Shbang is played under the normal FIDE rules of chess. The rules below are added on top. When one of them conflicts with normal chess, the Shbang rule wins.
The left column gives the rule ID. The right column says exactly which part of normal chess each rule changes.
| ID | Rule | What it says | Changes to normal chess |
|---|---|---|---|
| Equipment and setup | |||
| E1 | Checkers are lives | Each side has 15 backgammon checkers in its own colour. A checker under a piece is one life. A stack can be any height. | New. Chess has no lives. |
| E2 | Setup | One checker goes under each of your 15 pieces other than the king. Both hands start empty. | Same starting position, with checkers added. |
| E3 | Conservation | Checkers are never created or destroyed, and they never change sides. Your 15 checkers only move between your own stacks and your own hand. | New. |
| Attacks, hits and captures | |||
| L1 | Capture | A piece with no lives is captured in the normal way. | Unchanged. |
| L2 | Hit (SHBANG!) | A capture move against a piece that has lives removes one checker from its stack. The attacking piece does not move. Your turn ends. | Replaces capture whenever the target has lives. |
| L3 | Lives go home | A checker knocked off goes back to the hand of the side that owns the hit piece. The hit costs that side a life on the board, not a checker. | New. |
| L4 | Hits never move a piece | A hit can't give discovered check, can't promote a pawn, and doesn't cost castling rights. Like any other move, it ends the chance to take en passant. | Follows from L2. |
| L5 | The SHBANG! moment | Every hit is announced as SHBANG! The caption says how many lives the target has left. | Presentation only. |
| Stacking | |||
| S1 | Stack a life | Instead of moving, you can take one checker from your hand and put it under any of your own pieces, including the king. That is your whole turn. | New kind of move. |
| S2 | No height limit | There's no cap on a stack. Building up a queen or king fortress is a legitimate strategy. | New. |
| S3 | Shell-shock lock | Each side's most recently SHBANGed piece can't be stacked. The lock stays on however many turns pass. It moves only when a different piece of that side is hit. It follows the piece through promotion, and it goes away if the piece is captured. | Exception to S1. |
| Kings, check and mate | |||
| K1 | Armored king | A king can carry lives like any other piece. Attacks on it are hits. It can take lives at any time except while it's in check. | New. |
| K2 | Check | A king is in check only when it has no lives and is attacked. A king with lives can stand on an attacked square, move onto one, or stand next to the enemy king. | Redefines check. |
| K3 | Getting out of check | Move the king, block the attack, or capture the attacker. A checked king can't take a life, and no other stacking is allowed while in check. Hitting the attacker never gets you out of check, because it's still attacking. | Unchanged from normal chess. |
| K4 | Last-life check | Knocking the last life off a king you are attacking puts it in check straight away. | New way to give check. |
| K5 | Checkmate | The king has no lives, it's in check, and no legal move gets it out. | Unchanged. |
| K6 | A king can never be taken | A king with no lives can never be captured or hit, just as in normal chess. It can only be checkmated. | Unchanged. |
| Special moves | |||
| M1 | Castling | The usual conditions apply. The squares the king starts on, crosses and lands on only have to be safe if the king has no lives. The rook keeps its stack. Hitting a king or rook doesn't cost castling rights. | Relaxed for armored kings. |
| M2 | En passant | Against a pawn with lives, en passant is a hit. The capturing pawn stays where it is, and the chance is gone for good. | Follows from L2. |
| M3 | Promotion | The promoted piece keeps the pawn's stack and lock. A pawn that hits a piece on the last rank stays put and doesn't promote. | Stack carries over. |
| End of the game | |||
| G1 | Stalemate | No legal move, stacking included, and not in check. While you hold a checker and have a piece that isn't locked, you can't be stalemated. | Much rarer. |
| G2 | 50-move rule | Draw after 50 moves by each player without a pawn move or capture. Hits and stacked lives don't reset the count, because a checker that leaves a piece can come back. | Unchanged. Hits and stacking count as ordinary moves. |
| G3 | Threefold repetition | A position counts as the same only when every stack, both hands and both locks also match. Positions are compared back to the last pawn move or capture, across hits and stacked lives. | Wider definition of a position. |
| G4 | Not enough material | Lives give no mating power. The game is drawn when only the kings are left, or the kings and one knight or bishop, or the kings and bishops that all stand on squares of one colour. Lives and checkers in hand don't change this. | The usual automatic draws, whatever the checkers. |
A few situations that follow from the rules above and can surprise players who know normal chess.
If a checking piece has lives, you can't capture it, and hitting it doesn't help, because it stays where it is and keeps giving check. A lone queen with one life next to a bare king on the edge is mate, even with nothing guarding her. The same queen without lives would simply be taken.
The checker you knock off goes back to its owner. They lose a life on the board, but getting it back under a piece costs them a whole turn.
While you hold a checker, you always have a quiet move available. Zugzwang and stalemate mostly disappear until your hand is empty.
A king with lives may step next to the enemy king, and the two kings can hit each other. In normal chess this can never happen.
A king with lives isn't in check, so it can castle out of, through or into attacked squares.
An armored king could walk up to a bare king, but a position with only the two kings left is drawn first. Lives never count as mating material.