Shatra

Shatra is an old board game for two played in Altai. It is a variant of Western chess with draughts-style capture; it also shares a few traits with older versions of chess, shôgi and some other board games. Read on to see what I mean.

(I will draw your attention to similarities to xiang4qi2 by «XQ» and to rules shared with Russian draughts but not with some other varieties of that game by «RSh».)

The Board

Shatra board: numerical and algebraic notation.The shatra board consists of 62 squares which cover part of a checkered 7×14 rectangle. The squares are numbered from top to bottom and from left to right, but I find it confusing to refer to them in this way,* so I will use a straightforward algebraic notation here.

The following regions are recognised on the board:

The opponents' halves of the board are separated by a ditch running between ranks 7 and 8, which affects some of the moves of both sides' men. XQ File d is called the great road.

Shatra: initial setup.The Men

At the beginning of the game each side has a king (biy), a queen (batïr), two rooks (tura), two bishops (jalkïn) and 11 pawns (šatra).** On diagrams a pawn is usually displayed as a white or black circle and a king, queen, rook or bishop as a similar circle marked respectively by a smaller circle, a triangle, a square or a straight line of the opposite colour, and this is also what the pieces look like in tournament sets. In souvenir sets chess pieces are substituted, and that is what I shall do on my diagrams also.

The initial allocation of the armies is:

White:
Kd4, Qd1, Rd2, Rd3, Bc3, Be3,
pp. c1, e1, c2, e2, a-g5;
Black:
Kd11, Qd14, Rd12, Rd13, Bc12, Be12,
pp. a-g10, c13, e13, c4, e14.

Drops

The men sitting in the fortress and gate at the beginning of the game are said to be in reserve. They may not move; instead, they are dropped, one at a time, on any vacant square of their own half of the battlefield.*** A drop counts as a move. Drops may be alternated with moves and captures by those already on the battlefield, but as long as any men remain in reserve, none of the others may return to the fortress, and the King alone may enter the gate.

A man who enters the fortress or gate after all men from the initial reserve have been put out regains the right to be dropped anywhere in his own half of the battlefield in addition to being able to move according to the general rules. A man who enters the enemy's gate or fortress may move there or be dropped on any vacant field of the enemy's half of the battlefield.

Moves of the Pawn.Moves

Like his counterpart in Western chess and most chess variants, the Pawn never retreats. The Bishop moves diagonally to any distance, as long as no other piece interferes.

The Rook moves orthogonally to any distance, as long as no other piece interferes. However, he may not penetrate the enemy's gate or fortress from within his own fortress or gate.

The Queen combines the movements of the Rook and the Bishop.

The King moves in the same directions as the Queen, but only one square at a time. There is no castling in shatra.

Captures

Capturing is obligatory in shatra as it is in draughts. A player may choose freely from two or more possible captures; there is no requirement to make the longest capture. RSh

The Pawn captures an orthogonally or diagonally adjacent enemy man by leaping over him onto a vacant square immediately beyond. A capture may be done in any direction RSh, but may not take the Pawn back to his own gate or fortress. If the Pawn can capture another man from where he lands (and then perhaps another and ...), he must do so in the same turn.

A white Pawn on rank 8, or a black one on rank 7, can capture en passant an enemy's Pawn which has just made a double move by leaping diagonally forwards over the empty square that the other one has moved through, provided he lands on another empty square. (Consider the diagram `Moves of the Pawn' above: if Black has a Pawn on b7, he can respond to 1. c5-c7 by either 1. ... b7:d5 e.p. or 1. b7:d7.) En passant capture must take place immediately; if it is declined (invariably in favour of another capture), it can no longer be done.

A Pawn promoted while capturing goes on capturing as an officer.If a capture takes a Pawn to the end rank of the board, and he is promoted, the newly produced officer must continue the capture in the same turn if he can do so. RSh

Here is how this works (diagram on the right). White: Kg5, p. e12; Black: Kg9, Rd13, p. e13. White wins by 1. e12:e14Q:c12:g8:g10×.

Serial capture must continue from the nearest line.The Bishop, Rook and Queen capture in the same directions as they move, and may land on any vacant square in the same line behind the prey, provided nothing else interferes. There is one restriction, however: if they can continue the capture, they must do so from the nearest square behind the prey.

Here is an example (diagram on the left). White: Kd4, Ra5, pp. b6, d7; Black: Kf7, Qc10. White wins by 1. d7-c8 Qc10:a6 (but not 1. ... Qc10:e3×, because rank 6 is closer to the site of the first capture than the diagonal a7-e3 is) 2. Ra5:a7:g7×.

The King captures as the Pawn does, but is not required to complete a series of captures. He is also allowed not to capture at all, but then he must move. A partial capture by the King is available as an alternative to a capture by another man, but a quiet move is not. (White: Kd4, Ra5, p. c9; Black: Ka9, p. a8. White wins by 1. c9-b9! followed by 1. ... Ka9:c9 2. Ra5:a9:d9 (e-g9)× or 1. ... a8:c10 2. Ra5:a10:d10 (e-g10)×.)

A Pawn may never make a capture which would take him to his own fortress or gate, and no man but the King can make one which takes him to his gate if there are men from the initial reserve in the fortress. (White: Kg5, p. d8; Black: Kd11, pp. d7, d5. White captures 1. d8:d6, but not 1. d8:d6:d4, because that would get the Pawn into his gate.)

Captured men are removed from the board immediately.A captured man is removed from the board immediately, so he may not be leapt over twice.

Here is an illustration (diagram on the right). White: Kd4, Qa5; Black: Kg10, pp. a6, a8, c10, e9, f9. A bad move would be 1. Qa5:a10:d10:f8:f10 Kg10:e10, which results in a drawn game. A better one is 1. Qa5:f10:a10:a5 (note that the Queen returns to where she started, but the turn ends here, because Pawn e9 has been leapt over once already).

Miscellanea

«A Pawn in the enemy's gate captures according to the general rules and the rules for the King.» Which may mean that he is allowed not to capture all he can, or to opt for a quiet move if none of his comrades can make a capture and he doesn't want to; but he gives up those rights as soon as he enters the enemy's fortress.

«Capture within and from the fortresses is done according to the general rules. A man from the initial reserve which makes a capture within his fortress must be put out at the next non-capture turn.» Meaning, as it appears, that although the men who have not yet left the fortress may not move in it, they may capture in it -- but if they do, they are signed up for the next drop.

The game is won if the enemy is stalemated or his King is captured; and it is drawn if both opponents agree that it is.

Implementations

There are two implementations of the game, both by Francis Monkman:

Notes

*
It makes it extremely hard to tell where any two given squares are located relative to one another, unless one has memorised the entire layout. Because of the irregular shape of the table, the situation is even worse in shatra than it is in international draughts.
**
About the names of the pieces:
Watch this space for what I may find out about jalkïn.
***
So in Kurin's description. According to David Pritchard (The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants), men may not be dropped onto the great road. Both Francis Monkman and I think that such a rule makes sense in the context of the game, but players should make sure they both agree to abide by it before starting a game, so that arguments might be avoided.
****
I would guess that only a Pawn on the rearmost rank of the battlefield (5 for White, 10 for Black) can make a double move.
*****
In chess such a rule existed until the end of the 19th century in Italy, even though it was significantly more problematic there. (For one thing, a chess pawn on the end rank is frozen, unlike a shatra pawn. For another, victory in chess is by checkmate, not by capturing the opponent's King, which can lead to trouble if one side checkmates the other by capturing an officer, to which a Pawn-in-waiting automatically promotes, also giving checkmate. This problem does not arise in shatra.)

Created and maintained by Ivan A Derzhanski.

Last modified: 5 June 2000.