Modern chess is a
chess variant played on a 9×9 board. The game was invented by Gabriel Vicente Maura in 1968. Besides the usual set of
chess pieces, each player has a prime minister and an additional pawn:
: The
prime minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...
(M) combines powers of a
bishop
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is c ...
and a
knight
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...
.
The first match was played in Madrid at Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Fernando's cafe on March 18, 1968. The players were Gabriel Vicente Maura himself (White), and Bonifacio Pedraz Cabezas (Black).
Game rules
The starting setup is as shown. All the standard
rules of chess apply, along with the following special rules:
* A player can
castle either ministerside (notated "0-M-0") or queenside (notated "0-Q-0"); in either case the king slides two squares toward the castling
rook
Rook (''Corvus frugilegus'') is a bird of the corvid family. Rook or rooks may also refer to:
Games
*Rook (chess), a piece in chess
*Rook (card game), a trick-taking card game
Military
* Sukhoi Su-25 or Rook, a close air support aircraft
* USS ...
.
* When reaching the final rank,
pawns can
promote to one of the usual pieces or to prime minister.
Optional rule
In response to criticism that bishops are restricted to only one square color, the inventor proposed an optional new rule, if the players agree:
* One bishop may switch its position with a piece adjacent to it, provided that the bishop and the piece adjacent have not yet moved in the game. The switch is counted as a normal move. The notation for the move is B=
djacent piece used for example B=Q for bishop and queen switch, or B=MN for a switch of the bishop and the minister's knight.
According to Ed Friedlander, in the countries where the game is played more commonly, another popular way to create a light square bishop is to require that one of the bishops must move one square orthogonally as its first move.
See also
*
Chancellor Chess – a 9×9 variant featuring one
chancellor per side
References
Bibliography
*
*
External links
Modern Chessby
Hans Bodlaender
Hans Leo Bodlaender (born April 21, 1960) is a Dutch computer scientist, a professor of computer science at Utrecht University. Bodlaender is known for his work on graph algorithms and parameterized complexity and in particular for algorithms rela ...
, ''
The Chess Variant Pages
''The Chess Variant Pages'' is a non-commercial website devoted to chess variants. It was created by Hans Bodlaender in 1995. The site is "run by hobbyists for hobbyists" and is "the most wide-ranging and authoritative web site on chess variants" ...
''
Gabriel Maura's Modern Chessa simple program by Ed Friedlander
(Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...
)
Gabriel Maura's Modern Chess (Revised)
{{Chess variants
Chess variants
1968 in chess
Board games introduced in 1968