Chess vs Strong Makruk

Makruk is played on an 8x8 board like Chess.

One can easily place both Chess and Makruk on the same board and pit them against each other. However, the Chess army may be too strong with the long-range Queen and Bishop, compared to the much weaker Seed/Met and Nobleman/Khon in Makruk.

Strong Makruk is an enhanced Makruk variant created to face the Chess army in a more balanced matchup. The moveset for the enhanced pieces in Strong Makruk are described below.

Setup

(Note: In the reverse matchup, the Strong Makruk King for White is on d1 instead of d2 as in the regular Makruk setup.)

Pieces

Chess

The Chess pieces of Rook, Knight, Bishop, Queen, King, and Pawn move as in Orthodox Chess.

Strong Makruk

Seed-Boat

Moves as a Boat/Rua or Seed/Met (Rook + Ferz)

Seed-Horse

Moves as a Horse/Ma or Seed/Met (Knight + Ferz)

Nobleman

Moves as a regular Nobleman/Khon in Makruk (as a Silver General in Shogi)

Noble-Seed

Moves as an extended Nobleman/Khon - any number of squares diagonally and orthogonally forward (Bishop + Lance)

Khun

Moves as a regular Khun/King in Makruk (unchanged)

Bia

Moves as a regular Bia/Pawn in Makruk, with the exception of the promotion rule described below

Rules

Chess

The Pawn promotion and Castling rules are the same as in Orthodox Chess.

Strong Makruk

The Bia/Pawn in Strong Makruk also promotes on the 6th rank as in Makruk, but to a Nobleman/Khun instead of a Seed/Met.

Notes

Chess Strategy

The Chess army must be careful to stop the Strong Makruk Bia/Pawn advances, or it will be bombarded with a horde of Nobleman pieces from the enemy's 6th rank onwards. If the King is still on the back rank, it can be cornered easily by mutiple Nobleman pieces into checkmate.

The Seed-Horse and Seed-Boat which can move diagonally in addition to the regular Knight and Rook moves are also formidable pieces which can be hard to stop. Exchanging a Knight or Rook with the equivalent Seed-Horse or Seed-Boat would be advantageous for the Chess Army since they are of higher value in the Strong Makruk army. Without the Seed-Horses and Seed-Boats, the Chess army will be in a stronger position since the Queen is more powerful than the equivalent Noble-Seed.

Strong Makruk Strategy

The Bia/Pawn in the Strong Makruk army may only promote to the Nobleman, but it promotes on the 6th instead of the 8th rank for the Chess Pawn which can promote to the much stronger Queen. The Nobleman may be weaker than the Queen, but the Strong Makruk army can obtain them faster. During the endgame, two Nobleman pieces are enough to checkmate a bare King.

Since Bia/Pawn promotions are faster in Strong Makruk, the focus should be on promoting as many Bias as possible in the least number of moves. While the Noble-Seed is a strong piece equivalent to the Chess Queen, it cannot move orthogonally sideways or backwards. So, it should be developed as soon as possible to support the Bias in promoting to Nobleman pieces. The Seed-Horse and Seed-Boat are also powerful pieces that can be used to support a strong Bia structure.

Play with Zillions of Games

Chess vs Strong Makruk (The reverse matchup and a Strong Makruk game with the same armies are also included)

This 'user submitted' page is a collaboration between the posting user and the Chess Variant Pages. Registered contributors to the Chess Variant Pages have the ability to post their own works, subject to review and editing by the Chess Variant Pages Editorial Staff.

By Albert Lee.

Last revised by Fergus Duniho.

Web page created: 2021-07-26. Web page last updated: 2021-08-27

Comments

Chess vs Strong Makruk. Chess against an enhanced Makruk army in an 8x8 board.

H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Oct 23 02:39 AM EDT in reply to HaruN Y from Tue Oct 22 09:58 PM:

ifmnD doesn't seem to work.

I think this was already fixed; try refreshing the browser cache.

HaruN Y wrote on Tue, Oct 22 09:58 PM EDT:

Macro Makruks

Edit: My bad.

H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, Oct 20 04:27 AM EDT in reply to David Paulowich from Fri Oct 18 08:28 PM:

There seems to be a typo in the promotion rule for Strong Makruk (Kuhn instead of Kohn).

The diagram is rather ugly cut & paste work.

I guess it should be possible to make an Interactive Diagram for this variant, though; it falls in the category of 'regular variants', which only differ from orthodox Chess by having different sliders, leapers and their compounds and board-size parameters.

I once tested the effect of limiting the promotion choice to weaker pieces, (like only Knights), and it turned out there almost wasn't any. I suppose that in practice promotions can almost always be prevented by sacrificing a minor for the Pawn that is going to promote or has just been promoted. So promotion is worth a minor. For promotion of pieces weaker than a Knight (such as Silver or Ferz) this might no longer be true, though.

David Paulowich wrote on Fri, Oct 18 08:28 PM EDT:

Peter Aronson allows (optional) promotion to a Silver General on your 6th, 7th and 8th ranks in his 2001 variant Gothic Isles Chess. Promotion to a more valuable piece on your 8th rank is only possible when it has been previously captured by your opponent.

"Mandatory promotion of a Pawn to a Silver General of the same color on the player's 8th rank" is the rule in my 2005 variant Shatranj Kamil (64). I am not entirely happy with my decision to keep a Ferz in my game - I sometimes think about having a stronger piece next to the King, as in the Strong Makruk army.

💡📝Albert Lee wrote on Sun, Aug 29, 2021 08:53 AM EDT in reply to Fergus Duniho from Fri Aug 27 02:07 PM:

Thanks, Fergus.

White:

Black: