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Courier Chess (or the Courier Game) is a strategy board game in the chess family. The original form probably originated in the 12th century and is known to have been played for at least six hundred years. The game was subsequently replaced by a more modern form. It pioneered the modern chess bishop (called the "courier"), and probably played a part in evolving modern chess out of Medieval Chess. ==Rules== Courier Chess is played on a board of eight ranks by twelve files. Literary and artistic evidence indicate that the board was checkered from the beginning, but that there was no consistency as to which squares were dark. The more frequent practice seems to be that the square at each player's lower-right is white.〔See ''The Chess Variant Pages'' website http://www.chessvariants.org/historic.dir/courier.html. Murray 1913, p. 392 (citing Selenus, Gustavus, ''Schach- oder Königs-Spiel'', Leipzig, 1616) gives the contrary rule.〕 The winning objective is the same as modern chess – to checkmate the enemy king. The pieces are as follows: * The kings start on squares of their own colour, at f1 and f8. The same as in modern chess, a king moves one step in any direction, and a player may not place his own king in check. There is no castling. * Next to the king, on e1 and e8, stands the ''Rath'' or ''Mann'' (or counsellor or henchman), which moves the same as the king, but may be placed or left ''en prise'' (attacked by an enemy piece). * On the other central file, at g1 and g8, stands the queen, who has the move of the fers (or firzan): one step diagonally in any direction. * On the queen's other side, at h1 and h8, stands a piece known as the ''Schleich'' (or sneak, smuggler, spy, or fool) or ''Trülle'' (trull), sometimes depicted as a jester, moving one step orthogonally along a rank or file. * At d1, i1, d8, and i8 stands the piece that gave the game its name: the ''Currier'' (courier) or ''Läufer'', the runner. It moves the same as the modern chess bishop, any number of steps diagonally. * Next, at c1, j1, c8, and j8, stands the ''Bischof'' or bishop (or "old man" or archer). It moves as the alfil (or fil), two squares diagonally, leaping the first square. * At b1, k1, b8, and k8 stands the knight, and in the corners the rook.〔Bell 1960, 1979, p. 62〕 They move the same as their modern chess counterparts. * The second rank for each player is filled with pawns, which, like modern chess pawns, move one step straight forward and capture one step diagonally forward. There is no initial two-step option. The original rule for pawn promotion is unknown. The standard medieval rule was that a pawn reaching the farthest rank was promoted at once to queen (fers).〔Bell 1960, 1979, p. 63〕 At the start of the game each player must move his rook pawns, his queen pawn, and his queen two squares forward (see top diagram). Such a two-square leap along a file was called a ''Freudensprung''—English: "joy-leap".〔Murray 1913, p. 438〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Courier chess」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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