Courier chess

Courier chess is played on an 8×12 board (i.e., 8 {{chessgloss|ranks}} by 12 {{chessgloss|files}}). Literary and artistic evidence indicate that the board was always checkered but that there was no consistency as to which squares were light and which squares were dark. The more frequent pattern is that the square at the bottom right corner was light, just as in modern chess.{{efn|See The Chess Variant Pages website http://www.chessvariants.org/historic.dir/courier.html. Murray 1913, p. 392 (citing Selenus, Gustavus, Schach- oder Königs-Spiel, Leipzig, 1616) gives the contrary rule.}}

The winning objective is the same as western chess: to checkmate the opponent's king. The stalemate rule is unknown; the subject was unsettled in Germany late into the nineteenth century.

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|The back rank pieces from left to right: (a) rook, (b) knight, (c) bishop, (d) courier, (e) sage, (f) king, (g) queen, (h) schleich, (i) courier, (j) bishop, (k) knight, (l) rook. The forward rank pieces in columns (a)–(l) are all pawns.

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• King: The kings start on squares of their own color, at f1 and f8. Just as in western chess, the king may move to any adjoining square, and a player cannot end their turn in check. There is no castling.
• Sage: Next to the king, on e1 and e8, stands the sage or mann, which moves one square in any direction, like the king, but can be hazarded or captured like a normal piece.The website [http://courierchess.com/thepainting.htm http://courierchess.com] has information about the history of courier chess, including a large image of Lucas van Leyden's painting.
• Queen: On the other central file, at g1 and g8, stands the ferz, or queen, which moves one square diagonally.
• Schleich: On the queen's other side, at h1 and h8, stands a piece known as the schleich (or fool, thief, jester, smuggler, spy, or trull) moving one square orthogonally (the move of the wazir).
• Courier: At d1, i1, d8, and i8 stands the piece that gave the game its name: the läufer, or courier, or runner. It moves like the modern chess bishop, any number of squares diagonally.
• Bishop: Next, at c1, j1, c8, and j8, stands the bishop, or archer. It moves as the alfil, two squares diagonally, leaping the first square.
• Knight: At b1, k1, b8, and k8 stands the knight, which moves one square orthogonally, followed by one square diagonally, leaping the squares (the same as the modern chess knight).
• Rook: In the corners, at a1, l1, a8, and l8 stands the rook,Bell 1960, 1979, p. 62. which moves any number of squares orthogonally (the same as its modern chess counterpart).
• Pawn: The second rank for each player is filled with pawns, which move like modern chess pawns, one square forward and capture one square diagonally forward. Unlike in modern chess, pawns cannot double advance on their first move, therefore the en passant rule does not apply. The pawn promotion rule is that a pawn reaching the furthest rank is promoted to a queen (ferz). However, it is not clear if the promotion happens immediately or if it happens from a more complex promotion process that was used in other contemporary chess variants. The more complex promotion method described by Bell is this: A pawn reaches the 8th rank and becomes immune to capture so long as it stays there. On subsequent moves, the pawn may be moved backwards 2 steps at a time. It may not capture during these moves so the path must be clear. Upon reaching its original starting row (3 backwards 2 step moves) it finally becomes a Queen (ferz). The pawn is vulnerable to capture after it makes its first backwards leap. The backwards leaps do not need to be performed on consecutive turns.Bell 1960, 1979, p. 63.

The old rule for first moves is that at the start of the game each player must move their rook pawns, their queen pawn, and their queen two squares forward (see top diagram). Such a two-square leap along a file was called a joyleap, and was not available after the starting moves.Murray 1913, p. 438.

Albers attempted to popularize the game in Germany in 1821 with updated rules. The starting setup is the same as for medieval courier chess. The king, queen, courier (bishop), knight, and rook have their modern powers. The bishop (or archer) can move one square diagonally, or leap diagonally to the second square. The fool, standing beside the queen, moves one square in any direction. The sage, standing beside the king, combines the powers of the fool and the knight. The pawn moves like the modern pawn, except that after reaching the farthest rank it must remain there for two moves before taking up its new career as a piece. Castling is permitted, if all squares between the king and the rook are vacant, the king has not been checked, the rook is not en prise, neither has moved, and no square between them is under attack. The king moves to the bishop's square, and the rook leaps over him to the courier's square, in either wing.Verney, p. 154. The rule on stalemate has not been preserved; the subject was unsettled in Germany well into the nineteenth century.Murray 1913, p. 853.

Subsequent attempts to modernize courier chess include Modern Courier Chess (Paul Byway, starting 1971). An attempt has recently been made to make this game fully compatible with FIDE modern conventions: [http://clement.begnis.free.fr/ Reformed Courier-Spiel] (Clément Begnis, 2011).

Wirnt von Gravenberg, writing early in the 13th century, mentioned the courier game in his poem Wigalois dating from 1202–1205, and expected his readers to know what he was talking about. Heinrich von Beringen, about a hundred years later, mentioned the introduction of the couriers as an improvement in chess. Kunrat von Ammenhausen, still in the first half of the fourteenth century, told how he had once in Constance seen a game with sixteen more men than in the "right chess": each side having a trull, two couriers, a counsellor, and four extra pawns. He added that he had never seen the game anywhere else, in Provence, France, or Kurwalhen.Murray 1913, pp. 483–84.{{efn|Kurwal(c)hen / Churwalchen {{=}} historic German name for the Romansh-speaking region around Chur (see also :de:Churrätien)}}

Sometime shortly after 1475, someone put the courier on the standard chessboard in place of the old alfil and gave the queen the combined powers of the courier and the rook.Murray 1913, pp. 776–77; Eales 1985, p. 72. This game was so much more exciting than medieval chess that it soon drove the older game off the market.Murray 1913, Chapter XI. Other improvements were tried out. One was an optional double first step for the pawns. This was at first restricted to the king's, queen's, and rooks' pawns, and then gradually extended to the others.Murray 1913, p. 852.

File:Album amicorum Jacob Heyblocq KB131H26 - p249 - Jan de Bray - Drawing - Chess player.jpg drawing depicting a courier chess set (1661)]]

In the early sixteenth century Lucas van Leyden, in the Netherlands, painted a picture called The Chess Players in which a woman appears to be beating a man at courier chess.Murray 1913, p. 484. "A painting in the Königliches Museum, Berlin, said to have been painted in 1520 by Lucus von Leyden, shows a game of Courier in progress." Gustavus Selenus (Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg) in his 1616 book Das Schach- oder Königs-Spiel, mentioned the Courier Game as one of three forms of chess played in the village of Ströbeck near Halberstadt in Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany. He described it in detail, and gave drawings of the pieces. The names he gave the pieces do not always match the figures in the drawings: the piece called the Schleich is depicted as a court jester. In 1651 Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia, gave to Ströbeck a playing board with chess on one side and the courier game on the other, and a set of silver pieces. These pieces were lent in the eighteenth century and never returned, but there is a set of wooden pieces. In 1821 H. G. Albers reported that courier chess was still played in Ströbeck, and that some pieces had gained more powerful moves, but a few years later other visitors found that it had been abandoned.{{efn|The Chess Variant Pages website at http://www.chessvariants.org/historic.dir/courierspiel.html mentions H. G. Albers, 1821, and George Hope Verney, Chess Eccentricities, Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1885.}} In 1883, the local chess club revived it. Playing sets based on Lucas van Leyden's painting are commercially available.

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Image:Lucas van Leyden 005.jpg (c. 1520)]]

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File:Illustration of Chess Pieces by Gustav Selenus (1616).jpg (or sage), and jester.]]

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• Grant Acedrex
• Fairy chess
• Tamerlane chess

{{notelist|notes=|30em}}

{{reflist|30em}}

• {{cite book |last=Bell |first=R. C. |author-link=Robert Charles Bell |title=Board and Table Games From Many Civilizations |edition=Revised |volume=I |publisher=Dover Publications Inc |year=1979 |orig-year=1st Pub. 1960, Oxford University Press, London |isbn=0-671-06030-9}}
• {{Cite book|title=A World of Chess. Its Development and Variations through Centuries and Civilizations|last1=Cazaux|first1=Jean-Louis|last2=Knowlton|first2=Rick|publisher=McFarland|year=2017|isbn=978-0-7864-9427-9}}
• Eales, Richard. Chess: The History of a Game. Hardinge Simpole Publishing, Glasgow, 2002. Previously published by B. T. Batsford Limited, 1985.
• Knowlton, Rick. "Courier Chess" article in The Chess Collector, Vol. 28, N. 1, 2009, pp. 13–17, online at [http://courierchess.com/newsletter/CCI-Courier-Chess-Article.pdf Courier Chess]
• Murray, H. J. R. A History of Chess. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1913 et seqq.
• Verney, Maj. George Hope. Chess Eccentricities. London, Longmans, Green & Co., 1885, photographically reproduced online at [https://books.google.com/books?id=2UoqAAAAYAAJ&q=Verney%22Chess+Eccentricities%22]

• [http://www.chessvariants.org/historic.dir/courier.html Courier chess] by Hans Bodlaender, The Chess Variant Pages
• [http://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/courierspiel.html Courier Spiel] (the 19th-century version) by Hans Bodlaender, The Chess Variant Pages
• [http://www.schachdorf-stroebeck.de Ströbeck town web page]{{irrelevant citation|date=May 2017|reason=Does not appear to be related to Courier chess.}} {{in lang|de}}
• [http://www.schachverein-stroebeck.de/Ueber-uns/Kurierschach/ Ströbeck chess club] {{in lang|de}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20130901152414/http://www.schachmuseum-stroebeck.de/seiten/home-e.html Chess Museum in Ströbeck]{{irrelevant citation|date=May 2017|reason=Does not appear to be related to Courier chess.}} {{in lang|en}}(links to a German version)
• [http://www.pathguy.com/chess/CourierC.htm Courier Chess] a simple program by Ed Friedlander (Java)

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