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Capablanca chess - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Capablanca chess
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Capablanca chess (or Capablanca's chess) is a chess

variant invented in the 1920s by former World Chess
Champion Jos Ral Capablanca. It incorporates two new
pieces and is played on a 108 board. Capablanca
proposed the variant while World Champion, and not as a
"sour grapes" rationalization after losing his title as some
critics have asserted.[1] He believed that chess would be
played out in a few decades and games between
grandmasters would always end in draws. The threat of
"draw death" for chess was his main motivation for creating
a more complex and richer version of the game.
The chancellor combines powers of a rook and
a knight.
The archbishop combines powers of a bishop

1
a

Capablanca chess. The archbishop starts between

the knight and bishop on the queen's side, the
chancellor on the king's side.

and a knight.
The new pieces have properties that enrich the game. For example, the archbishop by itself can checkmate a lone
king (king in a corner, archbishop placed diagonally with one square in between).

Contents
1 Piece setup
1.1 Variants predating Capablanca chess
1.2 Variants postdating Capablanca chess
1.3 Variants using a different board
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

Piece setup
Capablanca proposed two opening setups for Capablanca chess. In one opening setup, he proposed that the
archbishop be placed between the bishop and the queen and that the chancellor 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's bishop undefended, allowing
white to threaten mate on the first move.
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He 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 1010 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 test games with Capablanca, and they rarely lasted more than twenty or twenty-five
moves. We tried boards of 1010 squares and 108 squares, and we concluded that the latter was
preferable because hand-to-hand fights start earlier on it.
Lasker was one of the few supporters. Hungarian grandmaster Gza Marczy also played some games with
Capablanca (who got the better of him). British champion William Winter, thought that there were too many strong
pieces, making the minor pieces less relevant.
The names for new pieces, Archbishop and Chancellor, were introduced by Capablanca himself. These names are
still used in most modern variants of Capablanca chess.

Variants predating Capablanca chess

Capablanca was not the first person to add the Chancellor and the Archbishop to the normal chess set, though he is
the most famous. Other attempts mostly differ only by the arrangement of pieces and the castling rules.
In 1617, Pietro Carrera published a book Il Gioco degli Scacchi, which contained a description of a chess variant
played on 810 board. He placed new pieces between a rook and a knight. Chancellor was on the king's side and
archbishop on the queen's side. Carrera used names champion instead of chancellor and centaur instead of
archbishop. The game was largely forgotten after the death of the inventor.
In 1874, Henry Bird proposed a chess variant similar to Carrera's variant. The only significant difference was the
opening setup. The chancellor was placed between the queen's bishop and queen and the archbishop was placed
between the king's bishop and king. Bird used names guard instead of chancellor and equerry instead of
archbishop.

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Carrera chess. Earliest chess variant on 810

board with archbishop and chancellor.

Bird's chess. Another predecessor of Capablanca

chess.

Variants postdating Capablanca chess

Capablanca chess has inspired a number of chess variants:
Grand chess (1984) by Christian Freeling
Omega Chess (1988) by Daniel MacDonald
Gothic Chess (2002) by Ed Trice
Aberg's variation (2003) by Hans Aberg
Grotesque Chess (2004) by Fergus Duniho
Paulovich's variation (2004) by David Paulovich
Ladorean Chess (2005) by Bernhard U. Hermes
Embassy Chess (2005) by Kevin Hill
Univers Chess (2006) by Fergus Duniho
Schoolbook chess (2006) by Sam Trenholme
Modern Capablanca Random chess (2008) by Jos
Carrillo

Omega Chess starting position

It is noteworthy that Embassy Chess uses a starting position identical to Grand chess adapted to a 108 board.
Another interesting recent development is Capablanca Random Chess, invented in 2004 by Reinhard Scharnagl.
This game combines ideas of Fischer Random Chess and Capablanca chess. It also applies the principle which
demands that all pawns in the starting positions are protected by at least one piece.

Variants using a different board

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There are also variants of Capablanca chess that do not use

the standard 108 board. Grand chess is a popular chess
variant invented by Dutch game designer Christian Freeling
in 1984. It uses Capablanca chess pieces upon a larger,
1010 board.
In 2007 Grandmaster Yasser Seirawan devised a variant
(called Seirawan chess), which adds the two pieces to the
standard game in a different manner. The player, after
moving a piece (for example, a bishop) from the first rank,
may immediately place either of the two pieces on the
bishop's square. If the player moves all his eight officers
without placing the Hawk or the Elephant (Seirawan's names
for the Archbishop and the Chancellor, respectively), he
forfeits his right to do so.

10

10

1
a

Grand chess. The chancellor and archbishop are at

right of the king.

See also
ChessVa program (licensed under the GPL) which plays Capablanca chess and all of the other proposed
108 setups, as well as several other chess variants against the computer.
SMIRFa program which plays all 12,118 Capablanca Random Chess variants except Gothic chess.

References
1. "In Moscow" (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,721501,00.html). Time. 1925-12-07.

Bibliography
Pritchard, D. B. (1994). The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. Games & Puzzles Publications. pp. 3840. ISBN 09524142-0-1.
Edward Lasker (1959). The Adventure of Chess. ISBN 0-486-20510-X.

External links
"Capablanca's Chess" (http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/capablanca.html) by Hans Bodlaender, The
Chess Variant Pages
Capablanca Chess | material values of pieces (http://www.symmetryperfect.com/shots/texts/values-capa.pdf)
Capablanca Chess (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/35575) at BoardGameGeek
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Categories: Board games introduced in the 1920s Chess variants Capablanca chess variants
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