A fool's mate in Capablanca's chess

In Capablanca's chess a very brief game is possible - similar to the `fool's mate' of orthodox chess, but even one move shorter. We give the fool's mate in the second setup, although it also works with the first one on the ten by ten board: From the following opening setup:

White:
King f1; Queen e1; Archbishop d1; Chancellor g1; Rook a1, j1; Knight b1, i1; Bishop c1, h1; Pawn a2, b2, c2, d2, e2, f2, g2, h2, i2, j2.

Black:
King f8; Queen e8; Archbishop d8; Chancellor g8; Rook a8, j8; Knight b8, i8; Bishop c8, h8; Pawn a7, b7, c7, d7, e7, f7, g7, h7, i7, j7.

Recall that a chancellor moves like rook or knight, and an archbishop moves like bishop or knight.

Moves of the fool's mate

1. C g1 - h2, A d8 - e6.
2. C h2 x h7, mate.

David Paulowich's advice for Capablanca's chess is: Watch out for those undefended pawns!

Below, you see the fool's mate in animation.

WWW page made by Hans Bodlaender, based upon information provided by David Paulowich. The animated gif was made with Animagic - a shareware program to make animated gifs.

WWW page created: November 5, 1997. Last modified: February 19, 1999.

Comments

A fool's mate in Capablanca's chess. Example of fool's mate when playing Capablanca's chess.

Matthew Doucette wrote on 2014-10-31 UTC

P.S. I logged in to comment using Twitter and OpenID (?) and the link it produces has rotted. Click my name "Matthew Doucette" to the left to see. 

P.S.S. Love your site!

P.S.S.S. Due to the error noted above, perhaps, I cannot edit my comments. So I had to post all of this as a new comment. It was asking me for a password to submit my edits, when there is no password (as I am logged in via Twitter).

It could be noted that Capablanca noticed white could threaten mate in one move, using the knight/rook combo piece (the chancellor) and then changed the opening positions of the game to fix this oversight.

Maybe make a note of the final version of the game as you do on other pages, so no one reading only a single page is mislead.

bacon wrote on 2009-08-03 UTC

http://www.ehow.com/how_5198281_do-fools-mate.html

George Duke wrote on 2008-01-25 UTCGood ★★★★

This should be Chancellor g1-h3. Here is the shortest Fool's Mate possible, normally, with more established pieces on boards 8x8 and larger using symmetrical arrays. Its existence is reason enough for dissenting from Capablanca's array. Smaller boards especially can rather easily have even mate in one with initial set-up unsymmetrical between the sides. On 8x10 like this, or 9x10, 10x10, long-distance leaper like Flamingo(2,7), Ibis(2,9), and Namel(2,8) can readily be arranged for Mate by Black on the first move, if White does not take remedial action in the very opening move. That takes also the arrays so set up in different line-ups for Black and White (although their over-all pieces can be exactly the same); otherwise, White could mate in opening move -- making play pointless to some aesthetics. My series in 2007 under 'ProblemThemes', carrying the idea a step further, shows 30-some initial set-ups where there are, in fact, no legal first moves at all for White, required to start. Those become opportunities to admire many exotic pieces without actually playing them. In those 30 set-ups (ProblemThemes One and Two), any move, even of Pawn, would cause check (illegal); so no moving of piece or Pawn can be possible -- regardless who goes first in the 'ProblemThemesTwo' instances. Stalemate all around. The methods use perfectly-recognizable, well-defined pieces from the likes of Berolina Pawns to Flamingo, Elbow Rook, multi-path Sissa, Betza Rhino, and bifurcation Venator.

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