Crosspost from my blog.
What happens when you work closely with someone on a really difficult project—and then they seem to just fuck it up?
This is a post about two Chess variants; one very special emotion; and how life is kinda like Chess Bughouse. Let's goooooo!
Crazyhouse
My favorite time-waster is Crazyhouse Chess. Crazyhouse Chess is mostly like regular Chess. In regular Chess, players take turns making a move, Bishops go diagonally and Rooks go straight, and you try to trap your opponent's King to win the game:

(From Lev Milman vs. Joseph Fang courtesy of https://www.chess.com/article/view/10-most-beautiful-checkmates.)
In Chess, if you take a piece, it just leaves the board. In Crazyhouse, the difference is that when you take an opponent's piece, you get to use it. Say you take a Black Bishop; then you get a White Bishop in your hand. When it's your turn, you can either do a regular boring Chess move (with one of your pieces already on the board)—or you can drop a piece from your hand onto the board. To illustrate, watch how when I take the opponent's Bishop, a Bishop appears in my hand at the [...] ---Outline:(00:29) Crazyhouse(04:32) Crazyhouse rage?(05:03) Bughouse(07:53) Treachery!(11:39) Bughouse Rage(13:53) Bughouse and life(15:02) Christian Bale bugging out(16:58) My stag is best stag(21:02) Are you people even trying to save the world?(24:02) Conclusion: Symmetrization(25:35) Epilogue The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. ---
First published:
November 19th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/imnfJ9Ris7GgjkZbT/the-bughouse-effect-1
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

Ver todos los episodios