Check out Janggi (Korean Chess), our featured variant for December, 2024.

This page is written by the game's inventor, Köksal Karakus.

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

Turkish Chess 
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 General moves and captures like the amazon, i.e. like a queen or a knight.

Chancellor Chancellor moves and captures like the usual chancellor, i.e. like a rook or a knight.

Minister Minister moves and captures like the arcbishop, ie like a bishop or a knight.

Shogi 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 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.