Senterej

How Senterej is played

Senterej is the chess of Ethiopia as travellers saw it played at the courts in the 19th century: Shatranj, with an opening without turns and an ending that protects the weaker side. The goal is to checkmate the opposing king: to attack it so that no move can save it. An attacked king is in check, and no move may leave your own king attacked.

The werera

The game opens with the werera, the “marshalling”. Until the first capture nobody waits for a turn: in each round both sides choose one move, or to wait, without seeing the other’s choice, and both are played. When the two clash, the quicker side’s move goes first (White in odd rounds, Black in even ones) and the other’s is played only if it still fits; it never turns into a capture. A capture is played alone and ends the werera, and so does a check. The side that did not end it moves next, and from then on the moves alternate. After twenty rounds the werera ends anyway, with White to move. No source describes the werera’s rules: these rounds are our reconstruction of a game once played as fast as the hands could move.

Castling

During the werera, and only then, the king may leap two squares to its right, and the nearer rook stands next to it on the other side: White’s king from e1 to g1 with the rook to f1, Black’s from d8 to b8 with the rook to c8. King and rook must not have moved, the squares between them must be empty, and the king may not be attacked or cross an attacked square.

The pieces

The kings stand crosswise, White’s on e1 and Black’s on d8, each with its fers on its left. The king steps one square in any direction, the rook moves along ranks and files, and the knight jumps in an L. The fers steps one square diagonally, and the fil jumps exactly two squares diagonally, over whatever stands between.

Pawns

A pawn moves one square forward and captures one square diagonally forward; there is no double step and no en passant. On the last rank it becomes a piece its side has lost, a fers, a rook, a knight or a fil, at the player’s choice. If none is lost, it may still step there and waits; once a piece is lost, it may become it where it stands, as a move.

Winning

Checkmate wins. Stalemate is a draw (no source says; it fits the rules that protect the weaker side). A side left with no piece but its king and pawns draws the game at once, even if the capture would have mated. A side left with exactly one piece counts that piece’s moves: if it makes its seventh move unmated, the game is drawn. So the stronger side must mate while the other still has a piece or two.

Draws

The same position three times, or seventy moves each without a capture or a pawn move, is a draw. The old sources know no such rule; it is ours.

Where it comes from

Senterej, from the Arabic shatranj, was played at the Ethiopian courts until the 1930s. Its rules come from Henry Salt (1805), Walter Plowden (1840s), Antoine d’Abbadie and the historian Richard Pankhurst, and this game follows what most of them give. Plowden lets the fers step in any direction, some modern sources let the fil go one or two squares, some put both kings on one file, some know no castling, Plowden lets every pawn become a fers, and the regent Ras Imru gave the stronger side ten moves to mate a bare king. Plowden also ranked the mates: by a rook or a knight “unworthy of the merest tyro”, by two fils applauded, by pawns best of all.

The story

Ethiopia · described by travellers in the 19th century

When and where

Senterej, sänṭäräž in Amharic, is the chess of Ethiopia and Eritrea; its name comes from the Arabic shatranj. The emperor Lebna Dengel (1508–1540) is said to have played a Venetian painter, by rules nobody recorded, and a manuscript painting of 1721–1730 shows two players at a board. The rules come from 19th-century travellers who saw it played at the courts: Henry Salt in 1805, Walter Plowden in the 1840s and Antoine d’Abbadie.

How it changed

The pieces moved as in Shatranj, but the game opened with the werera, the “marshalling”: until the first capture nobody waited for a turn, and both players moved as many pieces as fast as they liked, watching each other. A pawn could become only a piece already lost. And taking the opponent’s last piece did not win, as in Shatranj, but drew: the stronger side had to mate while the other still had a piece, and a single piece left had seven moves to survive.

Today

Senterej was played at the court until the Italian invasion of 1935–36 and declined afterwards; one of its last masters, Mikael Imru, died in 2008, and no one is known to play it today. No source writes the werera’s rules down: the rounds of hidden moves played here are our reconstruction.

Did you know?

Plowden recorded which mates counted as fine: one by a rook or a knight was “unworthy of the merest tyro”, one by the fers “just endurable”, one by two fils applauded, and one by pawns “the ne plus ultra”. An ignominious mate still won the game.

Original piece names

negus (king) · fers (counsellor, the ferz) · fil or saba (elephant, the alfil) · färäs (horse, the knight) · der (the rook) · medeq (the pawn)

Sources: H. J. R. Murray, A History of Chess (1913) · Walter Plowden, Travels in Abyssinia (1868) · Jean-Louis Cazaux · Wikipedia

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