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How to play Makruk: rules and setup

Makruk is played by 2 players on a board with 8 × 8 squares. White moves first. Makruk is Thailand's traditional relative of chess: the met and khon move one square, pawns promote to met on the sixth rank and endgames use counting.

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Play Makruk

Quick answer

Makruk, or Thai chess, is Thailand's traditional relative of chess, played on an 8×8 board. Each side has 16 pieces. Pawns start on the third rank and promote to met on the sixth. The met replaces the queen but moves one square diagonally; the khon, in place of the bishop, moves one square diagonally or straight forward. White moves first; checkmate wins, and endgame counting can force a draw. This guide covers Makruk. 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: Makruk

Setup

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

8×8 board. White: rooks a1/h1, knights b1/g1, khons c1/f1, king d1, met e1 and pawns on the third rank. Black: rooks a8/h8, knights b8/g8, khons c8/f8, met d8, king e8 and pawns on the sixth rank. The kings do not face each other. White moves first.

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

Moves and captures

  • Legal moves

    King, rook and knight move as in chess. A khon steps one square diagonally or straight forward; a met steps one square diagonally. Pawns advance one square and capture diagonally. There is no pawn double step or castling.

  • Using the board

    Select a piece to see its legal destinations, then select a highlighted square.

Special rules

  • A pawn reaching its sixth rank is automatically promoted to a met; no other piece can be chosen.

  • Counting starts once no unpromoted pawns remain on the board.

Winning and draws

  • Checkmate wins.

  • Stalemate is a draw, and there is no 50-move rule.

  • Once no unpromoted pawns remain, a 64-move count begins.

  • When one side has only its king left, the count restarts from the number of pieces on the board, and the attacker must mate by count 8 with two rooks, 16 with one rook, 22 with two khons, 32 with two knights, 44 with one khon, or 64 otherwise.

  • If the count runs out without checkmate, the game is drawn.

  • A player may claim a draw on threefold repetition; a position where neither side can checkmate is drawn automatically.

Example

Sources and rule verification

Ruleset covered
Makruk
  1. Wikipedia (th) — หมากรุกไทย
  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.