The Problem
Chess is brutally unfair — and not in the interesting way.
Chess rewards accumulated knowledge. Years of openings memorised, endgames studied, middlegame patterns drilled. When someone has those years and you don't, the game is over before it begins. Not "probably over" — actually over, in about four moves, while you're still figuring out where the knights go.
This isn't a bug in chess. It's a feature — if you're a chess player. But if you just want to sit across from your dad, your kid, your partner, or your mate who never played, and have a game worth playing, you're out of luck.
Traditional chess gives you two options: get good (takes years), or get beaten (takes minutes). Neither is fun when the gap is large.
"What if the board itself levelled things out — not by handicapping the strong player, but by making the game genuinely unpredictable for everyone?"
The Rule
One small change. Surprisingly large consequences.
The Great Equaliser Rule
Every time 4 pieces are captured — cumulative, regardless of which side loses them — both players swap the colour they're controlling. White becomes Black, Black becomes White. This repeats throughout the game until checkmate. Standard chess rules apply in every other respect.
That's it. No handicaps, no piece advantages, no taking turns going first. Just the one rule, quietly doing enormous things underneath the surface.
What happens in practice: a grandmaster spends ten moves building a beautiful attack as White... then suddenly has to defend it as Black. The position they created to crush you? They now have to survive it. The tide turns automatically, built into the fabric of the game.
And crucially — because each player will inevitably spend time on both sides of the board, the game eventually becomes something close to each player competing against themselves. Skill still matters, but not in the one-directional, immediately demoralising way it normally does.
Who It's For
Any Amar, Akbar and Anthony can sit down with Magnus Carlsen.
(That's an Indian "Tom, Dick and Harry", for the uninitiated. The point stands internationally.)
In EqualChess: genuinely competitive. Not just politely so.
Parents and kids. Grandmasters and beginners. Chess obsessives and people who only know the horsey moves in an L-shape. EqualChess is the bridge. You bring your people — we'll make it interesting for everyone at the table.
The beauty isn't that the weaker player wins reliably (they won't, necessarily). The beauty is that the weaker player is still playing five minutes later. Still making decisions that matter. Still having fun. And the stronger player is actually being tested, which they rarely get from anyone outside their skill tier.
Honesty Corner
Look, we're not going to lie to you.
Some games end in two moves. Some in three. The swap mechanic doesn't make chess immune to quick finishes — it just makes them dramatically less common, and dramatically less one-sided when they do happen.
If Magnus Carlsen sat down against someone with a 400 ELO and played with pure focus, he'd still probably win. He's Magnus Carlsen. But he'd have to actually play to do it, and the 400-ELO player would get to participate in a real game of chess, which is a genuine gift.
EqualChess doesn't promise miracles. It promises something more modest and more real: a game worth playing, between people who care about each other, regardless of the gap in their chess CVs.
Bold claim disclaimer: The statement that any player can "go toe to toe with Magnus Carlsen" is aspirationally true, statistically improbable, and entirely worth attempting. Magnus himself has not been consulted on this. We remain optimistic.