Capablanca's Chess

Board | Pieces | Description | History | Strategy | Back to Index

Board

Pieces

King

A King can move to any adjacent square, but never to a square where it can be captured.


Queen

A Queen moves any number of squares in a straight line. It may not leap over other pieces.


Chancellor

The Chancellor combines the moves of the rook and knight in standard chess.


Archbishop

The Archbishop can move like a bishop or a knight from standard chess.


Rook

A Rook moves any number of squares orthogonally on a rank or a file. It may not leap over other pieces.


Knight

A Knight moves like an `L`, two squares vertically plus one horizontally, or two squares horizontally plus one vertically. It hops over any pieces on the way.


Bishop

A Bishop moves any number of squares on a diagonal. It may not leap over other pieces.


Pawn

A Pawn can move straight ahead one square, or two squares from its starting position. A Pawn captures by moving one square ahead and diagonally. On rare occasions Pawns can also execute a move called `En Passant`, or `in passing`. This allows a Pawn to take an enemy Pawn that has just moved two squares.

Upon reaching last rank, Pawns promote to either a Knight, Bishop, Rook, Archbishop, Chancellor or Queen.


Description

Moves and rules

Most rules are as in usual chess. We mention the differences only:

The chancellor has the combined moves of rook and knight, i.e., each move the chancellor may move either as a rook, or as a knight. (This is similar to the queen, who has the combined moves of rook and bishop.) The archbishop has the combined moves of bishop and knight.

When a player castles, the king always moves three squares towards the rook.

Pawns can promote to queen, archbishop, chancellor, rook, knight, or bishop, to the owning players choice.

History

The great chess master and world champion Jose Raul Capablanca (1888-1942) proposed this chess variant, after he had gained the world champion title from Lasker. A description of this game can be found in the books of Gollon and Pritchard.

Strategy

Most things that are valid in ordinary chess also goes for Capablanca's Chess.

More information on Capablanca's Chess can be found at http://www.chessvariants.com/large.dir/capablanca.html.