My family includes many avid chess players and several of my nieces and nephews have belonged to chess clubs. If you are looking for a fast paced and wicked fun variation on traditional chess here’s a game lots of kids love. I’m sure it’s a big hit with Brother and his family when they are up at Cow Camp.

For Bunk House Chess you need 4 players and 2 chess sets.

1. Set up your chess boards side by side like this. It’s important to arrange the white and black chessmen on opposite sides of the board.

2. Your opponent in the game is the person across from you. Your partner is the person beside you.

3. When you capture a chessman from your opponent, you pass it to your partner beside you.

4. On her next turn your partner can either move any of her chessmen on the board as she normally would OR she can take the piece you just gave her and set it on any free square on the board. On her next turn she can move the new chess piece or any of her other pieces as she normally would. Just because she has a captured piece from her partner does not mean she must use it immediately.

5. The first person to get checkmate wins the whole game.

This game can be played with any even number of players. Seat everyone at a long table. Everyone sitting on the same side of the table is on the same team. Each person passes their captured pieces to the person on their left. the player at the left end of the table gives his captured pieces to the player on the right end of the table.

This version of chess is great for a whole chess club to play together or for a rainy day at camp or for a whole bunch of cousins at the holidays.