I played bughouse in the early 90s. It’s far better than chess. My teammate and I were really good. We would beat chess grandmasters because the game is so different. At the time we had bughouse Elos of something like 2300, which don’t make any sense because it was such a niche game.

When you get good at bughouse, you make your own openings and you each know who’s playing what. The openings are synchronized and you can plan out until a certain move where you sacrifice a bishop or knight on the opponents king bishop pawn, exposing them, then your teammate just trades as much material as possible.

We also got really really good at the clocks. We’d just have a winning position and sit on the clock on the other board in a zugzwang-like time force.

That game, and kriegspiel, occupied my time in much of the 90s. If you like chess, and can play in person, try bughouse. It’s the best.