Looking for games like chess? From Xiangqi and Shogi to checkers and Chess960, here is an accurate guide to the best board games like chess worth learning next.
Games like chess exist in astonishing variety, and if you have fallen for the elegance of chess, a whole world of related strategy games is waiting to reward the exact skills you have built. The instinct to calculate ahead, to weigh a sacrifice, to control key squares, and to convert a small edge in an endgame all transfer, sometimes cleanly, sometimes with a twist that makes the new game feel thrillingly fresh. Trying another abstract strategy game is one of the fastest ways to become a stronger chess player, because it forces you to rediscover principles you had started taking for granted.
But 'like chess' means different things, and it pays to be precise. Some games are true relatives, descended from the same ancient root and sharing the goal of trapping a royal piece. Others are pure abstract strategy games that feel similar in spirit but work entirely differently. This guide walks through both kinds accurately, so you know exactly what you are signing up for before you set up the board, and can pick the next game that fits how your brain likes to play.
The Closest Cousins: Chess's Own Family
The games most 'like chess' are its siblings in the chaturanga family, and the standout is Xiangqi, or Chinese chess. It is the most-played of all these relatives worldwide. Xiangqi is played on a 9x10 grid with pieces on the intersections rather than inside squares, a river across the middle, and palaces that confine the royal General. Its signature Cannon captures only by jumping over exactly one piece, producing tactics no chess player has ever seen. And unlike chess, there is no stalemate draw: if you cannot move, you lose, which makes every game bracingly decisive.
Shogi, Japanese chess, adds the electrifying 'drop' rule, captured pieces change ownership and can be dropped back onto the 9x9 board as your own, so games almost never end in a draw and attacks never really run out of ammunition. Janggi, Korean chess, uses a board and river similar to Xiangqi but with diagonal palace lines and its own distinct rules, including the option to pass and legitimate draws. If you want something that feels like medieval chess frozen in time, try Makruk (Thai chess), where the queen-equivalent moves only one square diagonally, giving a slower, more positional game. All of these will feel immediately familiar in goal and utterly new in texture.
Same Spirit, Different Machinery
Not every 'game like chess' is a chess relative, and being accurate here saves confusion. Checkers, or draughts, is a distinct game rather than a chess variant: played on the dark squares of an 8x8 board, it is all about forced captures and creating an unstoppable king, and its apparent simplicity hides genuine depth (English draughts has been solved by computers to a draw with perfect play). It shares chess's board but none of its lineage.
Go deserves special mention precisely because people wrongly call it a chess variant. It is not. Go is a territory game played by placing stones on the intersections of a 19x19 grid, with no royal piece and no checkmate; you win by surrounding more territory. Its game tree is vastly larger than chess's, and it demands a completely different kind of pattern intuition. If you love chess for its long-term strategy more than its tactics, Go may captivate you, just do not expect anything mechanically similar. Reversi (Othello) is another pure abstract that rewards planning and evaluation, again from a totally separate family. These games scratch the same strategic itch without pretending to be chess.
Modern Twists on the Classic Board
If you want to keep the chess pieces and the 8x8 board but shake up the experience, the rule variants of international chess are the perfect bridge. Chess960, also known as Fischer Random and invented by world champion Bobby Fischer, shuffles the back-rank pieces into one of 960 legal starting positions. Castling still works and the bishops still start on opposite colors, but memorized openings are useless, so you play on pure understanding from the very first move. It even has its own world championship.
For lighter fun, King of the Hill lets you win by walking your king to a central square, three-check chess is won by checking the enemy king three times, and Crazyhouse borrows Shogi's drop rule so captured pieces can re-enter as yours. These variants are ideal 'next games' because your entire chess skill set still applies, you are simply asking it new questions. Many players find that a few games of Chess960 or three-check sharpen their standard chess by breaking them out of memorized ruts and forcing genuine over-the-board thinking.
How to Choose Your Next Game
Match the game to what you love about chess. If you crave tactics and attacking the king, Xiangqi and Shogi will feel like coming home, with new weapons in your hands. If you love deep positional strategy and long-term planning, Go offers a lifetime of it, from a completely fresh angle. If you enjoy chess's structure but want to escape opening theory, Chess960 is the cleanest reset available. And if you want quick, decisive skirmishes, checkers or three-check chess deliver in minutes.
A practical tip: pick just one new game and give it at least a dozen games before judging it. The first few rounds of any of these will feel awkward precisely because your chess instincts are firing in a slightly wrong context; by game ten, your brain rewires and the new patterns start to click. That discomfort is the sign you are growing as a player, not a reason to quit.
Start With the World's Favorite Chess Cousin
Of all the games like chess, the one that best rewards an existing chess player, and the easiest to start playing right now, is Xiangqi. It keeps the thrill of hunting a trapped king while adding the Cannon, the river, and a caged General that will stretch your tactical vision in genuinely new directions. Because it shares chess's DNA, you will be competitive faster than you expect.
On XiangqiPlay you can start a beginner-friendly game against a bot in seconds, learn the signature Cannon and Chariot patterns through mate-in-one puzzles, and then challenge a friend or an online opponent when you are ready. Choose your next game this week, begin with a few relaxed Xiangqi matches, and let the strategy skills you built in chess find a brand-new board to conquer.