In Arrangement Chess Black can decide the initial positions of the kings, whose positions are mirrored, but the placement of the queens are decided independently. Arrangement Chess is like standard chess except that the players can, before play begins, swap places of the king + queen and another piece except the rooks. Thus, when the king is swapped (relocated), the other piece (the relocatee) ends up on the king's square. When the queen is swapped, the relocatee ends up on the queen's square. One restriction is that the bishops mustn't end up on the same square colour, and the king cannot become a relocatee (i.e. swapped by the queen). Note that black begins by swapping his king. Alternatively he can choose to leave the position as it is (by pressing the king). The white player then mirrors black's swap. After the kings thus have been swapped, Black can now relocate the queen, if he so wishes. Next White relocates his queen and immediately starts the game by making the first move.

Note that the king retains his castling rights even if it has been relocated. The castling rules derive from Fischer Random Chess. White castles in the following way (the Black procedure is equivalent). When castling left (O-O-O) , the king moves to c1 and the rook moves to d1. When castling right (O-O) the king moves to g1 and the rook moves to f1. The following conditions must be true: the king must not move to, from or over an attacked square; the king and rook have never moved; there is no other piece on any square over which the king and rook move. Note! If the king starts the game on a castling destination square (c or g), castling on that side is done by moving the rook instead of the king.

Curtailed castling: in an alternative variant, if the king is positioned on the g or b file, castling is restricted to the side on which the king is positioned. The variant could be useful to enhance strategical predictability.