawn into any piece of your choice. You can turn it into a queen, or a rook or a bishop –whatever you may prefer. This also means that once you promote your pawn you can have two queens or three rooks and so on. Usually, a pawn is promoted into a queen but depending on the strategy and of it makes sense, it oculd be under-promoted as well.

Weird Clock Management

This is an extremely weird, and, to some extent, an unfair rule. The clock management in a game of chess is decided before the game starts and bears a few odd issues. For example, in tournaments, the player playing the black pieces is supposed to make the decision about which side the clock would be located. So, it could be an inconvenience for you if you are playing speed chess and one of your hands move faster than the other.