What is Capablanca Chess?
Capablanca chess is chess on a board ten files wide and eight ranks deep. Each side has the usual army plus two more pawns and two new pieces: the archbishop, which moves as a bishop or as a knight, and the chancellor, which moves as a rook or as a knight. In the notation they are A and C.
The pieces start on the first rank in the order rook, knight, archbishop, bishop, queen, king, bishop, chancellor, knight, rook, from the a-file to the j-file, with ten pawns in front. Black mirrors White, so the queens face each other on the e-file and the kings on the f-file.
Castling is a longer move: the king goes three squares toward a rook, from f1 to i1 with the rook landing on h1, or from f1 to c1 with the rook landing on d1. You castle by moving the king. A pawn that reaches the last rank must promote, and it may become a queen, chancellor, archbishop, rook, bishop or knight. Everything else, from en passant to checkmate and the draw rules, is standard chess.
With three long-range pieces that can also jump like a knight, attacks start early and forks are everywhere. You can play Capablanca chess online, against the computer, or with two people on one device. It doesn't combine with Chess960, Three-Check or material odds.
Rule changes
| Rule | Standard Chess | Capablanca Chess |
|---|---|---|
| Board | Standard Chess8×8 squares. | Capablanca Chess10 files by 8 ranks: files a to j and ranks 1 to 8. |
| Pieces | Standard ChessKing, queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights and eight pawns. | Capablanca ChessThe same plus an archbishop, which moves as a bishop or as a knight (letter A), a chancellor, which moves as a rook or as a knight (letter C), and two more pawns. |
| Starting position | Standard ChessRook, knight, bishop, queen, king, bishop, knight, rook, with eight pawns in front. | Capablanca ChessRook, knight, archbishop, bishop, queen, king, bishop, chancellor, knight, rook, with ten pawns in front. |
| Castling | Standard ChessThe king moves two squares toward a rook, and the rook jumps to its other side. | Capablanca ChessThe king moves three squares toward a rook: f1 to i1 with the rook to h1, or f1 to c1 with the rook to d1. The usual conditions apply: neither piece has moved, the squares between them are empty, and the king is not in check and does not cross or land on an attacked square. |
| Promotion | Standard ChessA pawn on the last rank becomes a queen, rook, bishop or knight. | Capablanca ChessIt may also become an archbishop or a chancellor. |
| How to win | Standard ChessCheckmate the opponent's king. | Capablanca ChessThe same: checkmate. Stalemate, threefold repetition, the fifty-move rule and insufficient material draw as in standard chess; a king with a lone archbishop or chancellor can still mate, so that is not a draw. |
History
José Raúl Capablanca, world chess champion from 1921 to 1927, worried that chess was being played out: as masters learned more opening theory, more of their games ended in draws. In the 1920s he proposed a larger game to keep it fresh, on a 10×8 board with two new pieces that he called the archbishop and the chancellor.
The idea of joining the knight's move to the rook's and to the bishop's is much older. In 1617 the Italian priest Pietro Carrera described a 10×8 chess with two such pieces, and in 1874 the English master Henry Bird proposed another. Capablanca's game is the best known of this family, and many later 10×8 games use the same two pieces under other names.
Several starting arrangements have been published for 10×8 games with these pieces. The one used here puts the archbishop on the c-file and the chancellor on the h-file.