Ancient Games Blog

Rules, Mechanics and how I would update for modern play

The game I have chosen is chess. According to chess.com, the game of chess is thought to have originated out of an Indian game called Chaturanga before the 600s AD, evolving into the game we know today in the 16^th century, (https://www.chess.com/article/view/history-of-chess). Chess is played on a 64 square board of alternating black and white squares, organised in ranks, 8 numbers and 8 letters (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H).

Layout of a chess board, with starting positions of each piece.

(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AAA_SVG_Chessboard_and_chess_pieces_06.svg)

Players have 16 pieces each, pieces include the King, the Queen, 2 Rooks/Castles, 2 Bishops, 2 Knights and 8 Pawns, and either play as the white pieces, or the black pieces. Players take turns moving a piece of their choosing around the board, with the player using the white pieces moving first to start the game.

Rules and Mechanics

The end goal of chess is to manoeuvre your opponents King into a position where it is being attacked by one of your own pieces and cannot move to another square without being attacked by one of your pieces, therefore delivering a ‘Checkmate’. A piece is considered under attack when one of the opposition’s pieces can move to the square that the attacked piece is on, therefore ‘capturing’ the piece and putting it out of the game.

Although there is no scoring system in chess, some pieces are worth more than others, and are classed as ‘points of material’. The King is the most important piece on the board, if it is captured by your opponent, you lose the game, therefore the King has no points value, because without it, there is no game to play. The King can move in any direction it needs to; however it can only move one square a turn, and is therefore also the most vulnerable piece on the board.

The weakest pieces are the pawns, which can only move one square at a time, and can only move forwards. They can, however, move 2 squares forward at the beginning of a game. For a pawn to capture another piece, the piece must be one square in front of the pawn, to the right or left. A pawn is worth one point of material and are also the only pieces on the board that cannot move backwards or sideways, they can only move forwards.

Capture squares of a pawn.

(https://www.thechessdrum.net/chessacademy/CA_ThePawns.html)

The Knights and the Bishops are worth 3 points apiece. A bishop moves diagonally around the board, and as such can only manoeuvre on one colour-set of squares, one bishop moves on white, and one on black. Knights are often seen as one of the more gracious pieces on the board. A knights movement path is two squares one way, one square another way. It is the only piece on the board that is able to change direction like that.

Move-set of a Knight.

The second most powerful pieces on the board are the rooks, often referred to as ‘castles’. They are worth 5 points of material apiece and move in straight lines, side-to-side and forwards and backwards.

The most powerful piece a player has is the Queen, a piece that can move in any direction, as far as it needs to. A queen is worth 9 points of material, and often-times in games, if one player loses his queen and the other still has his on the board, the player who lost his queen will resign on the spot because the advantage for the player with the queen is too great.

Updating Chess for modern play

Although chess is one of the most successful board games of all time, it is not without its flaws. Those who play chess at the highest level often end up ending matches in a draw, repeating moves three times and taking a draw. This usually annoys and frustrates chess viewers as they come to watch two grandmasters try to outsmart one another and are left disappointed when a game ends with players repeating moves.

Therefore, I propose a new mechanic, ‘The Stalemated Knights and Pawns’. Should the players repeat moves three times, they each get an extra knight added to the board, placed on an un-occupied square on the first and eight rank respectively, on any file the player chooses, (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H). The game then resumes as is, with both players gaining another piece to add to the board. Should the players end up repeating moves again, a pawn shall be removed from each players pieces, starting on the left hand-side of the player, until neither side has any pawns left.

Should the players keep repeating moves or repeat a different move-set three times, another Knight shall be given to the players with the same format as the first bonus knight. Therefore, the only way a draw would happen would be if one player stalemates the other, or both players have insufficient material required to win a match. I believe this would increase the interest in games as there would most definitely be less draws, with players going for more attacking positions in order to avoid stalemates.