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The Duke of Rutland's Chess. Large variant from 18th century England. (14x10, Cells: 140) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, Jul 4, 2004 06:52 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

When playing this game with two identical sets, only one piece aside need
be specially marked - the crowned Rooks can be represented by upturned
Rooks or by Rooks surmounted by the spare Pawns.
It is curious that, although Rutland is inland, two recent variants with a
nautical theme have some connection with this variant. PiRaTeKnIcS has
duplicaet minor pieces, and Quinquereme Chess uses the 'stalemater
loses' rule.

George Duke wrote on Wed, Feb 2, 2005 07:26 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

'DEF,LargeCV': Judgment about each game occurs within its 'environment' of related games and historical precedents. One term used in patents worldwide is how 'crowded' the 'prior art' is. One principle used by CV designers is novelty, as applied to both pieces and rules. Here Crowned Rook(R+K) non-royal makes debut as new piece, whilst the other heterodox long-ranger Concubine is used before by Carrera. Also facing the exigency of having ten ranks is Pawn's three-square option. Chess master Philidor played Duke of Rutland's Chess in mid-18th century. There is one unprotected Pawn initially, the l-Pawn, versus Courier Chess' three unguarded. DRC would probably play a lot like most of the older Turkish Great Chesses I-VI. Estimate their average number of moves typically around 60-80 per score.

John Ayer wrote on Thu, Feb 3, 2005 01:09 AM UTC:

It appears to me that the l-pawn is guarded by the crowned rook on the m-file.

Claudio Martins Jaguaribe wrote on Sun, May 7, 2006 03:36 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

It looks nice to me, but two more bishops and another knight seems too
much.

So, I suggest this: R; Cr; N; B; Cb; Co; K; Q; P; Cb; B; N; Cr; R.

In this way:
Cb= Crowned Bishop, moves like a Bishop or a King (Dragon Horse, Crowned
Rook(Cr) = Dragon King);
P= Prince, moves like an Archbishop (Bishop + Kinight) (the Concubine (Co)
moves like a Chancellor (Rook + Knight))

This looks like a better way to use the board.

Gary Gifford wrote on Sun, May 7, 2006 12:00 PM UTC:

Claudio Martins Jaguaribe recently described an alternate piece setup for Duke of Rutland's Chess. I agree wih him. I currently am playing a game of DoR and I find that using conventional pieces (including 4 Knights and 4 Bishops per side) on such a large board is not very exciting Chess. I think the Duke might not have been aware of Chancellors and Marshalls and so that he stuck to essentially doubling chess - but where did he get the idea for the Concubine piece? Playing this game one is reminded of the earlier debate regarding using more powerful pieces for larger boards. Duke of Rutland Chess could certainly make use of more powerful pieces.

Claudio Martins Jaguaribe wrote on Mon, May 8, 2006 10:59 PM UTC:

Thank´s, but looks like to me that the Duke, by simple analisys, would come
to the existence of the Archbishop, the Centaur and the Amazon, just by
adding the Knight move to the Bishop, King and Queen, as he did to get the
Chancellor (Concubine).

Adding the moves of the King to the Bishop and Knight, he would come to
the Dragon Horse (Crowned Bishop) and to the Centaur (a Crowned Knight, to
keep the line of names of the Duke)(again), as he did to the Rook to get
the Dragon King (Crowned Rook). Add King moves to a Queen is useless.

So, it´s a mistery to me why he didn't used that pieces.

Gary Gifford wrote on Mon, May 8, 2006 11:41 PM UTC:

I thought it possible that the Duke witnessed a game of Shogi at some point
and therefore saw a Dragon King and added it as a Concubine to his game.
But then, why not also add a Dragon Horse?

If the Duke did witness Shogi,and it is purley conjecture, then he still
likely would not think of those other pieces (Marshall, Chancellors,
Amazons etc.)... if he had thought of them, surely he would have added
them?  Of course, he might not have wanted to bother with extra piece
styles... but then the question remains, why 2 Concubines instead of 2
more Rooks?  Even 2 more Queens would have been an improvement. The
mystery remains.

Gary Gifford wrote on Wed, May 10, 2006 11:09 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

Great job on the 'Logical Follow Up to the Duke of Rutland's Chess.' I think the Duke himself would have been very pleased with this very logical improvement. Well done.

Claudio Martins Jaguaribe wrote on Thu, May 11, 2006 04:15 AM UTC:

Thank´s!

To me, a newcomer, feel's very nice to see a recognition of my thoughts.
After all, all new comers believe that: 'everything was said before'.

And it helps me to think a lot more; and helps in a creative process.

I can get it right in the great picture, lots of thoughts. But in the
microscope...

Anyway.

Thank´s a lot! And, coming from a guy with a good name in the site, it
menas a lot to me.

Thank´s!

Retep wrote on Tue, Mar 11, 2008 01:52 PM UTC:

I have a question about the rules, I am not sure about the en passant rule.
The following rule is described:

'On squares passed over, the pawn can be taken en passant.'

Does this mean, if the pawn makes an initial double step en passant is
like in orthodox chess?

In case of an inital triple step, for example b2-b5, does it mean black
pawns a5, c5 could move to b4 taking away b5 OR black pawns a4, c4 move to
b3 taking away b5? 

It could also mean a5,c5,a4,c4 all must move to b4, though I don't think
so.
Thanks in advance for a clarification.

Daniel Zacharias wrote on Fri, Feb 10, 2023 03:05 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

This is a nice game. It seems to have a theme of rook + weaker piece compounds. I wonder why the board isn't 15x10 to make room for another knight, and have a nice 3:2 shape like Courier Chess. An alternative enhancement would be a pair of camels on d1 and k1 and a camel-rook on i1. That would make more sense of the 10 rank board.

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