Courier Chess VIII
The design process for this game began years ago with giving the Elephants of Shatranj a more powerful move. Next I examined Courier Chess, which introduced three new pieces: the Courier (Bishop), the Man (Commoner) and the Schleich (Wazir) on a 12x8 board. That game was followed by Courier-Spiel and eventually led to our modern version of chess. I kept coming back to one thought: changing the Courier to a Dragon Horse (from Shogi) makes all three of these pieces redundant. So my Courier Chess VIII is played on an standard 8x8 board, checkered for ease of play.
Regarding the changes made here in May 2023: Fergus [2023-03-11] raised the point that it would be more sensible to call the (Bishop + Wazir) piece a "Courier" in this game. While the name "General" had served me well from 2005 to 2007, it was time to retire that piece name.
Setup
White: King d1; Ferz e2; Elephant e1, d2; Knight b1, g1; Rook a1, h1; Pawn a2, b2, c2, d3, e3, f2, g2, h2.
Black: King d8; Ferz e7; Elephant e8, d7; Knight b8, g8; Rook a8, h8; Pawn a7, b7, c7, d6, e6, f7, g7, h7.
Pieces
The King, Rook, Knight, Ferz and Pawn are standard Shatranj pieces, with a few changes in the Rules section.
Courier - This piece (Betza notation BW) moves and captures along the diagonals like a Bishop. It also moves and captures on any adjacent square. See the movement diagram below. Jose Carrillo uses a very different set of pieces in his 2009 game Ajax Chess, including Bishops that can make noncapturing moves to orthogonally adjacent squares.
Elephant - This piece (Betza notation AmD) leaps like an Alfil or a Dababbah to an empty square. But it can only capture like an Alfil. See the movement diagram below. While the Dabbabah sometimes replaced the Alfil in India - see the Chaturanga page - use of the Alibaba piece came much later in history. See the Modern Courier Chess page for Paul V. Byway's twentieth century version of Courier Chess, with all of the modern pieces on the 12x8 board. Alibabas are placed between the Knights and Bishops, while the White center pieces are: Ferz-Queen-King-Ferz. Relevant articles from Variant Chess magazine are available at various places on the web.
COURIER and ELEPHANT
Rules
In this game a King, which has never moved and is currently not in check, has the option of leaping two squares orthogonally to an empty square, like the Elephant does. It cannot leap over an enemy piece. It cannot leap over a square that is attacked by any enemy piece. "Riding the Elephant" seems an appropriate name for this rule.
As in Shatranj, Pawns advance one square only. A Pawn always promotes to a Courier of the same color. Stalemate is a draw. Checkmate is the only winning condition.
These changes in pawn promotion and victory conditions are intended to produce endgames that are completely different from Shatranj
Notes
Pawn = 3, Elephant (AmD) = 5, Ferz = 5, Knight = 10, Rook = 15 and Courier (BW) = 16
provides a simple guide to endgame piece values. Suggested values for similar games:
Alibaba (AD) = 7, Modern Elephant (FA) = 9 and Commoner (FW) =12.
A King that has never moved in Courier Chess VIII may have as many as eight different moves: the usual five plus three leaps. Each Player starts the game with twenty-one possible moves. The sample game 1.d4 d5 2.Kd3 e5 3. Ec3 e4 mate illustrates the dangers of making a careless King's Leap.
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By David Paulowich.
Last revised by David Paulowich.
Web page created: 2023-02-26. Web page last updated: 2023-05-06