Comments by Joseph Ruhf

I can imagine that a "square Courier" assize did ultimately arise out of this game, but not such as H. G. Muller proposes, due to the influence of the free-sliding Courier piece and the perceived clumsiness of the 12x8 board and the statutory opening moves. One way I imagine that this arose is that first the Elephants and their files were dropped from the game, but their move was compounded with that of the Commoner, Schleich and Queen. Very soon subsequently, the statutory opening moves changed into optional initial moves of the same pieces. Now made mostly redundant by her new natural double step, the Queen's optional first move quietly fell into disuse and the restriction on which three Pawns were initially permitted a double step option fell into disuse along with it.
Finally, the redundant Queen and Schleich and their files were removed and the Queen's name transferred to the Commoner. The other way is that first it was the redundant Queen and Schleich and their files which were removed and the Queen's name was transferred to the Commoner. As in the first progression, the statutory opening moves very soon changed into optional initial moves of the same pieces. Next, the Elephants and their files were dropped from the game, but their move was compounded with that of the Queen. Finally, now made mostly redundant by her new natural double step, the Queen's optional first move quietly fell into disuse and the restriction on which three Pawns were initially permitted a double step option fell into disuse along with it.

In his Encyclopedia of Chess Variants, David Pritchard writes this of the Silver piece in the entry on Makruk: "Less convincing is the presence of the B[ishop], which equates to the Gin of shogi, since the piece is also found in Indian and Burmese C[hess] where it is known as the Elephant, its move resemblimg the four feet and trunk of the pachyderm." Since "alfil" means "the elephant" in Arabic and an alternate Elephant move equates to the Silver move, it stands to reason that the names "Kangaroo" and "Infanta" do not need to be lost although Makruk technically has no piece actually named "Elephant".

You have done much excellent work on this game. However, you have evidently missed the point that a game about subjugation or elimination of some royal piece(s) needs said royal piece(s) to be tamed by some form of restricted mobility-whether by design to be range limited or by soft or hard prohibition from seeing its/their opposite(s) along an otherwise open “line” (in Dr. David Li's terminology telepotency)-and also by check if it is a singleton. In your case, telepotency is the only restriction which will allow you to keep with your idea of using only line pieces (I do not dismiss it as entirely uninteresting although I find flawed your reasoning to get to it and disagree with its premises).