any shatranj players?

are there any shatranj players on this website? and if so, how's it like to play it? i have heard that it was way more slow than modern chess.

I have played it....

I found it tedious.  the lack of a strong queen and bishop- gives the game a certain dullness.

but... the biggest problem is perhaps, a simple one.

there is no community of interested statranj players. if you want to play a game, your best bet is to download a chess engine, set up to play chess variants.  so, it becomes depressing obvious your not going to win.. you're playing a strong chess computer, after all.

.... so, it was a whim to begin with, and soon is nothing more than simply a lost game,

it would probably be half fun with a human opponent, espacially one that was willing to chat and analyze.  pm me if your interested.

I've played it also.  I didn't find it tedious.... in fact trying to figure out a strategy proved to be quite daunting to me, which in turn made it interesting.

https://www.chess.com/blog/kinglybingly/shatranj-tabbiyat

I have an ebook version of H.J murray's history of chess, have also found shatranj here:

http://www.chess-poster.com

First time in years I've seen somebody even mentioning Shatranj. 😗

Personally I don't know anybody who plays it, let alone professes in it.

The term is also used to refer to an earlier version of chess that originated in Persia.

I saw this in the general forum and wondered if a mod was going to kick it out.

Here is a link to what is probably the source, it has links to shatranj from persia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaturanga

Here is a link to Thai Makruk, the ancient chess still played by millions of Thai people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makruk

Here is the link to a website that has quite a lot of people, mostly Thai, that play it.

That is probably the closest that you are going to get to playing an ancient form of chess.

I did play it for a while but then stopped, big imbalance between ancient bishops and knights.

Moving the pawns closer solved the speed problem but created another problem, lots of pawns get traded during games.

I do not like the counting rules in this game, too complicated.

https://www.playok.com/

Dr.Rene Gralla would be proud of you fellows

I myself saw no point in me learning Shatranj. It has resemblances to Xiangqi and mastering that is difficult enough. But that's me 

right, PLAYING shatranj is quite a bore, i like to study the history and theory much  more

I was confused with Janggi while posting this - never mind

I had never played Shatranj before (thinking it looked slow and boring) but I decided to give it a go and right now I'm playing a couple of correspondence games in a small knockout tournament on the Scheming Mind site. And I'm actually finding it quite interesting! My opponent is not very strong and I'm winning both games easily, perhaps that helps! I suspect that if and when I meet an opponent of equal strength it could get rather bogged down and tedious. I may not carry on playing it once this tournament is over, but I just wanted to get a feel of what the old chess is like.

I like these ancient forms of chess because they are a good point of reference.

It is very easy to just gloss over them but I do not, I take the time to think about them.

How they are all inter related, how they all evolved slowly in different regions of the world.

I always strip away the complexity and focus on the simple things, the important things.

I never race forward missing what is important, I still look at these ancient games on wikipedia even now after all these years.

say, does anyone have examples of shatranj games, either modern or ancient?

I did a quick google using oldest recorded chess game.

I had seen this one years ago, it is from the 10th century.

http://www.chess2u.com/t8826-oldest-recorded-chess-game

The bishops were always the most problematic piece, it took 1,000+ years to fix them.

Note that the game was not played on a checkered board, it was only one colour and the only long range units were the rooks.

good work! I also have a copy of H.J.R Murray's a history of chess, just did an overview of the shatranj openings, found a game on pg. 264-268(look under footnote 18). I will post it shortly after

The Chess Board

Nice article. You have a footnote about Courier Chess.

It was the first game that had a checkered board and the modern bishops.

I think that Courier Chess was a mutation of Viking Chess + Persian Chess (Shatranj in Europe)

Courier Chess also gifted the pawn double steps, but only for certain mandatory moves at the start of the game.

Then later Courier Chess reverted back to an 8x8 board that was now checkered and had the modern bishops.

Then later Rook + Bishop = Modern Queen.

So the West gifted to chess the checkered board, the modern bishops, the modern queen, the double steps, castling in its final form and a bunch of other stuff