Rules Chess/Aces resp. Chaces®1

Board: It is played on a board with 12 horizontal and 8 vertical squares which are named with the letters of A-L and the numbers 1-8. The squares are typically checkered in light and dark colors. The very left bottom square A1 is dark while the very last square to the right at the bottom L1 is light.



Goal of the game

As in usual chess it is the goal of the game to checkmate the king of the opponent by getting it to a point in the game in which the king of the opponent would get lost without any escape. The king would be beaten and there would be no escape path for the king. Before the final stroke the game ends with saying the words „check-mate“.



Playing pieces

The pieces of classical western chess are included completely. These are:




a) The Rook


The Rook, Ratha) moves as many squares as one wants in horizontal left or right direction or in vertical direction up and down. It cannot jump over other pieces.




b) The Knight


The Knight or Horse, moves one square either horizontally or vertically to change its path direction to the left or right for another square. The knight can jump over pieces in its way. Only the target field must be empty unless one wants to strike a piece of the opponent on this square.




  1. The Bishop

The Bishop, frz. Fou, ital: alfiere, also Al-Fil moves as many squares as one likes in diagonal direction to the right, left, top and bottom. It cannot jump over pieces.




  1. The Queen

The Queen combines the movements of Rook and Bishop by moving as many squares as one likes into horizontal, vertical or diagonal direction. It cannot jump over other pieces like Rook and Bishop.




e) The King


The King moves like the Queen in horizontal, vertical or diagonal direction but only one square.





f) The Pawn


The Pawn always moves one square forward in vertical direction into the direction of the opponent. At the beginning it is allowed to move the pawn by two squares at once. It cannot jump. It strikes diagonally into the direction of its usual movement direction.


Furthermore there are two other different pieces on the board:




g) The Elephant


The Elephant moves in diagonal direction up to two squares but it can jump over pieces in its way similiar to the knight.




h) The Wezir

The Wezir always moves one square into diagonal direction

The start locations of the pieces on the board


The pieces in their basic formation are located in the following manner: Alle white pieces stand within the first two rows 1 and 2 while the black pieces are located in the rows of 7 and 8. Similiar to classical chess the 12 white pawns are located in the row 2 whereas the black pawns are located in the row 7. The white main pieces are located in row 1, the black main pieces are located in row 8.

The rooks of both sides are located on the vertical column of A and L.

The knights of both sides are located on the vertical column of B and K.

The bishops of both sides are located on the vertical column of C and J.

The elephants of both sides are located on the vertical column of D and I.

The wezirs of both sides are located on the vertical column of E and H.

The queens of both sides are located on the vertical column of F.

The kings of both sides are located on the vertical column of G.


Playing the game practically

There are three possibilities to try the game:

  1. You can import the rule games, pieces and board by the full registered version of the program Zillions of Games2 by downloading the zipped files at http://www.bunkahle.com/Schach/Chess_As.zip (english: Chess,_Aces.zrf bzw. German: Chess,_As.zrf)

  2. If you rather like to play the game on a board:
    A board and pieces for this and other variants are available for sale.

  3. Try this Javascript-Demo directly from your browser (you just need to turn on Javascript in your browser, load this webpage fully again and start the game - no online connection necessary): Chess Aces / Chaces in Javascript (You rather want to play regular chess in Javascript? Follow this path...)

Origin of the game

This game is based on astrological thinking and is especially based on 8 trigrams of Chinese cosmology. More about this you can find at http://www.bunkahle.com/Schach/chess.html. It was invented by Andreas Bunkahle in 2005.

1 Schach/AS resp. Chess/Ace resp. Chess/Aces resp. Chaces are registered trademarks from Andreas Bunkahle

2 http://www.zillions-of-games.com