Game literature
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Reviewed by Kerry Handscomb
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Superschaak (or Super Chess) is a game that we had wanted to understand and review in the old series of Abstract Games. We had the book Schaak en Superschaak: van schaker tot Superschaker, by Henk van Haeringen, published in 1999 by Coulomb Press, Leyden, but we couldn't read Dutch and the review never happened. Fortunately, a booklet published in English gives the basics of Superschaak and the related game Monarch: Super Chess and Monarch: The Laws, again by Henk van Haeringen, published by Coulomb Press in 1993. Let us return to Superschaak, after all these years, by taking a look at the old booklet and by placing the game in context.
(We should note first off that the Superschaak, i.e., Super Chess, is not Ed Ginsberg's game of the same name investigated in AG19. To avoid confusion, I will consistently refer to van Haeringen's game by its Dutch name, Superschaak.)
After all these years, the Superschaak website is still active, the pieces can still be purchased, and even more importantly championships are being played every year in the Netherlands. Superschaak is a highly ambitious invention, it represents a chess-variant theme carried to the limit: variability of board size, piece types, and opening setups. Perhaps the game was simply too ambitious, which is why Superschaak never took off beyond the Netherlands.
Chess variants have long been a productive area of endeavour for game inventors. A major resource for chess variants is David Pritchard's book The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants, published by Games & Puzzles Publications in 1994. Some of the best chess variants are collected in Pritchard's follow-up book, Popular Chess Variants, published by Batsford in 2003. The best online source for chess variants by far is the Chess Variant Pages. The British Chess Variants Society published the magazine Variant Chess from 1990 to 2010, and all magazines are available here for free download, a gift of enormous value for the community. Arguably, the greatest designer of chess variants was Vernon Rylands Parton, whose booklets were collected and republished by Jean-Louis Cazaux in The Chess World of V. R. Parton, published by Pionissimo in 2021, and reviewed in AG21. Over the years, we've covered many chess variants in Abstract Games magazine, too many to list here. In just this issue, we have articles on Shatranj, Hostage Chess, Sovereign Chess, and Chad and Shakti.
A great many chess variants have been designed over the centuries. Some of these are geographical variants, as with Shogi, Xiangqi, and Mak Ruk; others may be described as historical variants, as with Shatranj, Chu Shogi, and Gala. My main concern in the discussion now are the chess variants which have taken standard Western Chess as their basis and inspiration, although the main points are applicable also to the geographical and historical variants.
The variants, utilizing Western Chess as a foundation can be categorized as follows:
Sovereign Chess is important because it adds a completely new category to this broad classification, which may be interpreted as follows:
Of course, many variants straddle more than one of these categories. The larger board sizes, for example, almost inevitably involve new pieces that are not present in the standard game. No doubt, also, the categories are a simplification of the variety of chess variants.
While Superschaak uses the square geometry in two dimensions, it extends the game to different board sizes and variable setups, with a large number of different pieces. Superschaak is a highly variable game. The standard game can be played on boards of size 8x8, 8x10, 10x8, or 10x10. Standard Chess has six kinds of pieces, whereas Superschaak has 50. The two players must first decide on the size of board and the collection of pieces they will use—the same army for both sides.
The game starts from an original position, which usually involves the Pawns, the Kings, any pieces used from the standard game, and any of the most powerful pieces. The starting locations of these pieces is quite limited. The King starts in the middle of a back row, for example, with powerful pieces like the Queen and Amazon (i.e., Queen and Knight combined) close to the King, with a row of Pawns in the front. From the original position, a prelude follows, in which the players add their other pieces to the board in the spaces behind the Pawns. The prelude can be conducted with full knowledge of both players or secretly behind a screen; likewise the players can be constrained to place their pieces symmetrically or not. Once the prelude is finished, with the two complete armies facing each other in the initial position, the game begins, with much the same rules of play as Chess, with certain differences because of some unusual pieces. For example, if the Emperor is involved, a powerful version of the King, the game can be won by checkmating either Emperor or King. Monarch is a version of Superschaak which restricts some of the options, while still offering considerable versatility.
The main point of Superschaak is that there is no one standard game, it encompasses a huge variety of different games. Superschaak is not a game, but rather a game system. Chess960 accomplishes a certain degree of variability, but Superschaak takes it to another level. I only know of two other games, or rather game systems, that do this.
Ralf Betza's Chess with Different Armies is perhaps the oldest and most easily approachable variable chess game. The concept of Chess with Different Armies is that alternative chess armies can be constructed, perhaps utilizing unusual pieces or pieces sharing a theme, and then armies that are the same or different face off across the board. When the game was first developed in 1979, Betza introduced four different armies. Over the years since, more than a dozen other armies have been added. The difficulty with this approach is to ensure that any two of the armies of choice have roughly equal playing strength. Having said that, Betza's conception is remarkably intuitive. Any two opposing armies in a historical battle would surely have different compositions. And in this era of AI play, it should be relatively simple to ensure that any two armies have roughly equal playing strengths.
The other system I know of involving variable armies is the Musketeer Chess, which dates in its final form from around 2012. Musketeer Chess starts off with a regular Chess setup with regular Chess pieces. The players select two pieces from a collection ten new pieces, and and must both choose the same pair. The additional pieces start on any two locations behind the first row of pieces. When the piece in front vacates, the new piece takes its place and enters play. Musketeer Chess is regular Chess supplemented by two new pieces that enter the fray once the game is underway.
Superschaak, Chess960, Chess with Different Armies, and Musketeer Chess all accomplish the same goal of variability that obviates the necessity for opening theory. Regular Chess, the argument goes, is worn out and requires extensive memorization of opening lines to play at a reasonably high level. If the starting positions can be wildly different, opening theory becomes pointless. Superschaak in its pristine form takes this idea to the extreme. Monarch, of course, is a version of the game with somewhat lesser variability, and the Dutch championships have been played with only four new pieces rather than the full list of 50. Nevertheless, Superschaak is what it is, and the full system is hugely flexible to a degree that nothing else approaches.
Of course, the full Superschaak set, with 50 pieces on each side and a collection of several boards, is difficult and expensive to put together. Moreover, the rules for setup are complex, even for the simpler game Monarch. Admittedly, you can always play with a relatively small subset of the rules, as with the Dutch championships, and perhaps this is the way to approach the huge Superschaak system, a little bit at a time.
On the other hand, some of the Superschaak pieces are interesting and unusual. The Joker, for example, imitates the move of the piece the opponent last moved; the Femme Fatale cannot capture or check, but also any opponent's piece next to the Femme Fatale cannot capture or check. The large variety of Superschaak pieces is a strong feature of the game.
Playing chess with variable pieces and starting position, for a change or to avoid the problem of opening memorization, is an idea that is worth pursuing. Perhaps ultimately Betza's Chess with Different Armies will see a renaissance, prompted by AI analysis. Nevertheless, the Superschaak system is worth investigating. Superschaak was, and still is, a significant development in the world of chess variants. ◾️
(We should note first off that the Superschaak, i.e., Super Chess, is not Ed Ginsberg's game of the same name investigated in AG19. To avoid confusion, I will consistently refer to van Haeringen's game by its Dutch name, Superschaak.)
After all these years, the Superschaak website is still active, the pieces can still be purchased, and even more importantly championships are being played every year in the Netherlands. Superschaak is a highly ambitious invention, it represents a chess-variant theme carried to the limit: variability of board size, piece types, and opening setups. Perhaps the game was simply too ambitious, which is why Superschaak never took off beyond the Netherlands.
Chess variants have long been a productive area of endeavour for game inventors. A major resource for chess variants is David Pritchard's book The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants, published by Games & Puzzles Publications in 1994. Some of the best chess variants are collected in Pritchard's follow-up book, Popular Chess Variants, published by Batsford in 2003. The best online source for chess variants by far is the Chess Variant Pages. The British Chess Variants Society published the magazine Variant Chess from 1990 to 2010, and all magazines are available here for free download, a gift of enormous value for the community. Arguably, the greatest designer of chess variants was Vernon Rylands Parton, whose booklets were collected and republished by Jean-Louis Cazaux in The Chess World of V. R. Parton, published by Pionissimo in 2021, and reviewed in AG21. Over the years, we've covered many chess variants in Abstract Games magazine, too many to list here. In just this issue, we have articles on Shatranj, Hostage Chess, Sovereign Chess, and Chad and Shakti.
A great many chess variants have been designed over the centuries. Some of these are geographical variants, as with Shogi, Xiangqi, and Mak Ruk; others may be described as historical variants, as with Shatranj, Chu Shogi, and Gala. My main concern in the discussion now are the chess variants which have taken standard Western Chess as their basis and inspiration, although the main points are applicable also to the geographical and historical variants.
The variants, utilizing Western Chess as a foundation can be categorized as follows:
- Different board sizes, such as the 10x10 of Grand Chess and Super Chess
- Different board geometries, such as the hexagonal cells of Glinski's game
- Different pieces, such as the Marshall and Cardinal of Grand Chess or the Pawns of Berolina Chess
- Extension into three dimensions, such as 3D XYZ Chess or Quad Level 3D Chess
- Variable opening setup, such as Chess960.
Sovereign Chess is important because it adds a completely new category to this broad classification, which may be interpreted as follows:
- Hierarchical control of more than one army (and the possibility of regime change)
Of course, many variants straddle more than one of these categories. The larger board sizes, for example, almost inevitably involve new pieces that are not present in the standard game. No doubt, also, the categories are a simplification of the variety of chess variants.
While Superschaak uses the square geometry in two dimensions, it extends the game to different board sizes and variable setups, with a large number of different pieces. Superschaak is a highly variable game. The standard game can be played on boards of size 8x8, 8x10, 10x8, or 10x10. Standard Chess has six kinds of pieces, whereas Superschaak has 50. The two players must first decide on the size of board and the collection of pieces they will use—the same army for both sides.
The game starts from an original position, which usually involves the Pawns, the Kings, any pieces used from the standard game, and any of the most powerful pieces. The starting locations of these pieces is quite limited. The King starts in the middle of a back row, for example, with powerful pieces like the Queen and Amazon (i.e., Queen and Knight combined) close to the King, with a row of Pawns in the front. From the original position, a prelude follows, in which the players add their other pieces to the board in the spaces behind the Pawns. The prelude can be conducted with full knowledge of both players or secretly behind a screen; likewise the players can be constrained to place their pieces symmetrically or not. Once the prelude is finished, with the two complete armies facing each other in the initial position, the game begins, with much the same rules of play as Chess, with certain differences because of some unusual pieces. For example, if the Emperor is involved, a powerful version of the King, the game can be won by checkmating either Emperor or King. Monarch is a version of Superschaak which restricts some of the options, while still offering considerable versatility.
The main point of Superschaak is that there is no one standard game, it encompasses a huge variety of different games. Superschaak is not a game, but rather a game system. Chess960 accomplishes a certain degree of variability, but Superschaak takes it to another level. I only know of two other games, or rather game systems, that do this.
Ralf Betza's Chess with Different Armies is perhaps the oldest and most easily approachable variable chess game. The concept of Chess with Different Armies is that alternative chess armies can be constructed, perhaps utilizing unusual pieces or pieces sharing a theme, and then armies that are the same or different face off across the board. When the game was first developed in 1979, Betza introduced four different armies. Over the years since, more than a dozen other armies have been added. The difficulty with this approach is to ensure that any two of the armies of choice have roughly equal playing strength. Having said that, Betza's conception is remarkably intuitive. Any two opposing armies in a historical battle would surely have different compositions. And in this era of AI play, it should be relatively simple to ensure that any two armies have roughly equal playing strengths.
The other system I know of involving variable armies is the Musketeer Chess, which dates in its final form from around 2012. Musketeer Chess starts off with a regular Chess setup with regular Chess pieces. The players select two pieces from a collection ten new pieces, and and must both choose the same pair. The additional pieces start on any two locations behind the first row of pieces. When the piece in front vacates, the new piece takes its place and enters play. Musketeer Chess is regular Chess supplemented by two new pieces that enter the fray once the game is underway.
Superschaak, Chess960, Chess with Different Armies, and Musketeer Chess all accomplish the same goal of variability that obviates the necessity for opening theory. Regular Chess, the argument goes, is worn out and requires extensive memorization of opening lines to play at a reasonably high level. If the starting positions can be wildly different, opening theory becomes pointless. Superschaak in its pristine form takes this idea to the extreme. Monarch, of course, is a version of the game with somewhat lesser variability, and the Dutch championships have been played with only four new pieces rather than the full list of 50. Nevertheless, Superschaak is what it is, and the full system is hugely flexible to a degree that nothing else approaches.
Of course, the full Superschaak set, with 50 pieces on each side and a collection of several boards, is difficult and expensive to put together. Moreover, the rules for setup are complex, even for the simpler game Monarch. Admittedly, you can always play with a relatively small subset of the rules, as with the Dutch championships, and perhaps this is the way to approach the huge Superschaak system, a little bit at a time.
On the other hand, some of the Superschaak pieces are interesting and unusual. The Joker, for example, imitates the move of the piece the opponent last moved; the Femme Fatale cannot capture or check, but also any opponent's piece next to the Femme Fatale cannot capture or check. The large variety of Superschaak pieces is a strong feature of the game.
Playing chess with variable pieces and starting position, for a change or to avoid the problem of opening memorization, is an idea that is worth pursuing. Perhaps ultimately Betza's Chess with Different Armies will see a renaissance, prompted by AI analysis. Nevertheless, the Superschaak system is worth investigating. Superschaak was, and still is, a significant development in the world of chess variants. ◾️