Editing Bughouse chess (section)

=== Coordination ===
Captured pieces are passed on, and thus what happens on one board influences what happens on the other board. It is, therefore, natural for team members to communicate during game play. A common request of an attacking player would be "trades are good," while players in trouble may ask their partners to hold trades with "trades are bad." Similarly, a player can request a piece (e.g. "knight wins a queen") or ask their partner to hold a piece (e.g. "rook mates me").<ref>von Zimmerman (2006), pp. 243–44</ref>

Another common situation in the interplay between the two boards is a player not moving, a strategy known as sitting or stalling. Stalling can happen in anticipation of a certain piece or at the request of the partner. If, for example, a player is under heavy attack, and an additional pawn would mate them, but their partner cannot prevent giving up a pawn on the next move, sitting is the only strategy. It would, however, be perfectly logical for the attacker to sit as well, waiting for a pawn to come. The situation where diagonal opponents sit at the same time is known as a "sitzkrieg" (literally "sitting war" in German, and a pun on "[[blitzkrieg]]"). The difference in time between the diagonal opponents will eventually force one party to move. This diagonal time advantage is more important than the difference on the clock between opponents on the same board.<ref>Manson and Hoover (1992), pp. 75–89</ref> At the higher levels (>2000), players move very quickly, especially in the opening, as a time advantage of as little as 10 seconds can be more important than seemingly decisive positional advantages.<ref>[https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1281215155 Chuck Moulton, annotating a Bughouse World Championship match], January 30, 2022. Retrieved February 1, 2022.</ref>

Apart from active communication, a good bughouse player tries to coordinate silently by keeping an eye on the other board and adapting moves accordingly. This can mean as little as glancing at the other board before trading queens, or as much as playing an opening adapted to the other board.<ref>See Chris Ferrante (2000) {{cite web|url=http://personal.atl.bellsouth.net/f/e/ferrantc/chess/bughouse.html |title=Bughouse article |access-date=2007-05-11 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070117233417/http://personal.atl.bellsouth.net/f/e/ferrantc/chess/bughouse.html |archive-date=2007-01-17 }}, reproduced in von Zimmerman (2006), pp. 79–94</ref>