Gothic chess

How Gothic chess is played

Gothic chess is Capablanca chess from Ed Trice’s start of 2000.

The board and the start

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

The two new pieces

The archbishop moves as a bishop or as a knight, the chancellor as a rook 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

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, chancellor, archbishop, 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. Trice’s Chess, as Trice renamed the game in 2019, counts a hundred moves instead of fifty; this app keeps fifty, as Fairy-Stockfish does.

The story

Cuba · José Raúl Capablanca’s proposal, printed in 1926

When and where

José Raúl Capablanca, world champion from 1921 to 1927, put his idea forward right after winning the title from Emanuel Lasker in Havana in 1921, and first printed it in 1926 in the Revista Bimestre Cubana. He played many test games with Edward Lasker.

How it changed

Capablanca feared that chess would die a “draw death”: within ten years, he wrote in 1928, half a dozen players would be able to draw virtually at will. His cure was a bigger board and two new pieces, one moving as a bishop and a knight, the other as a rook and a knight, which he called the Chancellor and the Marshal; today they are the archbishop and the chancellor. Everything he wrote himself is about a board of 10 × 10, with pawns stepping up to three squares at first. Edward Lasker wrote that they found 10 × 8 better, because the fighting starts earlier, and the setup known today comes from him.

Today

Gothic chess (Ed Trice, 2000), Reinhard Scharnagl’s Capablanca Random (2004) and Embassy chess (Kevin Hill, 2005) play the same rules from other starts. PyChess, where it is the most played game of the family, and the engine Fairy-Stockfish play it.

Did you know?

In April 1929 he showed the game at Selfridge’s in London on a board of 100 squares. His rival Emanuel Lasker called such proposals “cheap and inartistic”. The games with Maróczy that same year, often credited to it, were in fact played at another game, Hayward’s Double Chess.

Sources: Edward Winter, Chess Notes · Wikipedia · The Chess Variant Pages

More games

Chess and variants

• Chess · Classic chess, or Chess960 with a shuffled back rank.
• Chess960 · Fischer random chess: the back rank starts in one of 960 setups.
• Antichess · Losing chess: give away all your pieces, captures are compulsory.
• Atomic chess · Every capture is an explosion that clears the pieces around it.
• Crazyhouse · Captured pieces change sides and can be dropped back onto the board.
• Hostage chess · Captured men become hostages and come back by exchange or from the airfield.
• Three-check · Chess where the third check wins, so every check counts.
• King of the Hill · Chess where a king that reaches the centre wins at once.
• Jeson Mor · Mongolia’s nine horses: take the centre and hold it for a move.
• Racing Kings · No pawns, no checks: the first king on the far rank wins.
• Horde · 36 white pawns storm a full black army.
• Dunsany’s chess · Lord Dunsany’s game of 1942: 32 pawns against a full army.
• Los Alamos chess · Chess on 6 × 6 without bishops, the first game a computer played (1956).
• Duck chess · After every move you move the duck, which blocks everyone. No check.
• Marseillais chess · Two moves a turn, with one piece or two; White starts with one.
• Progressive chess · One move, then two, then three: each turn is one move longer.
• Fog of War · You only see where your pieces can move. Capture the king to win.
• Kriegspiel · Only your own pieces in sight; an umpire judges every move.
• Alice chess · Two boards: every piece that moves passes through to the other one.
• Raumschach 3D · Chess in a 5 × 5 × 5 cube: five boards stacked, and the unicorn.
• Old Raumschach · Maack’s cube as played before 1919: five pawns above the pieces.
• Friendly Chess · Nothing is captured: pieces unite and set off chain reactions.
• Ultima · Every piece captures its own way, and the immobilizer freezes.
• Gliński’s hexagonal chess · Chess on 91 hexagons: three bishops, rooks in six directions.
• McCooey’s hexagonal chess · Hexagonal chess closer to chess: seven pawns that take diagonally.
• Shafran’s hexagonal chess · Hexagonal chess on 70 cells, with castling and pawns that step three.
• Spartan chess · Persians against Spartans: chess’ army against two kings and new pieces.
• Legan chess · The armies in opposite corners; pawns step diagonally towards the far one.

Big chess

• Complete chess · The Arabic chess of the 9th century on 10 × 10, with two dabbābas a side.
• Courier chess · Medieval Germany’s chess on a 12 × 8 board, with the courier, the man and the schleich.
• Grande Acedrex · Alfonso X’s great chess on a 12 × 12 board, with lions, giraffes and a roc.
• Tamerlane chess · Timur’s great chess on an 11 × 10 board, with giraffes, camels and citadels.
• Carrera’s chess · The first chess on ten files, from a Sicilian priest’s book of 1617.
• Duke of Rutland’s chess · Fourteen files, with the concubine and two crowned rooks a side.
• Bird’s chess · Henry Bird’s ten-file chess of 1874, with the guard and the equerry.
• Capablanca chess · Ten files and two new pieces: the archbishop and the chancellor.
• Capablanca Random · Capablanca chess from one of 12,118 shuffled starts.
• Embassy chess · Grand chess’ row of pieces on a 10 × 8 board.
• Janus chess · Two januses a side, each moving as a bishop or a knight.
• Grand chess · Christian Freeling’s 10 × 10 game: pawns promote only to lost pieces.
• S-chess · Chess with a hawk and an elephant in hand, placed as the back rank leaves.

The chess family

• Chaturanga · India’s ancient chess, the root of the family: take the king to win.
• Shatranj · The medieval ancestor of chess, with a weak ferz and a jumping alfil.
• Byzantine chess · Shatranj on a round board: the rook circles, pawns never promote.
• Medieval chess · Europe’s chess before 1475: the ferz and the king may leap on their first move.
• Senterej · Ethiopian chess: no turns until the first capture, then Shatranj.
• Shatar · Mongolian chess: the bers, the camel, and a mate that needs a shak.
• Makruk · Thai chess: a slow, strategic game with a counting rule.
• Ouk Chatrang · Cambodian chess: Makruk with a leap for the king and the met.
• Sittuyin · Burmese chess: set up your pieces, then promote on the diagonals.
• Kar Ouk · Ouk Chatrang where the first check wins: guard your king.
• Malay chess · Chess of the Malay world: the king leaps, a crowned pawn walks back.
• Xiangqi · Chinese chess: a river, palaces and a cannon that jumps to capture.
• Minixiangqi · Xiangqi on 7 × 7 points: no river, no advisors, no elephants.
• Manchu chess · Red’s lone chariot moves as horse and cannon too, against a full army.
• Jieqi · Xiangqi with the pieces face down: each is revealed by its first move.
• Banqi · Xiangqi’s pieces face down on half a board: turn them up, take by rank.
• Janggi · Korean chess: no river, palace diagonals and a cannon that always jumps.
• Shogi · Japanese chess: captured pieces return to the board on your side.
• Minishogi · Shogi on a 5 × 5 board: six pieces a side, short and sharp games.
• Chu shogi · Japan’s great shogi on 12 × 12: no drops, and a lion that moves twice.
• Tori shogi · Bird shogi on 7 × 7: a phoenix, quails and swallows, with drops.

More players

• Chaturaji · India’s four-handed chess: kings can be captured, captures score.
• Four Seasons Chess · Alfonso X’s chess for four from 1283: four seasons, the last king wins.
• Three-player chess · Three armies on a hexagonal board: you against two bots.
• Four-player chess · Four armies on a cross-shaped board: in teams or all against all.
• Bughouse · Two boards, two teams: what you capture goes to your partner's hand.
• Eight-player chess · Eight armies on a board of 516 squares: all against all, in pairs or four against four.
• Verney’s four-handed chess · Verney’s game of 1881: two against two, mate both enemy kings.
• Verney’s eight-handed chess · Verney’s game for eight of 1884: four against four on 448 squares.