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Devingt Chess

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Devingt Chess is a variant invented (2005) and commercialised by Leopold de Labrousse. Actual boards and sets are manufactured by the inventor. It is played over a 10x10 squares board, which is easily available in some countries to play International draughts.

The name of the game in French is "Le jeu du Devingt" and is a pun referring to "vingt" (twenty) which is the number of men on each side, and phonetically "devin" which means a fortune teller.

Photograph of Devingt Chess

Photograph of Devingt Chess

Setup

The board has 10x10 squares and is placed with a white square at each player's right corner. 

Each side has 10 pawns and 10 pieces: 1 King, 1 Queen, 2 Sages, 2 Bishops, 2 Knights and 2 Rooks. The Sage can be seen as a wise camel drivers and is represented by a camel on the diagrams.

The Queen is placed on the central square of the first row of her color.

Initial setup at Devingt Chess

Pieces

Queens, Bishops and Knights are exactly as at standard chess. Kings and Rooks also except for the castling which is different at Devingt Chess.

Pawns moves and captures as in chess except for their initial moves and they have a different promotion rule which is detailed below.

The new piece is a Sage. The Sage is a (3,1) jumper, it jumps to the opposite square of a 2x4 rectangle, like an extended Knight. No matter what intermediate squares contain. Note that it always stays on the same color of square. This is a well known piece from medieval Muslim great Chess like Tamerlane's Chess which is better known as the Camel

Move of Sage

Photograph of the Sages

Rules

  1. Pawns have an initial two-step move option and are subject to en passant capture.
  2. Castling is not possible.
  3.  
  4. Other rules are as in Orthodox Chess.

 

Le Roque : Le Roi se déplace de deux ou de trois cases, d'un côté ou de l'autre, en gardant la tour sur son côté opposé, comme sur le jeu d'échecs classique.  Nous avons donc quatre possibilités de roque différentes

 

The goal is to checkmate the opposing King.

White starts to play.

Initial Pawn move: Pawns which have not moved yet, may move one, two, or three squares providing that crossed and arrival squares are free. 

En Passant capture: Any time a Pawn takes a double or triple step and passes through the capture square of an opposing Pawn, that Pawn may capture the opposing piece as if it had only moved one square. This en passant capture must be made in the immediate move following the double or triple step. 

Pawn Promotion: A Pawn reaching the last rank (10th) of the board is immediately replaced by a piece: Queen, Bishop, Sage, Knight or Rook. A Pawn can promote only to a friendly piece that has been captured, and for which it is exchanged. If no friendly piece has been captured, then a Pawn may not move beyond the 9th rank. An imobile Pawn on the 9th rank can still give check.

Castling: The King moves 2 or 3 squares toward one of the Rook, and 

End Of Game: The end-of-game rules, checkmate, stalemate, etc., are identical to standard chess.

 

 

 

 

Notes

Legacy:

Devingt Chess belongs to the rich category of chessvariants which add a pair of (3,1) leapers to the standard chess set. Pritchard's encyclopedia (The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants, John Beasley publishing, 2007) describes "Dreadnought Chess" (Max Rieck, 1929) where this piece is a Dreadnought, position not given, on a 10x10 board; "Mexican Chess" (Prince Joli Kansil, 1965) where the (3,1) leaper is a Conquistador placed between Knight and Bishop, also on a 10x10 board. Also "Braithwaite's Game" (1976) where the extra piece is ambiguously called a Dame (name of the Queen in French) and placed between Knight and Bishop over a 10x8 board.

The closed invention is certainly the one proposed by Stanislaw Hofmokl-Ostrowski, a Polish lawyer in 1955, who called his game "Mephisto". The board was also the decimal 10x10 squares board and the (3,1) leaper was a Devil placed close the royal couple, as for Devingt Chess. The detailed rules like the initial Pawns' move, Pawns' promotion, castling, are not known.

It is also worth to mention Giraffe Chess which is endeavouring some success in India since 2019 with the creation of an International Federation and the organization of championships. For this game, the (3,1) leapers are called Giraffes instead of Camels, and they start on two extra-squares that are placed behind the first row of each player. Ending rules are quite different than both standard chess and Devingt chess.

Remarks:

It has been remarked that the Pawns on c1 and e1 are not protected on the initial array. This is considered as a minor issue by the inventor.

The inventor of Devingt Chess can be contacted at the following address:

Léopold de Labrousse

13 rue Faidherbe

33110 Le Bouscat, France

tél : +33 (0)7 80 39 94 13

Website: art-et-action.fr

Devingt Chess at play


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Author: Jean-Louis Cazaux. Inventor: Leopold de Labrousse.

Last revised by Jean-Louis Cazaux.


Web page created: 2021-08-27. Web page last updated: 2021-09-24

Revisions of MSdevingt-chess