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How to play ASEAN Chess: rules and setup

ASEAN Chess is played by 2 players on a board with 8 × 8 squares. White moves first. ASEAN Chess, adopted by the ASEAN-Chess Council in 2011, keeps the chess back-rank order but uses one-step khon and met, and pawns promote on the last rank.

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Play ASEAN Chess

Quick answer

ASEAN Chess is a standardised Southeast Asian form of chess played on an 8×8 board. It replaces bishops and queens with khon and met. The back rank keeps the chess order; the khon steps diagonally or straight forward, and the met steps one square diagonally. Pawns start on the third rank and promote only on the last rank, to a rook, knight, khon or met. Checkmate wins; endgame counting can force a draw. This guide covers ASEAN Chess. Check the movement, capture and game-ending rules below before applying rules from another variant.

Players
2
Board
8 × 8 squares
First move
White moves first.

Ruleset and sources: ASEAN Chess

Setup

Game illustration
Game illustration. Follow the setup instructions to prepare a new game.

The 8×8 back rank follows the chess order, with khon instead of bishops and met instead of queens. Pawns start on each side's third rank. White moves first.

Board
8 × 8 squares
Players
2
First move
White moves first.
Rules used here
ASEAN Chess

Moves and captures

  • Legal moves

    King, rook and knight use chess moves. A khon steps diagonally or straight forward; a met steps diagonally, always one square. Pawns step forward and capture diagonally. There is no double step or castling.

  • Using the board

    Select a piece to see its legal destinations, then select a highlighted square. When several promotions are available, choose from the promotion panel.

Special rules

  • Pawns promote only on the last rank.

  • ChessPlayX lets you choose a rook, knight, khon or met; the 2011 Laws of ASEAN-Chess allow promotion to a met (queen) only.

  • There is no castling or pawn double step.

Winning and draws

  • Checkmate wins.

  • Stalemate is a draw, and a position where neither side can checkmate is drawn automatically.

  • A player may claim a draw after 50 moves by each side without a pawn move or capture, or on threefold repetition.

  • Counting: when one side has only its king and no pawns remain, the count starts from the lone king's first move; the attacker must mate within 16 moves with a rook, otherwise 44 with a khon, otherwise 64 with a knight.

  • If the count runs out, the game is drawn.

Example

Sources and rule verification

Ruleset covered
ASEAN Chess
  1. Primary source · ASEAN-Chess Council — The Laws of ASEAN-Chess (2011, FIDE annex)
  2. Fairy-Stockfish variants (implementation reference)
  3. Fairy-Stockfish — variant definitions (43b66c8, implementation reference)

This guide describes play on ChessPlayX. Platform-specific conventions are stated in the relevant sections; tournament administration may differ.

A separate rule-review date is not recorded for this guide. The update date is not a verification date.