Cavalry Chess

Introduction

          Cavalry Chess (also known as Magician's Chess) is a variant of Orthochess designed by Frank Maus in 1921. Cavalry Chess adds some sort of jumping move to all of the Orthochess pieces, resulting in a game with a great deal of power on the board. According to Pritchard, the game enjoyed a fair bit of popularity in the US at one time, with tournaments and matches played. Today, it seems almost unknown.

General Rules

          The rules of Cavalry Chess are identical to those of Orthochess, except when noted below. The board and setup are as usual.

The Movement of Pieces

          In general, each piece in Cavalry has jumping moves added to their basic Orthochess moves, and the King is additionally enhanced.

          The King's move is extended to two squares in any direction (including through, but not into check), and additionally, the King may also jump like a Knight.

          The Cavalry Chess Queen may, in addition to moving like an Orthochess Queen, may leap like a Knight, making it effectively an Amazon.

          The Cavalry Chess Rook may, in addition to moving like an Orthochess Rook, may also leap like a Knight, making it effectively a Chancellor.

          The Cavalry Chess Bishop may, in addition to moving like an Orthochess Bishop , may also leap like a Knight, making it effectively a Cardinal.

          The Cavalry Chess Knight may, in addition to leaping like an Orthochess Knight, may leap like Camel (a (1,3) leaper) or like a Zebra (a (2,3) leaper).

          The Cavalry Chess Pawn combines the usual moves of the Orthochess Pawn, including double-move and en-passant capture, with the forward leaps of a Knight. From the second rank it can move like so:

Sample Game

          The following game played as part of a tournament in 1924. I. Denton played white, black was played by a player simply identified as Professional.

     White       Black

  1.  ee3         ee5
  2.  Nge2        Nge7
  3.  dd3         dd5
  4.  Nd4         Nd7
  5.  g3          g6
  6.  b3          Qe6
  7.  dc5!        b:c5
  8.  b:c5        N:c5
  9.  Ne:c5+     (resigns)

Theory

           Early on, Fianchetto (flank) openings were common. Later, the Gruer Attack (1. dd4, 2Qe2), named after the Californian Chess Champion, and the Denton opening (see the sample game above) were used. The principle endgames were analysed as well, the outcome the same as in Orthochess -- the ending K+R vs K being one of the hardest.

Magic Chess

          In 1925, Maus game up with a variant of Cavalry Chess which he called Magic Chess. The only difference was in the Pawn's forward Knight's moves, which were noncapturing when wide (one square forward and two to the side), and capturing only when narrow (two squares forward and one to the side). Maus apparently didn't like his new creation much, saying that Magic Chess was "deadly dull, lacking all the vivacity of Cavalry Chess."

Analysis

          The pieces in this game have an incredible amount of power for a game on an eight by eight board. In particular, the King, Queen and Knight would be very powerful pieces even on a ten by ten board or larger. This is an extreme game, and almost certainly not to everyone's taste.

           And yet, this game obviously received a lot of attention at one time. Was it because there weren't as many competing Chess variants at the time, or did it have some other appeal? And what happened to it? Marseillias Chess originated around the same time, and is still played. Did its players exhaust Cavalry Chess' potential, or simply gravitate to newer games? It does seem like many Chess variants go through a period of popularity, then fade away.

Notes

          Ed Friedlander has also implemented this game as an applet.

Sources

          This information is based on the description in Pritchard's Encyclopedia of Chess Variants.

Zillions of Games

          There is an implementation of Cavalry Chess (including Magic Chess) for Zillions of games. You can download it here:

• cavalry.zip