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How to play Capablanca Chess: rules and setup

Capablanca Chess is played by 2 players on a board with 10 × 8 squares. White moves first. Play 10×8 chess with an archbishop and chancellor in Capablanca's starting arrangement.

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Play Capablanca Chess

Quick answer

Capablanca Chess is a 10×8 chess variant proposed by world champion José Raúl Capablanca. It adds two compound pieces. Each side has ten pawns plus the archbishop (bishop plus knight) and the chancellor (rook plus knight). The back rank reads rook, knight, archbishop, bishop, queen, king, bishop, chancellor, knight, rook. Castling puts the king on c or i, and checkmate wins. This guide covers Capablanca Chess. Check the movement, capture and game-ending rules below before applying rules from another variant.

Players
2
Board
10 × 8 squares
First move
White moves first.

Ruleset and sources: Capablanca Chess

Setup

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

Base rules: chess. Each side has ten pawns. The back rank is rook, knight, archbishop, bishop, queen, king, bishop, chancellor, knight, rook. White moves first.

Board
10 × 8 squares
Players
2
First move
White moves first.
Rules used here
Capablanca Chess

Moves and captures

  • Legal moves

    The archbishop combines bishop and knight moves; the chancellor combines rook and knight moves. Other pieces follow chess and the king must stay safe.

  • 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

  • Castling ends with the king on file i or c under the usual safety conditions.

  • Pawns promote on the last rank and may become an archbishop or chancellor as well as a queen, rook, bishop or knight.

Winning and draws

  • Checkmate wins.

  • Stalemate is a draw.

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

  • If neither side has enough material to checkmate, the game is drawn automatically.

Example

Sources and rule verification

Ruleset covered
Capablanca Chess
  1. The Chess Variant Pages — Capablanca Chess
  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.