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Check out Janggi (Korean Chess), our featured variant for December, 2024.
Check out Janggi (Korean Chess), our featured variant for December, 2024.
It took me 5 years to understand the hidden message in your 2011 posting: "In makruk pursue and escape very important..." [sic]
... but I got it!
= = =
Fast forward to 2016....
Just out of curiosity, very recently I started to play the Viking game Hnefatafl, a pursuit and escape game that more closely resembles Latrunculi (because of the custodial capturing method) than Chess.
What can be initially striking to chess players is that in Hnetafal, players have different size armies and goals to end the game. One side (the attacker with the superior army) aims to pursue and capture the opponent's King, while the other side (the defender) aims for his/her King to escape capture by reaching to the edge of the board or a to corner square to win and end the pursuit.
Then I read Sittipon's (who seems to be Thai) posting again, and again: "In Makruk, pursuit and escape is very important..."
and (thanks to the different goals feature of Hnefatafl) I got an aha moment as it regards to the Thai Draw Counting Rules.
Some chess players, who are more used to a simpler 50-move draw rule, think: "Why complicate ourselves with the nuissances of the complicated Thai draw counting rules? They don't make sense anyway."
While other chess players (including myself) just don't question the rules and take them for granted: "These rules are there for a reason and they are part of the game, period."
But what is the reason?
Sittipon's hidden message gives us a clue to theorize the reason to be of the Thai Draw Counting Rules.
Makruk is a war game, in which during the opening and the midgame, both players have similar or equal armies, and their objective is clear: to destroy their opponent's army and checkmate the enemy King.
However later on (in the end game), the game morphs from a war game to a pursuit and escape game, in which one player (thanks to his/her superior material advantage) becomes the attacker and still aims to pursue and capture (checkmate) the opponent's King; while the other player (the defender) now aims to escape capture and (thanks to the draw counting rules) earn a draw to end the pursuit.
Hnetafal helped me to connect the dots potentially explaining the transformation of Makruk from a war game to a pursuit and escape game.
= = =
Thanks again Sittipon! The reason of the Thai Draw Counting Rules is now perfectly clear (at least to me)!