Bird’s chess

How Bird’s chess is played

Bird’s chess, proposed in 1874, is chess on ten files with the guard and the equerry.

The board and the start

Ten files, a to j, and eight ranks. On rank 1, from a to j: rook, knight, bishop, guard, queen, king, equerry, bishop, knight, rook; ten pawns on rank 2. Black stands opposite on the same files. White moves first.

The two new pieces

The guard moves as a rook or as a knight, the equerry as a bishop or as a knight: each turn one of the two moves, and the knight’s move leaps as in chess. The other pieces move as in chess.

Castling

Bird gave no rule for it. As in Capablanca chess, the king moves three squares towards the rook, and the rook goes to the square beside it on the other side: the king from f1 to i1 and the rook from j1 to h1, or the king to c1 and the rook from a1 to d1. As in chess, neither may have moved, the squares between them must be empty, and the king may not be in check or pass through or land on an attacked square.

Pawns

Pawns move as in chess: two squares on their first move, en passant included. A pawn on the last rank becomes a queen, guard, equerry, rook, bishop or knight.

Winning and draws

Checkmate wins. Stalemate, the same position three times, fifty moves each without a capture or a pawn move, and positions where neither side can mate are draws. A guard or an equerry can mate a lone king with the help of its own king.

The story

England · Henry Bird’s proposal of 1874

When and where

Henry Edward Bird, the English master after whom the opening 1 f4 is named, proposed the game in 1874 in The City of London Chess Magazine, in an article called “A Proposed Modification in the Game of Chess”.

How it changed

After nearly four hundred years, he wrote, the openings had become almost stereotyped, and book knowledge beat the young player. Two more pawns would add greatly to the number of openings, so he widened the board to ten files and put a guard, a rook and a knight in one, beside the queen, and an equerry, a bishop and a knight in one, beside the king. Bird gave no rule for castling or promotion; this app follows Gollon (1968), with the king castling three squares as in Capablanca chess.

Today

The magazine’s editors welcomed it as “a pleasing accompaniment” to chess, not a substitute, and doubted there was room on the board for queen, guard and equerry. Bird planned a short match between two leading players to test it. In 1893 he noted that the additions proposed by Carrera, the Duke of Rutland and himself had been “regarded with no favour”.

Did you know?

Bird also offered a board of nine files with one new piece, a rook that could also move as a pawn.

Sources: H. E. Bird, The City of London Chess Magazine 1 (1874) · Wikipedia

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