Raumschach (German for “Space Chess”) is a game of three-dimensional chess by Ferdinand Maack (1861–1930). It is the first 3D variant of chess with complete rules that are extant.
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 15 seconds or more per move. RSM (Raumschachmeister) — iterative deepening to 5 plies; may think for 20 seconds or more per move. GRSM (Großraumschachmeister) — iterative deepening to 6 plies; may think for 40 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. Unicorn () — moves through corners of a cube. Queen () — moves as a Rook, Bishop, or Unicorn. 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. Pawn () — moves 1 step to advance through a face toward its promotion rank, which is level E rank 5 (White) or level A rank 1 (Black). Thus a White Pawn at Cc3 has 2 possible moves: forward (Cc4) or upward (Dc3). Or, each Pawn moves 1 step to capture through an edge toward its promotion rank. Thus a White Pawn at Cc3 has 5 possible captures: Cb4, Cd4, Db3, Dc4, Dd3.
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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 🨢 = Unicorn ♕︎ = Queen ♔︎ = King ♘︎ = Knight ♙︎ = Pawn Levels: A (bottom, White home) through E (top, Black home) Example: The Knight on level A, file b, rank 1 moves to level B, file c, rank 3. ♘︎Ab1–Bc3 Capture: Replace – with × when a piece is captured. e.g. ♖︎Aa1×Ba1 Promotion: Append =♕︎ when a Pawn is promoted. e.g. ♙︎Ea4–Ea5=♕︎ Check: Append † when the King is in check. e.g. ♕︎Bc1–Cc4† Boardmate: Append †† when the King is in check and mated on its current level, but may flee to an adjacent level. e.g. ♕︎Cc3–Dc3†† 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. ♕︎Bc2–Dc4††† 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. ♘︎Ab1–Bc3 ♘︎Eb5–Dd3
Full move list:
Downloads a .rgn file you can save, share, or submit to the IRF.