1. The game

Minnaar Chess is an original strategy game inspired by chess, with its own rules, objectives and philosophical meaning. Sixteen allied Sovereigns face sixteen allied Establishment pieces on an ordinary eight-by-eight board. It is one game with one set of rules, whether it is played on a screen or at a table.

Every Individual Is Sovereign. The Establishment Seeks to Divide. The Sovereigns Choose to Unite.

• The Sovereign Alliance wins by Liberation: capturing all 16 Establishment pieces.
• The Establishment wins by Divide and Conquer: capturing all eight Sovereigns of either originating group.
• If neither happens, the battle ends undecided: THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES.

2. The two sides

There are sixteen Sovereigns and sixteen Establishment pieces.

• The Sovereign Alliance: sixteen Sovereigns in two groups of eight. The Southern Sovereigns carry a small white dot and begin on rank 1. The Northern Sovereigns are plain and begin on rank 8. The dot says only where a group began, not whose side it is on: all sixteen Sovereigns are allies, they win together or not at all, and all have identical powers.
• The Establishment: sixteen traditional chess pieces, eight White and eight Black. Both colours belong to one allied faction. White and Black never capture one another.

3. The starting arrangement

The Establishment stands in the centre of the board with its two armies back to back, each facing outward toward the Sovereigns on its own side. The Sovereigns surround the Establishment from opposite sides.

• Rank 8: the eight Northern Sovereigns (plain).
• Rank 5: the eight White Establishment pieces.
• Rank 4: the eight Black Establishment pieces.
• Rank 1: the eight Southern Sovereigns (with the small white dot).
• Ranks 2, 3, 6 and 7 begin empty.
• Each Establishment army stands in the traditional back-rank order, from the a-file to the h-file: Rook, Knight, Bishop, Queen, King, Bishop, Knight, Rook. The Queens stand on the d-file and the Kings on the e-file.

4. How a Sovereign moves

Each Sovereign moves and captures like a chess Queen, but no more than four squares in one move. All sixteen Sovereigns have exactly the same powers.

• A Sovereign moves along a rank, a file or a diagonal, up to four squares, over empty squares.
• The same limit applies to moving and to capturing. Count the squares the Sovereign passes over and the one it lands on, from the square it stands on; over several turns it may go anywhere.
• A Sovereign cannot jump over pieces, and cannot capture another Sovereign or share its square.
• A Sovereign captures Establishment pieces of either colour.

5. How the Establishment moves

Every Establishment piece has its full traditional chess movement and capturing powers from the very beginning of the game, including on its first turn. There is nothing to activate.

• King: one square in any direction.
• Queen: any distance along a rank, a file or a diagonal, over empty squares.
• Rook: any distance along a rank or a file, over empty squares.
• Bishop: any distance along a diagonal, over empty squares.
• Knight: the L-shaped jump (two squares one way and one at a right angle), over any pieces.
• Sliding pieces cannot move through occupied squares. Only the Knight jumps.
• White and Black Establishment pieces are allies: they cannot capture one another or move onto a square an ally occupies. They capture Sovereigns only.
• A King can be captured like any other Establishment piece. There is no check and no checkmate, and capturing a King does not end the game.
• There is no castling, no promotion and no en passant.

6. Turns

The Sovereigns move first. The four turns repeat, from the first move of the game: 1. Southern Sovereigns; 2. White Establishment; 3. Northern Sovereigns; 4. Black Establishment. One complete round is these four turns.

There are no compulsory opening moves and no preliminary turns. On its turn a group moves one of its pieces: a Sovereign group moves one of its own Sovereigns, and an Establishment army moves any one of its pieces that can move.

• A group may pass only when it has no legal move. Passing is never a choice: a group that can move must move. A forced pass counts as a turn.
• Four forced passes in a row end the battle undecided: THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES.

7. Winning

There are two decisive victories. They are the same however the game is played.

• Victory by Liberation: the Sovereign Alliance wins when all 16 Establishment pieces have been captured. THE SOVEREIGN ALLIANCE PREVAILS. Liberation Achieved!
• Victory by Divide and Conquer: the Establishment wins when all eight Sovereigns of either originating group have been captured, even if the other group is untouched. THE ESTABLISHMENT PREVAILS. Divide and Conquer!

8. The Struggle Continues

Some battles reach an impasse. If 80 turns in a row pass without a capture, counting each faction's turn on its own (80 individual turns, which is 20 complete rounds of 4 turns), the battle ends undecided and no one is declared the winner: THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES. This battle has reached an impasse. Another battlefield awaits.

• Any capture, by either side, starts the count again from nothing. A capture in the middle of a round simply restarts the count at that turn.
• The count is of individual turns, not of rounds, so a battle can end in the middle of a round.
• Every turn counts, including a turn on which a group had no legal move and passed.
• Neither Liberation nor Divide and Conquer is awarded for the pieces that remain. Counting pieces never decides a battle.
• At a table, the human players may end a battle by agreement. On the website, the End Battle button ends a battle by choice. Either way the result is undecided: THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES, never a victory.
• Then NEW BATTLEFIELD: a fresh game with the same rules and the same starting arrangement.
• At a table, count the 80 turns one by one, starting again at every capture. "Counting the 80 turns at a table" in the official rules gives the exact method, and an optional marker method that always gives the same result.

9. Counting the 80 turns at a table

On the website the count is kept for you. At a table, use either of these two ways. They always give the same answer: the battle ends after exactly the same turn, wherever in a round that turn falls.

• Tally the turns. Keep a tally of the turns since the last capture. Add one at the end of every turn, including a turn on which a group had no legal move and passed. Whenever a capture is made, start the tally again from nothing; the turn on which the capture is made is not counted. When the tally reaches 80, the battle ends at once: THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES.
• Or count rounds with a marker. Keep a marker (a coin or a card) beside the faction that made the last capture, with a count of 0. At the very start of a battle the marker is beside the Black Establishment, the last faction to move in a round. Each time the faction that has the marker finishes a turn without capturing (a forced pass counts), add one to the count. When the count reaches 20, the battle ends at once. Whenever any faction makes a capture, move the marker to that faction and set the count to 0.
• Why the two agree: the four turns always come in the same order, so 80 turns after a capture it is again the turn of the faction that made it, for the 20th time. The battle therefore ends at the same point of a round as the last capture was made: at the end of a round if the last capture was the Black Establishment's, in the middle of a round if it was any other faction's. With no capture at all it ends at the end of round 20.
• Example: the Northern Sovereigns capture a piece on the third turn of round 7. The count starts from nothing with the next turn (the Black Establishment's). If nobody captures again, there are 20 turns for each faction, and the 80th turn is the Northern Sovereigns' own, the third turn of round 27: the battle ends as soon as they have moved, in the middle of that round, not at its end. With the marker: it sits beside the Northern Sovereigns, and moves up one each time they finish a turn without capturing.
• A capture on the very turn that would have completed the count is still a capture: the count starts again and the battle goes on (and a capture that wins the battle wins it).

10. Ways to play

The rules are identical in every way of playing.

• Online Solo: One human controls all 16 Sovereigns against the computer-controlled Establishment.
• Online Cooperative: Two humans on the same device cooperate against the computer: one controls the Southern Sovereigns, the other the Northern Sovereigns.
• Physical Two-Player Game: One human controls all 16 Sovereigns, and another human controls all 16 Establishment pieces.
• Physical Three-Player Game: Two humans cooperate, each controlling one originating group of eight Sovereigns, and a third human controls all 16 Establishment pieces.
• On the website the Establishment is always played by the computer.

11. Playing with an ordinary chess set, and Sovereign Medallions

No special equipment is needed. Use an ordinary chess set.

• The traditional chess pieces are the Establishment: the white pieces are the White Establishment and the black pieces the Black Establishment.
• The sixteen standard pawns are the Sovereigns. Use the pawns of one colour for the Southern group and those of the other colour for the Northern group; the colour tells only which group a pawn belongs to.
• Players may collect original Sovereign Medallions to replace their pawns: handcrafted stoneware sculptures (face medallions), eight dotted Southern Sovereigns and eight plain Northern Sovereigns. A full set of sixteen is ideal, but a single medallion or a group of eight is collectible too.
• The Sovereign Medallions belong to Minnaar Money — The Art of Freedom; the permanent Minnaar Catalogue is where to learn more.

12. For players of chess

Everything on the board moves as you already know, with these differences.

• There is no check, checkmate, castling, promotion or en passant. Kings are captured like any other piece.
• There are no pawns on the board: the pawns of an ordinary set are the Sovereigns, and they move like Queens up to four squares.
• There are four armies, not two, and the Establishment's White and Black armies are allies. The Sovereign groups move first.
• Victory is Liberation or Divide and Conquer, never checkmate.

13. The rules in brief

• 16 Sovereigns (8 Southern on rank 1, 8 Northern on rank 8) move like Queens, up to four squares, and capture Establishment pieces only.
• 16 Establishment pieces (8 White on rank 5, 8 Black on rank 4) move as in chess from the first turn and capture Sovereigns only.
• Turns: Southern Sovereigns, White Establishment, Northern Sovereigns, Black Establishment; then again.
• The Alliance wins by capturing all 16 Establishment pieces. The Establishment wins by capturing all 8 Sovereigns of either group.
• 80 turns in a row without a capture: THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES.