Raumschach SIII4 A is the congested 4×4×4 arrangement of Space Chess by Ferdinand Maack (1861–1930), from his 1913 Rules of Raumschach. It differs from SIII4 B only in adding four extra pawns per side on the outermost boards, filling the space considerably. Maack noted the terrain “becomes too congested” and preferred SIII4 B for regular play.
Game type:Friendly
FriendlyClassicalRapidBlitz
No time control. Play at your own pace.
Play as:
AI strength:Average
BeginnerWeakAverageStrongRSMGRSM
Show AI strength descriptions ▾
Beginner — plays randomly from legal moves; good for learning the pieces and rules. Weak — iterative deepening to 2 plies; plays reasonable moves instantly. Average — iterative deepening to 3 plies; a genuine challenge, may think for 1 second or more per move. Strong — iterative deepening to 4 plies; may think for 2 seconds or more per move. RSM (Raumschachmeister) — iterative deepening to 5 plies; may think for 5 seconds or more per move. GRSM (Großraumschachmeister) — iterative deepening to 6 plies; may think for 10 seconds or more per move.
Raumfischer is the name of this Raumschach engine, which is designed to imitate the playing style of Bobby Fischer, but in the context of Raumschach. For details on this algorithm, please see its documentation.
Show piece movement rules ▾
Movement is explained best in relation to a cube. A cube has 6 faces, 12 edges, and 8 corners.
Rook () — moves through faces of a cube. Bishop () — moves through edges of a cube. Queen () — moves as a Rook, Bishop, or through corners of a cube (no Unicorn piece exists in SIII4). King () — moves as a Queen but only 1 step. Knight () — moves 2 steps through a face, then 1 step through an orthogonal face, leaping from its origin to its destination, but only on the same level. When changing levels, it moves through the corners of a cube. Pawn () — moves 1 step through a face toward its promotion rank (level δ rank 4 for White, level α rank 1 for Black), or 1 step through a face by changing level (up or down). Thus a White Pawn at γc2 has 3 possible moves: forward (γc3), up (δc2), or down (βc2). Or, each Pawn captures 1 step through an edge toward its promotion rank or by changing level. Thus a White Pawn at γc2 has 4 possible captures: γb3, γd3, δc3, βc3.
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Raumschach
White to move
♔︎White
90:00
Classical 90 + 30
♔︎Black
90:00
White captured:
Black captured:
Move List:How to read the move list ▾
Move notation:FigurineLevelFileRank – LevelFileRank (Maack, 1908; figurine notation) Piece figurines: ♖︎ = Rook ♗︎ = Bishop ♕︎ = Queen ♔︎ = King ♘︎ = Knight ♙︎ = Pawn Levels: α (bottom, White home) through δ (top, Black home) Example: The Knight on level α, file b, rank 1 moves to level β, file c, rank 3. ♘︎αb1–βc3 Capture: Replace – with × when a piece is captured. e.g. ♖︎αa1×βa1 Promotion: Append =♕︎ when a Pawn is promoted. e.g. ♙︎δa3–δa4=♕︎ Check: Append † when the King is in check. e.g. ♕︎βc1–γc3† Boardmate: Append †† when the King is in check and mated on its current level, but may flee to an adjacent level. e.g. ♕︎γc2–δc2†† Spacemate: Append ††† when the King is in check and mated on its current level, and cannot flee to an adjacent level; the game is over. e.g. ♕︎βc2–δc3††† Stalemate: Append ≡ when there are no legal moves for any piece and the King is not in check; the game is drawn. (Our addition; Maack did not symbolize stalemate.) Move numbers count White’s move first (figurines in white), then Black’s (figurines in purple); e.g. 1. ♘︎αb1–βc3 ♘︎δb4–γd3
Full move list:
Downloads a .rgn file you can save, share, or submit to the IRF.