Traitor! A chess variant:

Traitor! A chess variant:

Set up pieces as normal. Each player is randomly assigned a number from 1 - 8 which they write down and keep secret.

That number identifies a pawn of the opponent that is secretly a traitor working for the player.

1 = Queen's Rook Pawn
2 = Queen's Knight Pawn
3 = Queen's Bishop Pawn
etc. etc.

The traitor is used in one of three ways:

1.) On your move, you can reveal your number and the appropriate pawn of your opponent is replaced with a pawn of your color. It's now a pawn under you control and moves and acts like any other pawn you have.

2) When your opponent is about to use a pawn to capture one of your pawns/pieces, and it's your traitor pawn, you can reveal your number proving that pawn to be a traitor. Replace the traitor pawn with a pawn of your color. The pawn now moves and acts like a normal pawn of yours. The intended capture never takes place.

3.) Should your opponent advance the traitor pawn to the back rank, you must reveal it to be a traitor. The pawn is replaced with one of your color as above.

I had the idea that you could also reveal the traitor and then immediately capture an opponent's piece, but I think that would cause games to grind down -- you'd be trying to make space for your pieces to avoid getting traitor'd. Plus, you'd mostly want to use it on turn 1 to wipe out a piece.

Obviously, it's going to suck if you get a flank pawn for a traitor while you opponent has one of your central pawns, but I think it would be fun for the uncertainty factor.