Bughouse chess (also known as transfer chess) is a popular offshoot of chess played with four players (two per team) over two boards. On each team one player plays as black while the other plays as white. Each player faces off against one other opponent just as in normal chess with all the normal chess rules. The caveat and twist which separates bughouse chess from traditional chess is the fact that once a player captures an opponent’s piece, that piece is passed on to the player’s teammate who can choose to ‘drop’ the piece at any point on the board (save for a checkmate position) during their turn as if it were a normal move. A team is deemed victorious when one of its members wins their match through checkmate or forfeit. This twist to normal chess, which allows for actual team play compared to normal team chess matches (a series of one vs one’s in which the team with the most wins is victorious overall), draws many similarities to jazz improvisation in which a medium to low resolution framework for suggested play is given and players are free to, and often forced to, improvise in their playing both individually and as a group to produce the best results. This improvisational element of both jazz and bughouse chess is where the charm and enjoyment of both is to be found compared to their classical counterparts