Maharaja?

Anybody know where I can play the game we used to call Maharaja? Proper chess army vs lone queen that can move like a knight as well (The Maharaja). While the aim is to capture the Maharaja (which is not easy) the latter seeks to capture all enemy pieces and mate the king!

Hearing the name for first time.

Never heard of it either, but after carefully thinking about it for 30 seconds, my money is on the Maharaja.

Black wins. (Also the Maharajah starts on e1.)

However, regarding where to play, I'm not quite sure. Definitely not somewhere here, although you can always play by forum, posting your diagrams after each move.

Speaking of which, is there a unified place to play chess variants, either live or by correspondence (but still supported with an applet or something, not simply posting chess diagrams)?

Try to see if this page helps. When I want to play the game, it is asking for some java plugins etc, but you can probably download ad set it up:

http://www.chessvariants.org/unequal.dir/maharaja.html

It baffles me how black is supposed to win this. If the raja is on an empty board on d4, it can move to any square in the block bounded by b2-b6-g6-g2. Maybe a theoretical win for black, but in practice I think far easier to play the raja and just jump around picking off pieces. I think it would be easier to catch a jackrabbit on an oil slick.

Black only needs to make sure all pieces are always protected and there's no checkmate. (Maharajah cannot capture a protected piece, as it will be captured next move and that means putting itself in check.) After that, just get the pawns to promote. Black now has plenty of queens to attack the Maharajah.

Of course, this is simpler said than done, but that's the basic strategy.

Well, pawn promotion not allowed in Maharajah chess

Acc ording to the rules does the raja have to capture all the black pieces, or is it enough to deliver checkmate?

Oh shoot I forgot the rules. Also as far as I know checkmating Black is enough.

Okay, so a possible strategy is to restrict the Maharajah's movement with the pawns. Maharajah on the first rank cannot break through pawns on the third rank, so just advance the pawns carefully, keeping them protected at all times, making sure the Maharajah doesn't break through. This is way easier said than done, but when that is completed, checkmating becomes easy with, say, a protected rook on h1.

So it is called Maharaja! Googled it didn't find anything. Thought different people call it differently.

There's a forced mate in 24 no matter where white moves to

1... d52... Nc63... Qd64... e55... Nf66... a57... Ra68... Rb69... Bg410... e411... Qe512... Be713... O-O14... Rb215... Ra816... Ra617... Rab618... R6b319... h520... g521... Nh722... Qd4

Now if the Maharajah is on a1 then:

23... Rb1

24... R3b2# 0-1

Else:

23... Qd1# 0-1

Computers ruining human fun yet again...

I wonder though what program solved it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maharajah_and_the_Sepoys&oldid=591494077

I'm late to the party, but I figured out how to do it. You can't do it through "Custom Position / Odds", you need to go to "More Variants" and scroll all the way down to custom. From there, you can go into custom rules to turn off promotion and load in this preset position. 
R-0,1,0,1-1,1,1,1-1,1,1,1-0,0,0,0-0-{'royal''h4','','h11',''),'pawnBaseRank':5,'wb':true,'dim':'8x8'}-
x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x/
x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x/
x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x/
x,x,x,yR,yN,yB,yQ,yK,yB,yN,yR,x,x,x/
x,x,x,yP,yP,yP,yP,yP,yP,yP,yP,x,x,x/
x,x,x,8,x,x,x/
x,x,x,8,x,x,x/
x,x,x,8,x,x,x/
x,x,x,8,x,x,x/
x,x,x,8,x,x,x/
x,x,x,4,rA,3,x,x,x/
x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x/
x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x/
x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x