Isn’t it interesting that you are allowed to make two moves per turn. Like in our Childhood days, we used to feel so lucky and immensely happy, if we were allowed to make two moves in a game. Chess players have a chance to re-live their childhood with the Marseillais Chess variant.  Marseillais Chess is a Vintage Multi-move variant, which allows the chess players to make double moves per turn.

This Marseillais Chess variant was invented by journalist Albert Fortis who was an inhabitant of Marseilles. The Game rules were first published in the local newspaper of Marseillais ‘Le Soleil’ in 1925. The Game gained a quick following in France. There are further two versions of this game:

1. Classical Marseillais: This is the original game as invented by the French journalist. All the players made two moves per turn from the beginning of the game.
2. Balanced Marseillais: This version was introduced by Robert Bruce in 1963. Robert Bruce made a simple rule change – In the balanced version, White makes only one move on the first turn. This was introduced to avoid too much advantage for white. The moves are made in the following order:White, Black, Black, White, White, Black, Black, etc. Since then the version gained a wide acceptance.

All rules of the normal chess game apply, but with some changes –

A player can either move one piece twice or move two different pieces on his turn. Castling counts as one move.

If a player gives check on his first move in a turn, he moves only once that turn. If a player is in check, he must move out of check in the first part of the turn. Moving the King into the check on the first move of the turn and then move out of the check on the second one is not allowed.

En passant capture is allowed even if the opponent moved the corresponding pawn on the first move of the previous turn. But en passant capture must be made on the first move of the turn. When two pawns can be captured en passant after opponents move, both of them can be captured.

Some famous chess grandmasters like Alexander Alekhine, Richard Réti, Eugene Znosko-Borovsky, and André Chéron made this Marseillais chess quite popular.