Courier Chess

Alternate Names

The Courier Game

No. of Players

Two

Equipment

The Courier Chess board is a 12x8 checkered rectangle of 96 square cells with a white cell at top left and bottom right.

History

The Chess Players by Lucas van Leyden (c. 1510) depicts people playing Courier Chess.

Courier chess is mentioned in two different German poems dating to 1202 CE and 1337 CE, but its first detailed description comes from Das Schach oder König-Spiel (Chess or the King's Game), by Gustavo Selenko (aka Duke Augustus II of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel or Gustavus Selenus) of Leipzig in 1616 (or 1617). Selenko says that the game is played in neighboring states but is particularly associated with the village of Ströbeck, (now a suburb of Halberstadt, about half-way between Leipzig and Hannover) whose inhabitants were famed Chess-players. In 1821 H. G. Albers reported that Courier Chess was still played in Ströbeck but was no longer being played in 1831. In 1883, a local chess club revived it and Ströbeck is today home to an international annual chess tournament and chess museum.

Objective

Play

Strategy

Variations

Sources

1. Parlett, David. The Oxford History of Board Games. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999.