Smalltalk Ninja Board Games All the boards

Chess

India, by way of Persia — the game the rest of this board room was built around.

Who moves first?

No account, no email, nothing to install. You get a link to send to whoever you want to play.

How to play

The board

Eight squares by eight, sixteen pieces each. White moves first.
Each side has a king, a queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights and eight pawns.

How the pieces move

The rook moves any distance in a straight line. The bishop moves any distance diagonally. The queen does both.
The knight jumps in an L shape, and is the only piece that passes over others.
The king moves one square in any direction.
Nothing except the knight may move through a piece of either colour.

Pawns

A pawn steps one square forward, or two squares from its starting row.
It captures one square diagonally forward, never straight ahead.
A pawn that has just stepped two squares can be taken as though it had stepped one. This is en passant, and it is only legal on the very next turn.
A pawn reaching the far rank becomes a queen, rook, bishop or knight — your choice.

Castling

Once in a game each side may move the king two squares towards a rook, and the rook jumps to the far side of it.
Neither piece may have moved before, and the squares between them must be empty.
The king may not castle out of check, through an attacked square, or into one.

Winning

You win by checkmate: the enemy king is under attack and there is no move that saves it.
You may never make a move that leaves your own king in check.

Draws

No legal move and no check is stalemate, which is a draw rather than a loss.
Fifty moves by each side with no capture and no pawn move is a draw.
Either player may offer a draw at any time.

Which rules are these?

Ordinary chess. The pieces, castling, en passant, promotion and the fifty-move rule all work as they do over a board.

Chess has one rule set, so the only thing worth saying here is what this board leaves out.

One rule is missing, and it is missing deliberately.

Threefold repetition: Reaching the same position three times does not end the game here. Deciding it needs the whole history of a game rather than the board in front of you, and this site keeps the board.

Little turns on it. The fifty-move rule still ends a shuffling endgame, and either player can offer a draw at any point.

Nothing else here departs from the rules played everywhere.

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