How to Play Ancient Chess – Shatranj

How to play shatranj, the ancient form of chess, played by Persians, Arabs and Europeans, before the advent of modern international chess.

161 Comments

  1. In Afghanistan and Iran chess is still calling as Shatraj…
    And there are elephants and a counselor, but with modern laws of course.

  2. Hi, where I can buy a Chess Set like yours?

  3. i’m looking for arab, indian and persian chess sets. i’m learning persian shatranj rules, but i like international chess rules with abstract pieces

  4. hi. I realize your video is a decade old but, I see you were active a little under a year ago, on this video. I am curious. I read that Sultan Khan had learned Indian chess before he had ever learned our version of chess and, had become the best player in his region, in his youth. Is Shatranj the form of chess this "Indian chess" is refering to, or is there another form of chess known as Indian chess? Do you happen to know?

  5. I was very curious about this, Thanks even if its 10 years old

  6. The elephant is like a really weird knight bishop cross.

  7. I'm an Arab, I don't know if this gonna help or not but we call chess "شطرنج" which is pronounced extremely similar to Shatranj with the exception of the letter T, we pronounce it as ط a letter in Arabic that to my knowledge doesn't have an equivalent in English.

    The names of the chess pieces are different as well but they all move the same way, and I will list them right now:

    1- King is King, no difference here.
    2- Queen is Minister – الوزير
    3- Bishop – Elephant – الفيل
    4- Rook – Castle – القلعة
    5- Knight – Horse – الحصان
    6- Pawn – Soldier – الجندي

    What's interesting is we share the names with the ancient chess but with the same rules as modern chess. Nearly all of the names are different from what they are in English.

    Great video.

  8. i do not think it makes sense for Elephant to be so weak.. as you said. Elephant should be strong.. i think it ruins the game with the rules you presented….

  9. Shataranj is the name of current chess in Arabic

  10. One thing I can't understand is that why you explained playing chess of India in English instead of Hindi

  11. Biging in chess is india its call chathurang

  12. Thank you very much i was searching for the rules of ancient chess

  13. Also shatranj in arabic meaning chess ( شطرنج )

  14. Nobody talked about where did it came from ?!

  15. At the end India comes and we found that every thing is originated from India.
    Vow.

  16. How to set up your shatranj pieces correctly? king is at left hand? or right hand o.O

  17. You mentioned that instead of a "chariot", some regions used a "boat". I know the Indian game Chaturaji uses a boat. Do you know what the boat playing piece traditionally looked like?

  18. There is no reason for a woman to be on a battlefield now. If she gets hurt every man in her platoon will get himself killed trying to save her.

  19. In Arabic we actually call normal chess shatranj

  20. I usually don't know that kings rides on elephants I'm yihao

  21. And the it is said colonialism brought patriarchy

  22. We use names of this pieces for normal(international) chess in Turkey. And call the game "Satranç".

  23. Looks like customized chocolate pieces..hehe..nice video mate

  24. dja know where to buy that or other kind of indian peacea?

  25. *correction its origin is from India. From India it went to persia and then to europe

  26. Now they have put cross on king's head

    Vatican playing hard

  27. It's still challed "Shatranj" in arabic and we still use the names as "elephant" for the bishop and "minister" for the queen

  28. Yes, shatranj(now known as chess)was invented in india in 8th century, it was not a game but a mode to make strategies in real life wars so it was different then it passed to arabs then medieval and ways of moving and strategies keep changing as per advancements in weapons

  29. It might look like Chess, but the units are closer to Xiangqi.

  30. ሞዓ:አንበሳ:ዘእምነገደ:ይሁዳ says:

    I actually know a variation of this chess called senterej or ethiopian chess
    It's main difference is that when the game starts there's a phase called mobilisation in which the players can move a peice or pawn wherever they liked without waiting turns (respecting the movement rules of the pieces of course ). The mobilisation phase ends when a peice is captured.
    The other difference is when a player only has a king left on the board it's a draw. And if a player has a king and one other peice the checkmate must be delivered before that one peice makes 7 moves or else it's a draw.
    There are also 2 types of checkmates called "honorable " and "dishonourable ". An honourable checkmate is a checkmate made by a counselor or an elephant. A dishonorable checkmate is when u checkmate with a rook or a knight.

  31. What the fuck do you mean by "some of the uncivilized world" ?

  32. After knight and elephant development, king moves one step forward, chariot is to moved out manually, then king plays the knight move to castle.

  33. Is it know what the thought process was behind how each piece moved when the first version of chess was invented?

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