Chess Variants and Relatives

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One of the many things I'm obsessed with is the history of board games. Chess has a rich history - the "standard" chess we know is just one part of a 1,500-year-old family of games.

The oldest "chess" is Chaturanga, from India. A lot of the pieces are similar to modern equivalents, but it has shorter-range pieces instead of the Queen and Bishops. The game has evolved in all sorts of directions since. Shoji (from Japan) and Xiang qi (China) are both chess family games, but they're almost unrecognisable. And people are constantly inventing new variants Everything from the medieval Tamerlane Chess (played on a larger board with pieces like camels and seige engines) to 21st century invention Duck Chess (where you take it in turns to block your opponent with an unkillable rubber ducky).

...yeah I know, I should probably learn to play standard chess properly first.

Duck Chess is played with the standard board, setup and pieces, plus a rubber duck piece which is shared by the players. The duck starts off the board. On their turn, each player must do two things:
1. Move a normal piece.
2. Move the duck to any vacant square on the board. This square cannot be the square the duck was already on.

The duck cannot be captured. Other pieces can not land on it or pass through it. The only exception is the knight, which can leap over it in the normal manner.

Check and checkmate are not concepts used in Duck Chess, as a king can always move into check and then block the check with the duck. The game is won by actually capturing the opponent's king, not by checkmate. It is also possible to castle out of, through and even into check. Another oddity: stalemate is considered a win for the player who can't move.

Some odd strategies emerge from the duck. Obviously it can be used to block your opponent's attacks, or prevent recaptures, but in some situations you may want to block your own attack, forcing your opponent to remove the duk from their defenses on the next turn.

Shatranj is the version of chess played across the Persian and Arabic lands in the Middle Ages. It's a direct descendant of the Indian game Chaturanga, and a direct ancestor of modern Chess. The starting position is basically the same.

Pieces:

Rukh (Chariot) = exactly the same as a Rook
Asb (Horse) = exactly the same as a Knight
Alfil (Elephant) sits in the bishop's places, but has a different move. It leaps 2 squares diagonally, passing over any piece in between.
Ferz (Counsellor) sits in the Queen's spot, but is a much more limited piece. It moves one square diagonally.
Shah (King) = same as modern King, except he can't castle.
Piyadeh (Infantryman) = pawns. Basically the same, except that they can't use the double-step starting move of modern pawns. They promote to Ferz on the 8th rank.

In addition to checkmate, there are two other ways to win. Stalemating an opponent counts as a win. So does capturing all of their pieces and pawns except for the king - the "bare King" rule.

It's a much slower game than modern chess, as only the Rukhs can move long distances. (Modern bishops and queens were invented much later, but the Alfil and Ferz are still used in several modern Asian games under other names.) In the opening, players would build up a formation called a "tabiyat" in their own half of the board, almost ignoring their opponent. It was not unknown for players to agree to start by each making ten moves in one go.

When I was in college, there were a number of chess variants played:

Scotch chess. White makes 1 move, Black makes 2, White makes 3, etc. The series ends with a check and the first move must be to get out of check. After 1. e4 2. e6 Be7, Black threatens a number of checkmates. Best is 3. d4 Bg5 Bxe7 and both sides are in the game.

Two for one. White starts with four center pawns on the 3rd rank and king at e2. White may step into check as long as he is out of check at the end of his move. Black wins but only after really good defense.

Kriegspiel. Requires three sets and a referee. Players are told if a move is legal and, if a check, where it came from: the rank, file, long or short diagonal, or with a knight. They are told where captures happen and if a pawn can capture anything or if a move is legal.

Kamikaze. Players arrange their pieces on their side of the board behind a partition. The partition is taken away and the clock started.

Kamikaze-Kreigspeil. From the people who brought you WW II the above two are combined.

Giveaway. Nothing sacred about the king here. Captures are mandatory, but a player can choose which one. It resembles pool more than chess.

Cylinder. Pretend the board is a cylinder in that the a file is just to the right of the h file. A knight can move from g1 to a2 or a diagonal can run from f1-g2-h3-a4-b5-c6-d7-e8. Note on an open board a bishop on f1 controls the same squares as on b5, but can't be captured there.

Castling must be really overpowered in cylindrical chess

That should be "If the series ends with a check, the opponent's the first move must be to get out of check."

I like that idea - it takes the setup phase in some historic chess games and turns it up to 11. There's an old Ethopian version of Shatranj known as "Senterej" where the players don't take turns in the opening phase - they develop their pieces as fast as possible, whilst keeping half an eye on what their opponent is doing. Normal play begins after the first capture has been made. It's not the only Ethiopian strategy game where speed of hand is important in the opening - there's a mancala game where the first player to rush through a lengthy setup phase gets to start the real game.