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Two man team, five board, five minute chess is a very fast game - aerobically speaking!  It is also a lot of fun:

1. There are two teams, each with two players.  Call these team A (with players A1 and A2) and team B (with players B1 and B2).  A referee should also be chosen.

2. Set up five boards in a row (like a simultaneous in a straight line), each clock set to five minutes (if you want to give odds, you can!).  All clocks should be on the same side of each board.  Alternate the colors on each board such that one team (say A) gets 3 whites and 2 blacks.

3. The A1 player moves first - on boards where he has White, he makes a move and hits the clock and on boards with black, he just hits the clock without making a move.  He progresses from board 1 thru board 5 as quickly as he can.  When he finishes with the 5th board, he runs back to the first board!

4. Players B1 follows him immediately on each board, replying to A1's moves and hitting the clock.

5. Player A2 follows B1 and moves on each board, and player B2 follows A2, everyone moving and hitting that board's clock.

6. When player A1 returns to the first board, A2 should have moves, so he then follows A2 down the boards, moving on each board.

7. If a team makes an illegal move, they lose that board.

8. When any game is won by any means the pieces on that board should be messed up so that the players do not think they should stop on that board and move there.

9. The team that wins at least 3 of the 5 games wins the "match".

10. All disputes are decided by the referee, who has the right to stop the action (stop all clocks) and make a decision, if need be.  However, only the players have the right to call a win by flag fall.  Unless mentioned above otherwise, all USCF sudden death 5-minutes or less speed rules apply.

Removal Option chess is the same as regular chess except that each player has the option of removing one of his own pieces instead of making a move (i.e., removing your own piece is your move). You cannot remove your own king.

Start a series of speed games with a friend. Let's say the first is 5 minutes each. The winner then has to take 30 seconds off his clock for the next game. If he wins again, he takes another 30 seconds off for the 3rd game; if the player giving the handicap loses, he gets 30 additional seconds.

Using this method, the players find their "natural handicap" level. For example, a 1700 player might end up averaging a 5-3 minute time handicap against a 1900 player with the 1900 varying between 2-4 minutes as he wins and loses. This method guarantees that for each long series of games the players will each win almost exactly half the games and be an absolutely fair handicap.

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