 Sittuyin board and starting position | |
| Years active | 8th century to present |
|---|---|
| Genres | |
| Players | 2 |
| Setup time | < 1 minute |
| Playing time | From 20 minutes to several hours |
| Chance | None |
| Skills | Strategy, tactics |
| Synonyms | Burmese chess |
Sittuyin (Burmese: စစ်တုရင်), also known as Burmese chess, is a strategy board game created in Myanmar. It is a direct offspring of the Indian game of chaturanga, which arrived in Myanmar in the 8th century thus it is part of the same family of games such as chess, and shogi. Sit is the modern Burmese word for "army" or "war"; the word sittuyin can be translated as "representation of the four characteristics of army"—chariot, elephant, cavalry and infantry.
In its native land, the game has been largely overshadowed by Western (international) chess, although it remains popular in the northwest regions.[1]
Board
The sittuyin board consists of 64 squares, 8 rows and 8 columns, without alternating colors. The board has also two diagonal lines from corner to corner, which are known as sit-ke-myin (Burmese: စစ်ကဲမျဉ်း, general's lines).
Pieces and their moves
Pieces are commonly made of wood, and sometimes of ivory. The height of the pieces varies by class. The official colors of the pieces are red and black.
Min-gyi (Burmese: မင်းကြီး, "king")
- It can move one step in any direction.
Sit-ke (Burmese: စစ်ကဲ, "general")
- It can move one step in any diagonal direction (as fers in shatranj).
Sin (Burmese: ဆင်, "elephant")
- It can move one step in any diagonal direction or one step forward (as silver general in shogi).
Myin (Burmese: မြင်း, "horse")
- It can jump two horizontal squares and one vertical square, or two vertical squares and one horizontal square, as knight in Western chess.
Yahhta (Burmese: ရထား, "chariot")
- It can move any number of free squares along four orthogonal directions.
Nè (Burmese: နယ်, "feudal lord")
- It can move one step forward but cannot retreat. It captures one diagonal step forward.
Rules
Only feudal lords (pawns) are on the board in the initial position. The game starts with the Red player (depicted here having white pieces), followed by the Black player, placing their other pieces arbitrarily on their own halves of the board (known as sit-tee or troops deployment): chariots can be put on any square on the back rank. In official tournaments, a small curtain is used on the middle of the board to prevent the players seeing each other's deployment during the sit-tee phase. One of the possible game openings is shown in the diagram.
Feudal lords promote to general when they reach diagonal lines marked on the board. The promotion is possible only if that player's general has been captured. If the player has a feudal lord on a promotion square and their general is no longer on the board, the player can (if they wish to) promote the feudal lord to general instead of making a move. A feudal lord which passes the promotion square cannot promote anymore.
The goal of the game is to khwè (checkmate) the opponent's king. Putting the opponent in stalemate is not allowed.
In the version reported in A History of Chess in 1913, a game of sittuyin had three stages:
- Eight moves each: the sit-tee stage described above, but no restriction on chariot placing; Murray did not mention a curtain. Also, a player could put a piece where one of their pawns was, and in the same move put that pawn in a free square behind their row of pawns.
- Second stage: in each move, each player moves any one of their pieces (not a pawn) to any other empty place in their own half of the board, ignoring the usual move rules. Or they can move a pawn one square forwards and this ends the second stage and the third stage starts.
- Ordinary play, obeying the rules for piece moves.
Dice rules
Anne Sunnucks writes that in some variations, three dice were thrown and each player made three moves at a time.[2]
See also
- Short assize – a type of medieval European chess
References
Bibliography
- Maung Maung Aye (1971). Sittuyin: Traditional Myanmar Chess.
- Murray, H. J. R. (1913). A History of Chess (Reissued ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-827403-3.
- Pritchard, D. B. (1994). The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. Games & Puzzles Publications. pp. 31–34. ISBN 0-9524142-0-1.
- Pritchard, D. B. (2007). Beasley, John (ed.). The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. John Beasley. pp. 266–67. ISBN 978-0-9555168-0-1.
External links
- Sittuyin by Hans L. Bodlaender, The Chess Variant Pages
- Sittuyin, the Burmese Chess by Jean-Louis Cazaux
- Burmese Traditional Chess by Dr. Peter Nicolaus, The Chess Variant Pages
- How to Play Sittuyin Ancientchess.com
- Free Sittuyin chess pieces (svg file format) github.com