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Makruk

Thailand — a chess that never took the long-range queen and bishop.

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, the same board as chess, with sixteen pieces a side.
The bia — the pawns — start on the third rank, so the two armies meet almost at once.
Each player's king stands on their own left.

The pieces

The khun is the king. It moves one square in any direction.
The met is the counsellor. It moves one square diagonally, and nothing else.
The khon moves one square straight forward, or one square diagonally forward.
The ma is the knight and the rua is the rook. Both move exactly as they do in chess.

Pawns

A bia steps one square forward and captures one square diagonally.
There is no double step from the starting row, and so no en passant.
A bia reaching the sixth rank promotes, and always to a met. There is no choice to make.

Winning

You win by checkmate, exactly as in chess.
No legal move and no check is stalemate, and a draw.
Because every piece except the rua is short, endgames here are slow and precise in a way chess endings are not.

Counting

Makruk has no fifty-move rule. Counting takes its place, and it is declared rather than automatic.
Either player may start a count while making a move. It costs no turn.
A count gives the stronger side a fixed number of moves to deliver mate. If they do not manage it, the game is drawn.
With pieces on both sides the count runs to sixty-four moves. A player down to a bare king counts to a smaller number, set by what their opponent still has.
Counting is a clock on your opponent, so declaring one while you are winning throws your own win away. That is why nobody has ever needed a rule about who may count.

Which rules are these?

Thai makruk, on an eight by eight board.

Several games in this family are called chess in their own language, and they are close enough to be taken for one another.

This is not Cambodian ouk chaktrang, which is the same game with one addition.

The opening leap: In ouk chaktrang the king and the counsellor each get a one-time leap near the start. Makruk has no such move, and the difference shows up in the first few moves of every game.

Three of chess's fussiest rules are simply absent. There is no castling, no double first step for a pawn and therefore no en passant, and a promotion with only one possible outcome.

The piece moves, the opening position and the counting limits here follow pychess.org.