Every day, Elizaveta Alieva and I play 2-3 chess games. But yesterday we decided to “diversify our leisure” and played “Maharaja”. We named this game “The Hunger Games” among ourselves. You’ll soon find out why.
The starting position is quite amusing. The black pieces are arranged in a classic manner, but there are hardly any white pieces. The whites have only one piece — the maharaja, which combines the capabilities of both a queen and a knight. At the start of the game, the maharaja is placed on any (player’s choice who plays white) square of the first rank, and black makes the first move in the game, with players taking turns thereafter.
Pawn promotions are forbidden. Whites win by checkmating the black king (thanks to its power, the maharaja can checkmate on its own, without needing other pieces). Blacks win by capturing the maharaja.
The game has a winning strategy for black, but it’s not so easy to figure out.
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 