Madrasi chess is a chess variant invented in 1979 by Abdul Jabbar Karwatkar. The game uses the conventional rules of chess with the addition that when a piece is attacked by a piece of the same type but opposite colour (for example, a black queen attacking a white queen) it is paralysed and becomes unable to move, capture or give check.

Paralysis

Most of the time, two like pieces attack each other mutually, meaning they are both paralysed. ''

En passant ''En passant'' (, "in passing") is a method of capturing in chess that occurs when a pawn captures a horizontally adjacent enemy pawn that has just made an initial two-square advance. The capturing pawn moves to the square that the enemy paw ...

pawn Pawn most often refers to: * Pawn (chess), the weakest and most numerous piece in the game * Pawnbroker or pawnshop, a business that provides loans by taking personal property as collateral Pawn may also refer to: Places * Pawn, Oregon, an his ...

captures are an exception to this, since the attack is not mutual. (The status of an ''en passant'' capture is open to debate, according to Pritchard.) This paralysis rule is not usually extended to the

king King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

s, meaning that as in orthodox chess, the two kings cannot move to adjacent squares; when it ''is'' extended to kings, the variant is called ''Madrasi rex inclusive'' (sometimes shortened to ''Madrasi RI''). Although it is possible to play complete games of both Madrasi chess and Madrasi RI, they have mainly been used as a condition in

chess problem A chess problem, also called a chess composition, is a puzzle set by the composer using chess pieces on a chess board, which presents the solver with a particular task. For instance, a position may be given with the instruction that White is to ...

s. The diagram demonstrates some of the peculiarities of Madrasi. The black king is not in check from the rook on c5, because it (the rook) is attacked by the black rook on g5, meaning it is paralysed. In its turn, the c5 rook attacks the g5 rook, paralysing it. Likewise, the white rook on g2, also attacked by the g5 rook, is paralysed. The black rook on h4, however, is not paralysed, and is free to move. The knights on d8 and f7 also attack each other, as do the pawns on c2 and d3, so these pieces are also paralysed. Note that the bishop on d1 is not paralysed by knight on f2 attacking it – units have to be of a similar type (both knights, both bishops and so on) for paralysis to happen.

Releasing paralysis

There are two ways in which a paralysis may be released. The first is for a non-paralysed pieces to make a capture. In the example, White cannot play cxd3 because his pawn is paralysed, but he can play Nxd3, thus unparalysing his c2 pawn. The second way to unparalyse a piece is to cut off the line of attack from the paralysing unit by interposing a third piece. For example, 1.Be5 in the diagram cuts the line of attack from the g5 rook to the c5 rook and so unparalyses it. As a result, the white rook on c5 is now giving check. The only way for Black to escape the check in this instance is to re-paralyse the checking rook, which can be done by 1...Rc4. White then has the reply 2.bxc4 which is checkmate: Black has no safe squares for his king, he cannot capture the checking unit, he cannot interpose a piece between the checking unit and the king, and he cannot paralyse the checking unit (note that ...Rxe5 paralysing the c5 rook is not possible, because the g5 rook is paralysed by its counterpart on g2).

References

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External links

Madrasi Problems
{{Chess variants Chess variants Fairy chess 1979 in chess Board games introduced in 1979 Chess in India Chennai Madras Presidency