This page is concerned with what many people will normally think of when the subject of a modified form of Chess is mentioned; variations in which a limited number of new pieces are added to the array, making for an enlarged square, or in some cases rectangular, board. Versions that start from the regular Chess array and versions that start from the Shatranj array are both discussed. More imaginative alternate forms of Chess, like the inventions of Christiaan Freeling, R. Wayne Schmittberger, or V. R. Parton, three-dimensional and hexagonal Chess, or even the Duke of Rutland's Chess, where not only is the board greatly enlarged, but each player has four Bishops and three Knights in addition to one Empress and two pieces with the move of both the Rook and the Fers, are avoided. By dealing with what might perhaps be considered the most humdrum of variant forms of Chess, I can both limit the size of this page, and observe some connections between the different forms in this range.
On a previous page, I discussed a number of forms of enlarged Chess from a number of cultures that were not modern inventions. On that page, I only discussed two enlarged forms of Western chess, Timur's Chess and Courier Chess. Courier Chess was particularly important in the transition from the old moves of the chess pieces to the new moves, and Timur's Chess is considered to be the most playable of the traditional enlarged chess variants.
I would have preferred to avoid Timur's Chess, because I needed to make new symbols for the Pawns for it, and because of a general dislike for enlarging the board with citadels, special squares into which the King can escape on the side, perhaps to force a draw. But on reviewing the various traditional forms of enlarged Chess in the references available to me, or even the more recent proposals to enliven Chess by the addition of a few new pieces, I could find no other variant with an array of pieces of comparable interest. On this page, I will quickly review many of the other choices I had considered.
While I have tried to divide these pages into sections, there is considerable overlap between them. Thus, in the page of a version of four-handed Chess of my own invention, I also describe several pre-existing ones; in the page about types of Hexagonal Chess, while I mainly describe existing modern inventions, I added a couple varieties of my own as well. Here, I will be discussing both traditional forms of enlarged Chess and modern inventions.
The diagram at the left shows the standard array of Chess pieces.
To facilitate the discussion of the older versions of enlarged Chess in what will follow, I will again note that the moves of the Bishop and the Queen were different in the older form of Chess, which can be referred to by the distinctive name of Shatranj. The Queen had been the Fers, which moved one space diagonally, and the Bishop had been the Alfil, which moved two spaces diagonally, jumping over any intervening piece without affecting it.
The standard name for a piece that moves two spaces orthogonally, jumping over an intervening piece without affecting it, is the Dabbaba, taken from Timur's Chess; the Camel which has an extended version of the Knight's move, also comes from there. The Giraffe, a piece with a doubly extended form of the Knight's move, comes from the Spanish Grande Acedrex, and the Zebra makes a move whose displacement is that of 2 spaces in one direction and 3 directions in a perpendicular direction, thus extended by one diagonal space from a Knight's move.
Three other pieces that are common in versions of enlarged Chess are the Princess, which has the moves of both the Bishop and Knight, the Empress, which has the moves of both the Rook and Knight, and the Amazon, which has the moves of the Queen and the Knight.
Another piece found in several of the older forms of enlarged Chess is the one called the Griffin. It moves first one space diagonally, then changes course, and moves like the Rook. Slightly different forms of this piece exist in different games. In the Spanish Grande Acedrex, the piece is called the Aanca, and must move at least one space like the Rook, so it can move as Knight, Camel, Giraffe, or beyond. In Timur's Chess, this piece, called a Giraffe, must move at least two spaces orthogonally, and so it cannot move as the Knight. In another version of Great Chess, it is called the Great Fers, and must move at least three spaces orthogonally, and so cannot move as the Knight or as the Camel. To make this distinction, I propose that one refer to the Aanca of Grande Acedrex as a Griffin-1, the Giraffe of Timur's Chess as a Griffin-2, and the Great Fers of this other Great Chess as a Griffin-3.
Another common piece is the Man, which has the same move as the King, but which is only an ordinary piece.
Capablanca's Chess is a well-known modern variation on Chess. It was devised by the famous Cuban world Chess champion José Raoul Capablanca sometime around 1921. Its array is:
R Kt Pr B Q K B Em Kt R
but the Princess is called an Archbishop, and the Empress is called a Chancellor. The board is 10 squares wide, but 8 squares deep, but it is noted that it can also be played on a 10x10 board, in which case the pawns can also move three spaces on their first move.
The name used for the Empress came from Chancellor Chess, invented in 1887 by Benjamin R. Foster. In that game, only the Empress is added. The array for that game is:
R N B Q K Em N B R
Since only one piece is added, the Knight and Bishop on the Chancellor-side are reversed so that Bishops will be on opposite colors.
A variation with the same complement of pieces as Capablanca's Chess was devised by H. E. Bird, but with the arrangement:
R Kt B Em Q K Pr B Kt R
In his version of the game, the Princess is called a Guard, and the Empress is called an Equerry.
The book Chess Eccentricities credits Carrera with designing, in 1617, and again on an 8 x 10 board rather than on a 10 x 10 board, a version with the layout:
R Pr Kt B Q K B Kt Em R
with the Princess called a Centaur, and the Empress called a Campione. This early extended version of Chess is also mentioned in B. R. Foster's 1889 book about Chancellor Chess.
Yet another variant of Chess with this same complement of pieces is noted as having been called Universal Chess, with all the pieces being renamed with military-themed names, by Dr. Bruno Violet in 1928; two arrangements of the board were provided, one of which was identical to the 10x10 version of Capablanca's Chess.
A game played in Northern India was Atranj, with the array:
P P P P U U P P P P R Kt B Q K Am Q B Kt R
Pawns promote to the piece of their file. The Amazon is called a Prince. Instead of Pawns, the King and the Prince/Amazon each have an Urdabeqin in front of them, which in this game has the power to capture by a move one space in any diagonal direction, and to move one space backwards or forwards. As this is to avoid the issue of a Pawn promoting to the too-powerful Amazon or to King, when a Pawn changes file due to a capture, the piece it can promote to does not change, so labelled Pawns are required as in Timur's Chess.
Incidentally, the move of the Urdabeqin in this game was given to all the Pawns in the Prussian National Game, on an 11 by 11 board; this game included four Bishops and three Knights for each side, and its description would belong on another page.
Another notable chessplayer who suggested an enlarged version of Chess was Giuseppe Ciccolini. In 1820, he suggested a version with the array:
R Kt Ge Z K Q Z Ge Kt R
played on a 10 by 10 board. The Zebra was called an Elephant. The other new piece, the General, was a combined Bishop and Dabbaba-Rider. Thus, it could be thought of as the Queen of squares of one color. Unlike Capablanca, it would seem very unlikely that his invention was anticipated.
But this new piece was used again in at least one other variant, Emperor Chess, designed by H. R. Lambert in 1954 for the 12x12 board. The array of that game was:
R Kt B Ep Q Am K Q Ep B Kt R
the General being called the Emperor, and the Amazon being called the Commander. However, the Emperor was different from the General in one way; it could be blocked along its Rook lines by pieces on squares of either color.
If one removes the Emperors, one gets Power Chess on the 10 by 10 board, a commercial product from 1953, designed by one D. Trouillon, and in which the Amazon is again called a Commander.
In 1840, a game on a 10x10 board very similar to Capablanca's Chess was devised by L. Tressau, but the complement of pieces was different. One unusual attribute of that game was that Kingside of the board is on White's left, presumably so that the Queen can continue to take her own color while having a black square at the corner of the board to each player's left. This was The Emperor's Game, invented by L. Tressau. Its array was:
R Kt B A K Q Pr B Kt R
where the Amazon was called a General, and the Princess was called an Adjutant. In this game, Pawns could move three squares on their first move, and the King could move either three or four squares when Castling.
He also invented, in the same year, The Sultan's Game. This one is played on an 11 by 11 board, and adds the Empress, which is called a Marshal. Since the number of squares is odd, all four corners are white, but the King remains on the left of the Queen, with the array:
R B Kt Em A K Q Pr B Kt R
Note that the Queenside Bishop and Knight are interchanged so that both Bishops remain on different colors, exactly as was done later in Chancellor Chess. The Amazon is again called the General and the Princess the Adjutant.
Given that the Rook, Bishop, and Knight represent the three basic types of movement present in the modern game of chess, it is not to be wondered at that other combinations of those moves, besides the combination of the Rook and the Bishop that is our Queen in Chess have been obvious pieces to add. A criticism of these variants would be that they add too many very powerful pieces to the board, making the game too quick, thus impoverishing rather than enriching it.
Perhaps the thing to do to produce the next form that Chess might take is instead to remove the Queen from the board, and replace it with the less powerful Princess, but add another whole row of Pawns to the forces on each side. This would ensure that even a very slight material superiority would be likely to translate into a surviving Pawn that could be promoted, probably to a Rook, so that draws would be less likely, but drawn-out and subtle play would still be required.
One Lieutenant Obert, in the 1870s, designed a variation of Chess where the new piece was the Guardian, which was a Fers-mover Wazir-capturer; an inverse Berolina Pawn, if one wishes, with the array:
R Gu Kt B Q K B Kt Gu R
Another game in which the new piece was not so overwhelmingly powerful as to unbalance the game, but was more powerful than the rather weak Guardian in the previous game, was Greater Chess, designed by one W. Day in 1942, with the array:
R Kt B Dk Q K Dk B Kt R
the new pieces being Dukes, which could move like a Queen, except only one or two spaces in each direction. This piece is known as the Mammoth or Mastodon in some recent Chess variants.
Of course, if adding a very powerful piece to the board shortens the game, at least it adds excitement, which brings some interest. The variations that add only pieces of limited strength, even if they are worthwhile, do not have that in their favor. As the Duke would seem to be stronger than a Knight, however, that game seems particularly well-balanced.
D. B. Pritchard's Encyclopedia of Chess Variants brought to my attention an extended form of Chess from 1696, called Enlarged and Improved Chess. It had the array:
- - P P - - P P P P En En P P P P R Kt B Gu K Q Gu B Kt R
The two added pieces were the Ensign, a Bishop-mover/Rook-capturer, and the Guard, a Rook-mover/Bishop-capturer.
Another variant I have only seen mentioned in print in that large collection which has an unusually modern and creative type of added piece is known as Spanish Chess, dating from 1739. It has the array:
R Kt B A Q K A B Kt R
where the new piece is the Archer, which moves along the Rook line pointing straight forwards, or the two Bishop lines pointing backwards. It is played on a board with only 8 ranks to its 10 files, like Capablanca's Chess and its relatives.
A game on a 12 by 12 board with the array:
R Kt Pr B Co K Q M B Pr Kt R
is credited to Alfonso X, although it is not from the famous manuscript that gave us Grande Acedrex. The Princess is called the Unicorn; the Counsellor has the moves of the King and the Knight combined, and the Man, called a Fool in this game, the move only of the King, but is only an ordinary piece. This game, which I learned of from the book Chess Eccentricities, does add the Princess, but accompanies it with less powerful new pieces, making for a more balanced game.
The game of Grande Acedrex, its invention credited to India by Alfonso X, is second to Timur's Chess in the variety of pieces it offered; it had the array:
R Li U Gi B K G1 B Gi U Li R
and was played on a 12 by 12 board, but with two empty rows of squares between the pieces on the back ranks and the Pawns. The Bishop was called a Crocodile, and the Griffin-1 was called an Aanca. The other new pieces were the Lion, which moved three spaces in either orthogonal direction, and the Giraffe, which has a twice-elongated Knight's move, as opposed to the once-elongated Knight's move of the Camel in Timur's Chess. Pawns promote to the piece behind them on the file, except that the King's Pawn also promotes to an Aanca.
The move of the Unicorn was originally given in some sources, deriving from H. J. R. Murray's A History of Chess as that of the Bishop, except that its first move had to be a non-capturing Knight's move. More recently, closer study of the original Spanish text of the manuscript which described this game has led to the conclusion that it was a more powerful piece, somewhat analogous to the Aanca, that moved as follows: the first element of its move was a Knight's move in any direction, and it could stop at that, or it could continue one or more steps as a Bishop, but forwards only.
A variety of Turkish Chess noted in Chess Eccentricities, with credit being given to a previous account by Dr. Van der Linde, was played on a 13 by 13 board also had two empty rows between the Pawns and the pieces on the back rank. The array was:
R Kt B Pr Ca Q K Gi Ca Pr B Kt R
with the Princess called a Rhinoceros, the Camel called a Stag, and the Giraffe called a Great Queen.
The enlarged powers of the pieces in modern Chess have meant that it seems that adding only one or two new pieces would be enough to add as much zest to the game as one might want. Back when Chess was Shatranj, with the Fers and Alfil instead of the Queen and Bishop, adding the modern Bishop to the game was already a major innovation, and other much weaker pieces, such as the Dabbaba and the Man, were more proportionate to the existing array.
Two very old versions of Chess on a 10 by 10 board are noted in H. J. R. Murray's A History of Chess. One has the array:
R Kt Al M K Fe M Al Kt R
(the front row of Pawns being assumed, rather than shown, as it is the same for most of these games, a row of Pawns extending as far as the row of pieces behind them) and the other, at least according to John Gollon, has the array
R Kt Al D K Fe D Al Kt R
although if one took the description in H. J. R. Murray's work very literally, the array might be:
R Kt Al K Fe D D Al Kt R
In the first one noted, the Man was called a Dabbaba, and in the second one, the Dabbaba was called a Camel.
On a previous page, we've seen Timur's Chess:
P P P P P P P P P P P R Kt Ta G2 Fe K Wa G2 Ta Kt R B Ca Da Da Ca B
The Taliah was a Bishop that could move two or more spaces, but not just one space. As the Pawn promotion rules are complex, I will refer the reader to that earlier page for its full description.
The array
R Kt Al B K Fe B Al Kt R
with the simple addition of the Bishop (here called a Dabbaba) to the old Chess array was used in Citadel Chess. This was played on a board with 10 files but 8 ranks (or, by some accounts, a 10x10 board), and with citadels added adjoining the four corners of the board; a King could draw the game by moving into a citadel on the opposite side of the board. As in Shatranj, the Pawn could only promote to a Fers, and there was no castling. Presumably, the Pawn also could not move two squares on its first move.