In many countries, playing blitz in pairs - where a piece captured by one person is passed to the partner, and can be put in their own board instead of a move - is popular at the club level. It is known as "bughouse" in the USA. In Israel, for some reason, it is known as Shachmat Schvedi - "Swedish Chess." Doron Cogan asks if anyone knows what reason, if any, is there to connect Sweden to this chess variant.
It should be noted that the English-language Wikipedia web page for "bughouse chess" has a reference to what seems to be the only chess book about it - Bughouse Chess by George von Zimmerman - with the quote from the book (p. 186) saying:
Other less common names for bughouse include Team chess, Hungarian chess, Swedish chess, New England Double bughouse, Pass-On chess, Tandem Put-Back, Double Speed, Double chess, Double Five, Simultaneous chess, Double bug or Double bughouse.
Some of the names are descriptive. "Bughouse" itself presumably refers to the fact that the games tend to be rather frantic in nature. "Swedish chess" is included, but - not owning the book - I do not know why.
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