Maharajah and the Sepoys
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Maharajah and the Sepoys, originally called Shatranj Diwana Shah, is a popular chess variant with different armies for white and black. It was first played in the 1800s in India.
Black has a full, standard chess army ("sepoys") in the usual position. White is limited to a single piece, the maharajah, which can move as either a queen or as a knight on White's turn. Black's goal is to checkmate the maharajah, while white's is to checkmate black's king. There is no pawn promotion or castling.
The asymmetry of the game pits movement flexibility and agility against greater force in numbers. By perfect play black always wins in this game, at least on an 8x8 board. According to Hans Bodlaender, "A carefully playing black player should be able to win. However, this is not always easy, and in many cases, when the white `Maharaja' breaks though the lines of black, he has good chances to win."
The general winning method is for black to advance his pieces in such a way that no piece is ever a legal target for capture and no opportunity to check the king is given. Once the Maharaja is boxed into a sufficiently small area, a win is then forced rapidly.
[edit] External links
- The Maharaja and the Sepoys by Hans L. Bodlaender.
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