Makruk

Thai Chess

This is the variant of chess which is most played in Thailand, where it has a large number of players (Pritchard mentions an estimate of two million Thais who at least know the rules of the game, and there are other mentions of millions of players of this game, all from Thailand.)

Rules

The game is played on an uncheckered board of 8 by 8 squares. The pieces have large similarities to those of the (for us) orthodox chess game, and to make it from the description easy to play with chess game with a normal set of pieces, I will describe pieces with names of their `usual' chess equivalent.

Opening setup

The opening setup is very similar to that of orthodox chess, with the following differences: the positions of white king and queen are reversed, and all pawns are on the third and sixth row. So, the setup is as follows:

Moves

The king, rook, and knight move as in orthodox chess, except that castling does not exist in this game.

The queen moves one square diagonally.

The bishop moves one square straight forward or one square diagonally.

The pawn moves as a normal pawn, but may not make a double step on its first move. When it reaches the sixth row, it promotes to a (Makruk) queen.

Other rules

Object of the game is to mate the opponents king. Stalemate is a draw. If neither player has any pawns, a player that is in danger of losing can start counting, and if the count reaches a certain value before he is checkmated, the game is a draw. But he can stop counting any time before that if he thinks the chances are turning. In which case he can can start a new count from scratch later. Capture of a piece does not require the count to be restarted.

The ultimate count at which the checkmate should be achieved depends on the material left on the board when the counting starts. There are two cases here. When the player has a bare King, both the ultimate count and the starting count depend on the material his opponent has, as specified in the table on the right. This should be read as follows: The ultimate count is found in the upper-most row that lists a combination of pieces that is (possibly amongst others) present on the board. The count always starts at the total number of pieces (including both Kings) on the board, plus one, so each additional piece effectively reduces the number of turns to achieve checkmate by one.

If neither king is bare, the strong player gets 64 moves to checkmate, and counting starts at 1. If a player is bared before that, he can (but does not have to) start a new count according to the table. Note that it can happen that the ultimate count is already lower than the start count, e.g. with 2 rooks, a knight, a bishop and two promoted pawns against a bare king. In that case there is an automatic draw.

Additional information

The original names for the pieces are:

• King: Khun - leader. The Khun was the lowest rank of conferred nobility in the Siamese court system (as opposed to inherited nobility).
• Queen: Met - Pit or fruitstone. This is the kerner of a fruit, like a cherry.
• Bishop: Khon or Thon - Mask. The same word means a kind of classical Thai royal drama, using such masks.
• Knight: Ma - horse
• Rook: Rua - boat
• Pawn: Bia - cowry shell. Indeed cowry shells were formerly used for pawns in Thai sets, as well as a unit of very small money. You can take this as: pawns equal small change.

In some cases, for pawns cowry shells are used, who are turned over upon promotion. Similarities of this game, both with Chaturanga or Shatranj, and Shogi are remarkable. Last century, special first moves for king and queen were allowed (the king could make a knight move his first move, and the queen could move two squares diagonally on her first move.) This practice seems to be no longer in use currently. For additional information, reader can e.g., consult The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants which has two pages on this game, including sample games and Thai notation.

A photo of a Matruk tournament

Photo: courtesy of SET Bangkok

A few links

• Thai Chess Club. Webpage of a chess club of a school in Thailand, with photo's and rules. (Link.)
• Tim Krabbe's WWW page on his experiences with Makruk. Tim Krabbe is a Dutch chess player and journalist. (Link.)
• Photo's of Makruk set.