Shatranj

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Shatranj with WinBoard [1] Shatranj,

the Arabic and Persian precurser of Western Chess and one successor of the ancient Indian strategy game Chaturanga. Chaturanga developed in the Gupta Empire during the 6th century CE and was adopted as Shatranj in Sasanian Empire in the 7th century. In computer chess, due to extensions of the Chess Engine Communication Protocol, XBoard and WinBoard support Shatranj with Elephants and General instead of Bishop and Queen [2].

Rules

  • No castling
  • No double pawn push, promotion to Fers only
  • Stalemate counts as a win
  • Two bare Kings count as a draw
  • One Bare King counts as a win, provided the other King cannot be bared on the very next move
  • The initial setup (array) is similar to Orthodox Chess, with Elephants replacing Bishops and Generals replacing Queens, but Shāh on the d-file.

Engines

See also

Forum Posts

Al-Suli’s Diamond

References

  1. WinBoard 4.7 - Shatranj, the Arabic precurser of modern Chess by Harm Geert Muller
  2. Chess Engine Communication Protocol - 8. Commands from xboard to the engine - variant shatranj

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