Capablanca Chess
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Capablanca Chess is a variation on the game of chess that exists in several versions played on a board of either 10x10 or 10x8 squares. The game is named after its inventor, the former World chess champion José Raúl Capablanca.
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Each player has a king, a queen, a chancellor that moves like both a rook and a knight, an archbishop that moves both like a bishop and a knight, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and ten pawns.
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Ideas that predate Capablanca's chess
Capablanca was not the first person to suggest a similar variant of chess. In 1617, Pietro Carrera published a chess variant with the following rules:
- The board was 10 squares wide and 8 squares high.
- Between the rook and the knight on the left hand side was a piece, which could move like either a rook or a knight.
- Between the rook and the knight on the right hand side was a piece, which could move like either a bishop or a knight.
In 1874, Henry Bird proposed a Chess Variant similar to Carrera's variant. The only significant difference was the opening setup: The chancellor piece was placed between the queen's bishop and queen, and the archbishop piece was placed between the king's bishop and king.
Setup of the pieces
Capablanca proposed two opening setups for Capablanca's chess; in one opening setup, he proposed that the archbishop piece be placed between the bishop and the queen, and that the chancellor piece be placed between the king and the king's bishop. This setup has the flaw that it leaves the pawn in front of the king bishop undefended, allowing white to threaten mate on the first move with chancellor to bishop three (moving as a knight), followed by chancellor takes pawn (moving as a rook), which is checkmate (attacking the king as a knight).
Capablanca subsequently revised the opening setup so that the archbishop was between the queen's knight and bishop, and the chancellor was between the king's knight and bishop. He also experimented with 10x10 board sizes, where the pawns could move up to three squares on the initial move.
In his book, "The Adventure of Chess", Edward Lasker writes (p.39): "I played many a test game with Capablanca, and they rarely lasted more than twenty or twenty-five moves. We tried boards of 10x10 squares and 10x8 squares, and we concluded that the latter was preferable because hand-to-hand fights start earlier on it."
Variants inspired by Capablanca Chess
Capablanca Chess has inspired a number of chess variants, the most popular of which are Grand Chess and Gothic Chess.
References
- The Adventure of Chess, Edward Lasker (1959), ISBN 048620510.
External links
- Capablanca Chess | Chess Variant Pages (http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/capablanca.html)
- ChessV (http://gregstrong.com/ChessV/) - a program (licensed under the GPL) which allows the play of Capablanca Chess, Bird Chess, Grand Chess and Carrera Chess (as well as several other chess variants) against the computer.