Forum

Hi, Here is an article I wrote back in 2019 examining the origins of Chess based on a combined study of Cladistic (game-tree) analysis and Wave theory (synonymous to horizontal gene transmission). https://docs.google.com/document/d/1whOWaj3B9w13PzJV4-laMNl3W6eC60Qi/edit The article is a bit technical but hopefully interesting. The isolated conclusions from the analysis are quite clear – the Persian Chatrang (synonymous to the Arabic Shatranj) is the oldest game. When you add the fact that also the oldest written chess sources and chess pieces are Persian (a fact already acknowledged by Murray in 1913), there should be no doubt that the Persian chess origin theory is still very much alive. Rungne

I've been playing Chaturanga on here for a while, and I figured I would see if there are any videos of this game on youtube. I found this video, which is listed amongst many other ancient and regional variations of chess on the same person's channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIb1yx6CZqQ (4:40 mark) At the selected time spot, he claims "they did not have castling like we do today, some regional variants would have another form of castling, such as the king making a knight's move early in the game" (presumably the king's first move) I have seen this claim repeated in some of his other regional/historic variants of chess. While he may be an amateur, he does appear to have studied the game, owning many antique chess boards, visiting many chess museums, compiling different resources for each variant and publishing booklets for them. I have to assume he didn't just make this claim up, that it had to have come from somewhere. It seems logical that before castling was invented, there was some type of move already floating around where the king could move more than one space, and the king moving like a knight would transpose into a castle like position after the rook is moved. So, my question is: is anybody familiar with this rule? Does anybody know where this rule comes from? Is this a misconception or is there truth to it?

Hello! I had a beginner question about chaturaji - did the bishop/war elephant move like a standard bishop in chess (similar to the chaturaji this site offers) or did it move like a war elephant in chaturanga (moving two spaces diagonally and can jump over pieces)?

Our best team players are from all over the world: Europe, Asia, America and even Australia!! This ranking shows who earned the most points for our club in daily team matches. Here the link where you can find the complete list with all the details: https://www.chess.com/club/leaderboard/chaturangers-and-friends Please notice how @CeasarJulius12 is by far our best 'contributor', way above all the others. Thanks and congrats!

" The great Variants games tournament has ended. We were happy for the large number of people who participated in this event, it was quite competitive. Below are all the final results: ━━━━━━✧♞✧━━━━━━ ChaturangaArena Title: Elephant Power 1st ChessMasterGS | 219 pts | Diamond2nd ElevatedSkyrise | 200 pts | Platinum3rd buymen1237 & wizardrunner | 111 pts | Gold4th martinaxo | 41 pts | Gold ChaturajiArena Title: Raji Arenas 1st Slayer950 | 52 pts | Diamond2nd SirRandomChess | 40 pts | Platinum3rd w-a-a-s-i | 29 pts | Gold4th martinaxo | 21 pts | Gold ━━━━━━✧♜✧━━━━━━ " Copied and pasted from site notification, including only Chaturanga and Chaturaji, no other variants.

I've vertically mirrored the game so that the ferz starts on e1, but this does not functionally change anything.White is As-Suli, an ancient master, said to have been one of the greatest of all time at the game. Black is Al-Lajlaj, another great master of his time. 1. c3 c6 2. c4 c5 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. b3 b6 5. Rb1 Rb8 6. a3 a6 7. d3 d6 8. b4 cxb4 9. axb4 b5 10. cxb5 axb5 There is not much to say about these first moves, all three superhuman engines (Stormphranj, Fairy-Stockfish, my engine Prolix) think the position is completely equal here, even if they would have chosen different tabiya. 11. e3 e6 12. d4 d5 13. Bd3 Bd6 14.Nxb5 Kd7?! A slight mistake, all three engines recommend Bxb4 instead.On white's next move, the three engines all recommend Qd2 (Nxb4 Nf3 f6 Ne1) instead of f3, with a slight advantage for white. 15. f3?! Nxb4 The position is back to being dead equal. 16. Kd2 f6 17. e4 e5 18. g3 g6 19. Ne2 Ne7 20. Qf2 Qf7 21. Qe3 Qe6 22. Nec3 Nec6 23. Ba3 Ba6 24. Bc5 Bc4 Black can play f5 here first, a unanimous suggestion. 25. Rhf1 h6?! f4 for White immediately, was also an option. For reasons unknown to me, h6 is an inaccuracy, but Ra8 (which also appears to ignore f4) maintains equality. 26. f4 Rhf8? Black rather should have opened the position with exd4 and dxe4. The played move completely ignores White's next move. 27. f5! gxf5 dxe4 (majority, but not unanimous, suggestion) was still possible here, though the played move also should be fine. 28. Bxf5+ Kd8 Black has a tough defensive task ahead, but the position should still be holdable. 29. exd5 Nxd5? After Qxd5, black should have at least some compensation for the lost alfil. 30. Nxd6 Rxb1? Amusingly enough, Nxc3 without Rxb1 is recommended by the engines. 31. Rxb1 Nxc3? Ndb4 or exd4 were alternatives. 32. Kxc3 But now Black is simply down an alfil, and will lose more material in a few moves.

I started playing shatranj a few days ago, but haven't really found comprehensive literature on the alfils. Should I use them for pawn breaks? Save them for the late game? Defend key squares? It seems like any tactic is quite easily refuted due to the limited mobility.

It has occurred to me that there is not really an accurate comparison between current shatranj engines (of which there are very few) and humans. To get some more accurate estimates, I'm hoping to have some weaker versions of my engine play correspondence on SchemingMind. If you want to try playing, please let me know and we can set up a game. (My SchemingMind username is sscg13).

Chaturanga Chess - RemovedUsername-24020301 vs coolthing - Play Chess Variants Online - Chess.com Also to answer coolthing cuz i left too soon, i got it from a few games i found of yours, samuels and jonathan hiltons youtube

I took this topic from another club and copied it here where it has a larger audience. What is the best colour pattern for a Shatranj/Chaturanga chessboard ? We know Shatranj was played on an uncheckered solid-colour board: just a simple grid 8x8. Anyway a checkered board, as we are used from modern Chess, is useful to recognize the Ferzs domains. However it could probably be even more useful to have a colour pattern that highlights the moves of the Elephants -- which almost every player sometimes fall to see! So here some examples: The original Indian board called "ashtapada" (= 8 feet) had marks on 16 squares. Historians seem to agree that those marks had nothing to do with Chaturanga but, to me, they seem to be a subtle way to highlight the Elephant moves, ideally dividing the board in larger squares formed by 4 squares each. Just my impression.

Taken from "A History of Chess" by H.J.R. Murray. The board is mirrored: Kings are on the e-file! Half Mujannah vs Half Mujannah (19) Once again, the analysis given here starts with a weak move for White. So I suppose that better options will follow.

Several variations from "A History of Chess". All lines in this section are Double Mujannah variations with a slightly unorthodox move order after move #10. The board is mirrored: Kings are on the e-file! Mujannah vs Mujannah (13) Variations 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 to follow.

Several variations from "A History of Chess". All lines in this section are Double Mujannah variations continued with 13. h3 h6 (i.e. 13. a3 a6 with Chess.com convention): both players pushing the king-rook-pawn. The board is mirrored: Kings are on the e-file! Mujannah vs Mujannah (7) 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 to follow, but for now it's just number 7...

Several variations from "A History of Chess". All lines in this section are Double Mujannah variations continued with 13. h3 (i.e. 13. a3 with Chess.com convention): White pushing the king-rook-pawn. The board is mirrored: Kings are on the e-file! Mujannah vs Mujannah (1) Black's counter-attack on the Farzin-side Of course this is al-Lajlaj analysis which I have taken from Murray's famous book. The first 12 moves are not shown here because they are trivial. In the main line White makes a mistake at move #13 (actually #25): it is so in Murray's book, but here I demoted it to a secondary line. Move #14 (#26) of the secondary line is a wrong input from me, it was supposed to be 14. Axb5! (not 14. Nxb5?): I couldn't do it right due to modern Chess rules. If Red/White really plays 26. Nxb5? then al-Lajlaj suggestes 26... Nxd3+ 27. K~ Rxb5 with better game for Black. (I excluded this option from the diagram to avoid further confusion)

I noticed that the notations of Alfil and Ferz in the current Shatranj of Chesscom were different from the previous ones. Alfil is still represented as an elephant, which is not confusing, but the new notation of Ferz seems a little eccentric, just like … a spiked ball mace? We know that Ferz refers to a minister or counselor in Shatranj (which is also reflected in Xiangqi, Janggi, and Makruk), while the new notation seems to be less like a minister or counselor than the previous one. Given that the maintainer of Shatranj deliberately designed notations for Rook and Alfil to match their historical meanings rather than using the existing materials in Chess, I guess the maintainer had special considerations when changing the notation of Ferz, but I don't know what that is.

https://www.chess.com/variants/chaturanga/game/61333956/121/1 Beginner-intermediate chaturanga game. Played what I like to call the hermit crab, because the shah-side is like a big claw, the ferz-side is like a little claw, and the king+ferz are like the eyes, but as far I know its just a coolthing-esque sayyal type opening

Name of the pieces in Shatranj / Chaturanga / Ancient-Chess King or Shah, rarely also Nafs in ancient Arab manuscripts. Raja in India.K Ferz / Firzan / Farzin / Fers / Fersa / Alfersa, intended to reppresent a Vizier. In India Mantri or Senapati: minister, officer, counselor, advisor... the possible meanings are many! Including also queen/woman in Europe.F Elephant or Alfil, or Fil/Pil. In sanskrit Gaja or also (vedic sanskrit) Hastin.E/A/I Horse or Knight. Ancient words: Faras (arab.), Asb (pers.), Ashva (sans.).H/N Rook / Rukh, a Persian term meaning Chariot. Proto-Indo-Iranian: Ratha.R Pawn or (foot) soldier. Ancient words: baidaq, piyada, padati, bhata. /P

XiangQi, the Elephant Chess, is a beautiful game, very different from the chess we know. Yet the kinship with Shatranj/Chaturanga is truly evident, but Chinese Chess is very tactical and dynamic, even more than standard Chess. The name and the movement of the pieces are more or less the same as in Shatranj, except for some restrictions: for example Horses and Elephants cannot jump, while the King and the 2 Farzins cannot leave the 'palace'. In addition there are 2 Cannons for each players, those having a particular movement, unique of XiangQi. The board is very large, 90 intersections (compare it to our 64 squares), so there is a lot of free space for movement and each player has only 5 pawns, i.e. the game starts with four files already open. In practice it's very easy to activate the pieces, so the openings are quick and you immediately enter into conflict. The fight is alive, locked positions are almost impossible, and it is fought till the end. In fact when the field remains clear the two Kings interact attacking each other from a distance, this special rule allows a pawn alone to deliver checkmate. It's truly ancient, the current rules probably have around 1000 years, and still very popular in modern age. A 'national variant' that has likely as many players as the standard Chess, plus a deep knowledge of the game through a huge literature. Some sources claim that XiangQi is the most played board game over the world, not sure it is true, but it is quite possible.

If you want to play , say 'join' in comment s.