Less-Stress Chess

I'll grant that normal chess is a good enough game in itself.

However, alternatives have their place, because they can be fun and help you to improve your normal game. For example, you could still play competitively, but each side tries to lose the game (where you have to take a piece as long as it's possible).

The cooperative version is really good for teaching inexperienced players (especially children) the rules of the game. The idea is that you pick one side in advance to be the losing side, and together you figure out how to end the game in as few moves as possible. With expert players, there may be just one solution (or a small handful of solutions) that will truly yield the fewest moves.

But it will still be a challenge when one of the players is a novice. You can let the inexperienced player (playing the winning side) make any move, and then discuss openly what the "losing side" should do to lose. Or you can switch it up and let the inexperienced player make their choices on the losing side and discuss together what the winning side should do.

[Cooperative Chess]