José Raúl Capablanca invented (or at least popularized) a chess variant played on a 10×8 board and named after him: Capablanca chess. There are two new pieces in it: a chancellor that moves as both a rook and a knight, and an archbishop that moves as both a bishop and a knight. These are pretty powerful pieces; for example, the archbishop can checkmate by itself (opposite king in a corner, archbishop two diagonal squares away).

While working on some user-requested features for Chess By Blog, I realised that supporting Capablanca chess wasn’t going to be a big deal. Behold:

[CBBWhiteId "*"]
[CBBBlackId "*"]
[Result "*"]
[FEN "rnbqkcabnr/pppppppppp/10/10/10/10/PPPPPPPPPP/RNBQKCABNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

Note that this isn’t quite the first rank layout that Capablanca envisioned; this is the layout for Embassy chess, itself a variant on Capablanca chess. (Confusing matters further, I’ve implemented the castling rules in the applet to follow Capablanca random chess.) Anyways, check it out on the board above. I haven’t played it against anyone yet, but so far it seems like the two new pieces make for a very different opening game from standard chess: the archbishop and chancellor wreak havoc on the midboard early since they jump over the pawns immediately. Very interesting!

On track for a Chess By Blog 1.0.2 tomorrow or Monday.