Discover World Chess

An encyclopedia of the games and their pieces. Chess began in India around the 6th century and travelled with traders, armies and scholars to Persia, the Arab world, Europe, Southeast Asia, China, Korea and Japan, changing as it went.

The games

Grouped by where they were played. Pick a game to open its rules: every game is written as its differences from standard chess.

The baseline: standard chess

8×8 checkered board. King, Queen, two Rooks, two Bishops, two Knights, eight Pawns a side. White moves first. Castling; pawn double step on its first move; en passant; promotion to Queen, Rook, Bishop or Knight. Checkmate wins; stalemate, threefold repetition and the 50-move rule draw. Anything a game’s card doesn’t mention works this way.

The pieces

Each sculpt is a cultural figure, not a move: the same figure moves differently from game to game

Shared pieces

These pieces never appear in the same game, so one design does both jobs. Each game still uses its own name for the piece.

  • King also plays the Maharajah in Sarvatobhadra. The green side has no other king.
  • Siege tower is the European Rook, the Dabbaba (war engine) of Timur’s Great Chess, Complete Shatranj, Citadel Chess and Hyderabad, and the Cannon of Xiangqi, Janggi and Manchu chess.
  • Prince also plays the rook-and-knight Champion of Carrera’s Chess (and its Guard and Chancellor versions).
  • Courier / Scout is the Kurier of Courier Chess and Timur’s Tali’a (picket).
  • One Queen per colour. A second Queen is a pawn wearing a gold ring.
  • Great cat is the Mongolian Bers (snow leopard) and the Lion of Grant Acedrex.
  • Bishop also plays the Crocodile of Grant Acedrex, which moves exactly like a bishop.
  • Counselor also plays Hiashatar’s Bodyguard (Hia).
  • Rhinoceros plays Grant Acedrex’s two-horned Unicornio and the bishop-plus-knight pieces of Hyderabad and Carrera’s Chess.

Accessories

  • Gold promotion rings, 8 per colour. A ringed pawn is a promoted piece (Makruk, Shatranj, Shogi and others). A second Queen or Bers is also a ringed pawn, so the set carries only one of each. Shown here as a gold ring.
  • Timur’s Great Chess pawn tags, 11 per colour, naming the piece each pawn becomes. Shown here as a small gold badge on the pawn.
  • Dice: two long four-sided dice marked 2 to 5 for Chaturaji (ordinary cubic dice work too: re-throw a 1 or 6), and one eight-sided die for Grant Acedrex’s optional dice play (8 King, 7 Aanca, 6 Unicornio, 5 Rook, 4 Lion, 3 Crocodile, 2 Giraffe, 1 Pawn).