Turkish Chess
This variant gets its name just because I am from Turkey. It is indeed the smaller form of the Giant Chess. I think it is playable. The naming of the pieces may not be perfect, but I made the diagrams and the namings according to my wish. :-) If anyone wants to play it with me, you can mail me at (email removed contact us for address) mail.com
Board and Setup
The game is played on a 8x10 board: 8 columns (a,b,c,...,h), 10 rows (0,1,2,..,9). Each player have a King, a General, a Queen, a Chancellor, 2 Bishops, 2 kNights, 2 Rooks, 2 Elephants, 2 Ministers, 2 Shogis, 8 Pawns.
The opening setup is as seen on the left.
White: King e0; Queen d0; Chancellor d1; General e1; Bishops c0,f0; Elephants c1,f1; Knights b0,g0; Ministers b1,g1; Rooks: a0,h0; Shogis: a1,h1; Pawns a2,b2,c2,d2,e2,f2,g2,h2.
Black: King e9; Queen d9; Chancellor d8; General e8; Bishops c9,f9; Elephants c8,f8; Knights b9,g9; Ministers b8,g8; Rooks: a9,h9; Shogis: a8,h8; Pawns a7,b7,c7,d7,e7,f7,g7,d7.
Moves and Rules
General moves and captures like the amazon, i.e. like a queen or a
knight.
Chancellor moves and captures like the usual chancellor, i.e. like a
rook or a knight.
Minister moves and captures like the arcbishop, ie like a bishop or a
knight.
Shogi moves and captures like the cannon in Xiang Qi, ie moves like a
rook and captures if there is exactly one piece of any color between itself and
its victim vertically or horizontally.
Elephant moves and captures like a diagonal cannon, ie moves like a
bishop and captures if there is exactly one piece of any color between itself
and its victim diagonally.
King, queen,bishops, knights and rooks move and capture exactly in the same way as in FIDE chess. Castling can be done with rooks just as in orthodox chess.
Pawns move just as in FIDE chess. En passant exists with the same rule. Pawns promote when they reach the last row (0 or 9) of the board, to any non-pawn and non-king piece.
Other Rules
White makes the first move. The aim is to checkmate the opponent's king as usual. Stalemate is just as in orthodox chess. Note that most of the chess variants that include a different winning way or multimoves can be applied to Turkish Chess.
(c) Köksal Karakus - 2000
Written by Köksal Karakus.
WWW page created: February 7, 2000.