Minichess
Encyclopedia
Minichess is a family of chess variant
s played with regular chess pieces and standard rules, but on a smaller board.
The motivation for these variants is to make the game simpler and shorter than the standard chess. Martin Gardner
recommended 5x5 chess variant to fill short breaks during the work. The first chess-like game implemented on a computer was a 6x6 chess variant Los Alamos chess
. The low memory capacity of the early days computer required reduced board size and smaller number of pieces to make the game implementable on a computer.
: the outcome of every possible position is known. The best move for each side is known as well. The game was solved independently by Aloril in 2001 and by Kirill Kryukov in 2004. The solution by Kryukov is more complete, since it allows pawns to be placed everywhere, not only on second row as by Aloril. The longest checkmate on 3x3 board takes 16 moves. The number of legal positions is 304,545,552.
In 2009 Kryukov reported solving 3x4 chess. On this board there are 167,303,246,916 legal positions and the longest checkmate takes 43 moves.
In 1981 Silverman suggested 4x4 chess variant shown on the diagram. The first player wins easily in this game (1. axb3+ Qxb3 2. cxb3+ Kxb3 (or 2...Kb4 3. bxc3 checkmate) 3. bxa3+ Kc4 4. Qa2 checkmate) , so Silverman proposed a variant: Black can select a pawn, and White must make a first move with this pawn. However, in this case Black wins even more easily (select pawn b2, 1.bxa3 (or 1.bxc3) b2+ 2. Qxb2 Qxb2 checkmate). To make the variant more playable, Silverman finally proposed to insert a row between pawns and use the board 4x5. In this variant pawns can do double-move if target square is free.
Another chess variant on 4x5 board, Microchess was invented by Glimne in 1997. Castling is allowed in this variant.
A 5x5 board is the smallest which can contain all kinds of chess pieces. In 1969, Martin Gardner
suggested a chess variant on 5x5 board in which all chess moves, including pawn double-move, en-passant capture as well as castling can be made. Later AISE (Associazione Italiana Scacchi Eterodossi) abandoned pawn double-move and castling. The game was largely played in Italy
(including by correspondence
) and opening theory was developed. The statistics of the finished games is the following:
Gardner minichess was also played by AISE with suicide chess and progressive chess
rules. In 1980 HP shipped HP-41C
programmable calculator, which could play this game. The calculator was able to play on quite a decent level.
In 1989, Martin Gardner proposed another setup, which he called Baby chess. In difference from Gardner minichess, kings are placed into opposite corners here. Paul Jacobs and Marco Meirovitz suggested another starting position for 5x5 chess shown at the right. Jeff Mallett (main developer of Zillions of Games
), suggested setup in which white has two knights against two black bishops.
There are several chess variants on 5x6 board. The earliest published one is Petty chess, which was invented by Walker Watson in 1930. Speed chess was invented by Mr. den Oude in 1988. Elena chess was invented by Sergei Sirotkin in 1999.
QuickChess was invented by Joseph Miccio in 1991. Pawn double-move and castling are not allowed in this variant, pawns can only promote to captured pieces. The game was sold by Amerigames International and received National Parenting Publications Award in 1993. Miccio obtained an USA patent in 1993, which described 3 further chess variant on 5x6 board. Besides two variants similar to Speed chess and Elena Chess (same position of white pieces, position of black pieces is symmetrical), the patent claimed one further variant, which have been named later Chess Attack. Miccio advocated these games as educational tools for chidren to learn chess rules. The smaller board and less pieces would reduce the complexity of the game and allow for more quicker games. The piece setup like in Speed chess was intended to teach short side castling and setup as in Chess Attack - long side castling.
Laszlo Polgar
published a book in 1994 Minichess 777+1 Positions (Quickchess teaches chess quick), completely devoted to chess on 5x6 board. Besides initial setup as in QuickChess, Polgar proposed to use any other possible setup of pieces, even asymmetrical one. The book contained problems, combinations and games for 5x6 chess. Polgar recommended to use is as a first book to teach children to play chess.
Chess Attack
, which has the same setup as Gardner minichess (but played on a bigger board) is sold by Norway company Yes Games AS since 2008. In this variant, pawns can make double-moves and en-passant capture is allowed. The game was endorsed by Magnus Carlsen
and Alexandra Kosteniuk
.
Besides Los Alamos chess
, there are other chess variants played on a 6x6 board. The game Diana chess (or Ladies chess) was suggested by Hopwood in 1870. The initial position is shown above. There are no queens on the board and pawns can't promote to queens either. Pawns cannot move forward two squares on their initial move. Castling
is done by switching the positions of the king and rook. The same condition as in chess
apply for castling (e.g. the king should not be under check, neither rook nor king should have moved before etc.)
Serge L'Hermitte suggested in 1969 a game with nearly the same setup as Diana chess, except that the positions of the black king and knight are exchanged from their positions in Diana chess. Additionally, knights cannot move within the first three moves, and the king can move to the knight position without losing the right to castle.
A. Wardley proposed in 1977 a Simpler chess, a family of 6x6 chess variants, in which a pair of pieces is removed from the both sides: rooks, knights, bishop or even king and queen. Removing bishops results in Los Alamos chess
; the result of removing rooks or knights is shown on the diagrams above.
Jeff Mallett proposed the setup knights versus bishops also on 6x6 board. On a normal 8x8 board, bishops are considered slightly more valuable than knights (especially two bishops). However, on 6x6 boards, because of the smaller size of the board, two knights are presumably equal to two bishops.
Chess variant
A chess variant is a game related to, derived from or inspired by chess. The difference from chess might include one or more of the following:...
s played with regular chess pieces and standard rules, but on a smaller board.
The motivation for these variants is to make the game simpler and shorter than the standard chess. Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner was an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature , philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion...
recommended 5x5 chess variant to fill short breaks during the work. The first chess-like game implemented on a computer was a 6x6 chess variant Los Alamos chess
Los Alamos chess
Los Alamos chess is a chess variant played on a 6×6 board without bishops. This was the first chess-like game played by a computer program. This program was written in Los Alamos laboratory by Paul Stein and Mark Wells for the MANIAC I computer in 1956...
. The low memory capacity of the early days computer required reduced board size and smaller number of pieces to make the game implementable on a computer.
3x3 and 3x4 boards
Chess on a 3x3 board does not have any clearly defined starting position. However, it is a solved gameSolved game
A solved game is a game whose outcome can be correctly predicted from any position when each side plays optimally. Games which have not been solved are said to be "unsolved"...
: the outcome of every possible position is known. The best move for each side is known as well. The game was solved independently by Aloril in 2001 and by Kirill Kryukov in 2004. The solution by Kryukov is more complete, since it allows pawns to be placed everywhere, not only on second row as by Aloril. The longest checkmate on 3x3 board takes 16 moves. The number of legal positions is 304,545,552.
In 2009 Kryukov reported solving 3x4 chess. On this board there are 167,303,246,916 legal positions and the longest checkmate takes 43 moves.
4x4 and 4x5 chess
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In 1981 Silverman suggested 4x4 chess variant shown on the diagram. The first player wins easily in this game (1. axb3+ Qxb3 2. cxb3+ Kxb3 (or 2...Kb4 3. bxc3 checkmate) 3. bxa3+ Kc4 4. Qa2 checkmate) , so Silverman proposed a variant: Black can select a pawn, and White must make a first move with this pawn. However, in this case Black wins even more easily (select pawn b2, 1.bxa3 (or 1.bxc3) b2+ 2. Qxb2 Qxb2 checkmate). To make the variant more playable, Silverman finally proposed to insert a row between pawns and use the board 4x5. In this variant pawns can do double-move if target square is free.
Another chess variant on 4x5 board, Microchess was invented by Glimne in 1997. Castling is allowed in this variant.
5x5 chess
A 5x5 board is the smallest which can contain all kinds of chess pieces. In 1969, Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner was an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature , philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion...
suggested a chess variant on 5x5 board in which all chess moves, including pawn double-move, en-passant capture as well as castling can be made. Later AISE (Associazione Italiana Scacchi Eterodossi) abandoned pawn double-move and castling. The game was largely played in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
(including by correspondence
Correspondence chess
Correspondence chess is chess played by various forms of long-distance correspondence, usually through a correspondence chess server, through email or by the postal system; less common methods which have been employed include fax and homing pigeon...
) and opening theory was developed. The statistics of the finished games is the following:
- White won 40% of games.
- Black won 28%.
- 32% were drawsDraw (chess)In chess, a draw is when a game ends in a tie. It is one of the possible outcomes of a game, along with a win for White and a win for Black . Usually, in tournaments a draw is worth a half point to each player, while a win is worth one point to the victor and none to the loser.For the most part,...
.
Gardner minichess was also played by AISE with suicide chess and progressive chess
Progressive chess
Progressive chess is a chess variant in which players, rather than just making one move per turn, play progressively longer series of moves. The game starts with white making one move, then black makes two consecutive moves, white replies with three, black makes four and so on...
rules. In 1980 HP shipped HP-41C
HP-41
The HP-41C series are programmable, expandable, continuous memory handheld RPN calculators made by Hewlett-Packard from 1979 to 1990. The original model, HP-41C, was the first of its kind to offer alphanumeric display capabilities...
programmable calculator, which could play this game. The calculator was able to play on quite a decent level.
In 1989, Martin Gardner proposed another setup, which he called Baby chess. In difference from Gardner minichess, kings are placed into opposite corners here. Paul Jacobs and Marco Meirovitz suggested another starting position for 5x5 chess shown at the right. Jeff Mallett (main developer of Zillions of Games
Zillions of Games
Zillions of Games is a commercial General Game Playing system developed by Jeff Mallett and Mark Lefler in 1998. The game rules are specified with S expressions, Zillions rule language. It was designed to handle mostly abstract strategy board games or puzzles. After parsing the rules of the game,...
), suggested setup in which white has two knights against two black bishops.
5x6 chess
There are several chess variants on 5x6 board. The earliest published one is Petty chess, which was invented by Walker Watson in 1930. Speed chess was invented by Mr. den Oude in 1988. Elena chess was invented by Sergei Sirotkin in 1999.
QuickChess was invented by Joseph Miccio in 1991. Pawn double-move and castling are not allowed in this variant, pawns can only promote to captured pieces. The game was sold by Amerigames International and received National Parenting Publications Award in 1993. Miccio obtained an USA patent in 1993, which described 3 further chess variant on 5x6 board. Besides two variants similar to Speed chess and Elena Chess (same position of white pieces, position of black pieces is symmetrical), the patent claimed one further variant, which have been named later Chess Attack. Miccio advocated these games as educational tools for chidren to learn chess rules. The smaller board and less pieces would reduce the complexity of the game and allow for more quicker games. The piece setup like in Speed chess was intended to teach short side castling and setup as in Chess Attack - long side castling.
Laszlo Polgar
László Polgár
László Polgár , is a Hungarian chess teacher and father of the famous "Polgár sisters": Zsuzsa, Zsófia, and Judit. He authored well-known chess books such as Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games and Reform Chess, a survey of chess variants.László is an expert on chess theory and owns over...
published a book in 1994 Minichess 777+1 Positions (Quickchess teaches chess quick), completely devoted to chess on 5x6 board. Besides initial setup as in QuickChess, Polgar proposed to use any other possible setup of pieces, even asymmetrical one. The book contained problems, combinations and games for 5x6 chess. Polgar recommended to use is as a first book to teach children to play chess.
Chess Attack
Chess Attack
Chess Attack is a chess variant played on a rectangular board of six rows and five columns of squares...
, which has the same setup as Gardner minichess (but played on a bigger board) is sold by Norway company Yes Games AS since 2008. In this variant, pawns can make double-moves and en-passant capture is allowed. The game was endorsed by Magnus Carlsen
Magnus Carlsen
Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen is a Norwegian chess Grandmaster and chess prodigy who is currently the number-one ranked player in the world. In January 2010 he became the seventh player ranked number one in the world on the official FIDE rating list...
and Alexandra Kosteniuk
Alexandra Kosteniuk
Alexandra Konstantinovna Kosteniuk is a Russian chess Grandmaster and a former Women's World Chess Champion.-Chess career:Kosteniuk learned to play chess at the age of five after being taught by her father...
.
6x6 chess
Besides Los Alamos chess
Los Alamos chess
Los Alamos chess is a chess variant played on a 6×6 board without bishops. This was the first chess-like game played by a computer program. This program was written in Los Alamos laboratory by Paul Stein and Mark Wells for the MANIAC I computer in 1956...
, there are other chess variants played on a 6x6 board. The game Diana chess (or Ladies chess) was suggested by Hopwood in 1870. The initial position is shown above. There are no queens on the board and pawns can't promote to queens either. Pawns cannot move forward two squares on their initial move. Castling
Castling
Castling is a special move in the game of chess involving the king and either of the original rooks of the same color. It is the only move in chess in which a player moves two pieces at the same time. Castling consists of moving the king two squares towards a rook on the player's first rank, then...
is done by switching the positions of the king and rook. The same condition as in chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
apply for castling (e.g. the king should not be under check, neither rook nor king should have moved before etc.)
Serge L'Hermitte suggested in 1969 a game with nearly the same setup as Diana chess, except that the positions of the black king and knight are exchanged from their positions in Diana chess. Additionally, knights cannot move within the first three moves, and the king can move to the knight position without losing the right to castle.
A. Wardley proposed in 1977 a Simpler chess, a family of 6x6 chess variants, in which a pair of pieces is removed from the both sides: rooks, knights, bishop or even king and queen. Removing bishops results in Los Alamos chess
Los Alamos chess
Los Alamos chess is a chess variant played on a 6×6 board without bishops. This was the first chess-like game played by a computer program. This program was written in Los Alamos laboratory by Paul Stein and Mark Wells for the MANIAC I computer in 1956...
; the result of removing rooks or knights is shown on the diagrams above.
Jeff Mallett proposed the setup knights versus bishops also on 6x6 board. On a normal 8x8 board, bishops are considered slightly more valuable than knights (especially two bishops). However, on 6x6 boards, because of the smaller size of the board, two knights are presumably equal to two bishops.
External links
- Knight court by Jason D. Wittman
- Quick Chess by Hans Bodlaender
- Mini-chess variants
- 6 Ranks, remaining variants by Charles Gilman.