Makruk

Thailand. It's chess without the long-range queen and bishop.

Who moves first?

You don't need an account or an email, and there's nothing to install. You'll get a link to send to the person you want to play.

How to play

The board

The board is eight squares by eight, the same as in chess, and each side has sixteen pieces.
The pawns are called bia. They 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 in any direction, so it can also step diagonally back.
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.
If you have no legal move and you're not in check, that's stalemate, and the game is a draw.
Every piece except the rua moves only a short way, so endgames are slower and need more precision than in chess.

Counting

Makruk has no fifty-move rule. It uses counting instead, and a count only starts when a player declares it.
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.
A count puts a time limit on your opponent, so if you start one while you're winning, you throw your own win away. That's why there's no rule about who may count.

Which rules do we use?

We play Thai makruk, on an eight by eight board.

Several games in this family are called chess in their own language, and they're similar enough to be mixed up.

This isn't Cambodian ouk chaktrang, which is the same game with one extra rule.

The opening leap: In ouk chaktrang the king and the counsellor each get a one-time leap near the start. Makruk doesn't have that move, and you notice the difference in the first few moves of every game.

Three of the trickiest rules in chess don't exist here. There's no castling. A pawn has no double first step, so there's no en passant either. And a pawn can only promote to one piece.

Our piece moves, opening position and counting limits follow pychess.org.