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📖 Rules of Shatranj

The ancestor of chess. Same 8×8 board and the same aim: checkmate the enemy king. But three pieces are different and the game is slower and more about patient attack.

The pieces

• King (♚) and Rook (♜) and Knight (♞) move as in chess. There is no castling.
• Ferz (♛ symbol) is the “queen” of the time, but weak: one step diagonally only.
• Alfil (♝ symbol) is the “elephant”: it leaps exactly two squares diagonally, jumping over anything. So it only ever reaches 8 squares of the same colour.
• Pawn (♟) steps one square forward (no double step, no en passant) and captures diagonally. At the far end it becomes a Ferz.
• Set-up: Rook, Knight, Alfil, King, Ferz, Alfil, Knight, Rook. The kings face each other on the d-file.

How you win

• Checkmate.
• Stalemate: in the classical rule, the player with no legal move (and not in check) loses. A setting turns it into a draw.
• Bare king: take all of the enemy’s other pieces and you win, unless the bared player can answer on the very next move by taking your last piece too (then it is a draw).

Draws in this version

• The same position three times, or 120 half-moves (plies) with no capture and no pawn move.

Playing here

• Tap a piece and then a square, or drag it. Dots show legal moves. Tap a piece to see what it does.
• Pass and play lets two people share the screen. The computer is a casual player: Easy makes mistakes, Hard thinks about 1.5 seconds per move.
• Shatranj rules differed by time and place; this is the common modern reconstruction.