Ladorean Chess - Shaco Ladorean

by Bernhard U. Hermes

Introduction

The Principality of Ladorea is a fictional country and a background for fantasy role playing for some friends of mine and myself. Since I am interested in chess variants, I have always wanted some kind of national variant of chess for Ladorea. The variant described below is this Ladorean Chess, and I give the piece names in the Ladorean language in addition to the English ones.

Please see the section Notes for credits.

Setup


8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	j	k

   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
8  |:r:| b |:q:| n |:k:| c |:n:| m |:b:| r |
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
7  | p |:p:| p |:p:| p |:p:| p |:p:| p |:p:|
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
6  |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
5  |   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
4  |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
3  |   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
2  |:P:| P |:P:| P |:P:| P |:P:| P |:P:| P |
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
1  | R |:B:| Q |:N:| K |:C:| N |:M:| B |:R:|
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
     a   b   c   d   e   f   g   h   j   k

C/c = Cardinal, M/m = Marshall

Pieces

King
Rego

Queen
Dama

Marshall
Mareshalo

Cardinal
Cardinalo

Rook
Roc

Bishop
Episcopo

Knight
Cavalle

Pawn
Pedone

Ladorean Chess uses all the pieces of Orthodox Chess plus two more, called Cardinal and Marshall. The number of pawns is increased by two on each side.

All pieces from Orthodox Chess move as usual, the Cardinal is a compound of Bishop and Knight, and the Marshall is a compound of Rook and Knight.

Rules

Aside from differences in board (with letters from "a" - "k", omitting the "i"), pieces, and setup (with white square in the lower-left corner), Ladorean Chess is played like Orthodox Chess with the following differences:

When a King castles, it moves two or more spaces queenside or marshallside toward the Rook, and the Rook leaps over the King to the closest space the King has just passed over, so that King and Rook end up adjacent to each other.
The usual castling conditions from Orthodox Chess apply: A King may not castle from or through check, all spaces between the Rook and King must be empty, and neither piece may have moved before.
When a Pawn promotes, it may promote to a Knight, Bishop, Rook, Cardinal, Marshall or Queen.

Notes

Ladorean Chess is one of many members of the family of games that includes Carrera's Chess, Bird's Chess, Capablanca's Chess and Grotesque Chess.

They all could, at least as far as their setup goes, be called variants of Capablanca Random Chess. I consider the setup of Ladorean Chess within the general rules of Capablanca Random Chess as something special, and I can say so in all humility, because I was not the one to discover it - to my knowledge, it was first described by Fergus Duniho in a comment to his Grotesque Chess, where he mentioned that he thought about using it instead of the setup that now has become the one for Grotesque Chess.

He since has decided against using this setup for Grotesque Chess, and he kindly agreed on its use for Ladorean Chess. Also the castling rule of Ladorean Chess is the same one he described for Grotesque Chess.

What I like about the initial position of the pieces is:

No Pawns are unprotected.
The Knights are close to the center.
The compound pieces are positioned with the weakest in the middle, and those that can move like Rooks separated.
King and Queen are both initially on squares of their own colour.
It is (to me) aesthetically pleasing to imagine the Queen and the Marshall taking command over half of the battle field, with the King together with a Cardinal as his advisor in the middle.

This page uses the very nice Alfaerie Variant Chess Graphics by David Howe.

I dedicate Ladorean Chess to my daughter, Debora U. Hermes, whose questions and comments have very much helped shaping Ladorea as a country.

Equipment

To play Ladorean Chess, you need a 10 x 8 board. You can easily make one using the instructions in the article Ribbon Boards by Fergus Duniho.

If you wish to use numbers and letters, it is recommended that you leave out the letter "i", thus making the last three letters "h, j, k". This should make notations of games more easily readable.

You can get the extra pieces for this game from a Musketeer Chess variant kit. There are two different kits with different color options, and you need only one for this game.

Musketeer Chess Variant Kit - Chancellor & Archbishop - Black & Natural — Buy on ebay:

Musketeer Chess Variant Kit - Chancellor & Archbishop - Black & White — Buy on ebay:

There are many more great ideas in the craft section.

Computer Play

Presently, there is no .zrf for Ladorean Chess. However, considering the fact that rule files exist for very similar variants, it should not be too difficult to adapt one of these, if there is anyone interested in doing so.
Since I do not have a copy of the Zillions-program and do not know how to program for it, I can not help with that.

If a rule file for Zillions, or any other form of computer based play for Ladorean chess comes into existence, I would very much welcome the editors of chessvariants.com to inform about it on this page.

Comments

Ladorean Chess - Shaco Ladorean. Variation on Capablanca's Chess. (10x8, Cells: 80)

John Smith wrote on Sun, Nov 23, 2008 07:02 PM EST:

Does anyone here think one of the pieces sounds edible?

Gerd Meyer wrote on Thu, Sep 20, 2007 06:01 PM EDT:Excellent ★★★★★

Tried it out (with a paper board and paper pieces) and like it a lot!

Making this 'discarded version' a published game, you did a good job.

Since I would never have found this setup hidden somewhere in the comments of another page, for me you are the inventor - first to publish it as opposed to only talk about it as a possibility, doesn't that make you the inventor legally? I think it is like that in other areas of intellectual property.

📝Bernhard Hermes wrote on Thu, Jan 12, 2006 05:57 PM EST:

No problems with this changed inventor credit from my side, even though I
think the comment by George Duke (2004-09-24) on the Grotesque Chess
discussion page, if his facts are correct, seems to indicate that
capablanca variants can't be truely invented anymore, maybe not even with
this particular castling rule. 

But when I was out to 'find', not necessarily 'invent', a suitable
variant, I did find it, as I already said in my game description, at the
place we now both wrote about. It was discarded version, and I picked it
up  - can't be said often enough.

Bernhard U. Hermes

🕸💡Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, Jan 9, 2006 12:06 PM EST:

I missed Michael Howe's comment in November. I have now added both
Ladorean Chess and Embassy Chess to my Large Chess ZRF, and I have
uploaded the updated version to the Chess Variant Pages.

I have also fixed the inventor credit on this page, since I am the game's
inventor. It was originally under consideration as the form Grotesque Chess
would take. I discarded it after I settled on another setup for Grotesque
Chess, but Bernard read about it on the Grotesque Chess comment section,
and he liked it enough to pick it up, use it, and name it.

Reinhard Scharnagl wrote on Sun, Dec 4, 2005 02:47 PM EST:

To Greg Strong: You already have announced a new version of ChessV. Is there any time frame for this? My SMIRF needs strong opponents to verify its ideas.

Best regards, Reinhard.

Number of ratings: 5, Average rating: Good, Number of comments: 9