Old chess rules

I've heard once that earlier chess rules were that the queen moved just one square, like the king, and that there was no en-passant/pawns walking two squares in the first move.

But all the oldest games I've seen, from the "romantic times" of chess and all that, with more crazy Tal-style tactic sequences and insane sacrifices, have already the "new" rules.

Are there sites where you play by the old rules? Are there interesting games recorded from that time, hopefully with someone commenting on youtube or sites like this?

I think it would be quite interesting to see games with those rules, combined with modern knowledge/theory.

1st paragraph: yes;  2nd par.: yes, roughly since 1475 our today's rules and laws; 3rd par.: no, nobody plays by the "old" rules and laws, and yes, there are "old" games recorded, give me some time to search for them !

In my opinion not that "interesting" to see those games, and you cannot compare with modern ones.

Apart from rules and laws, they once played with handicaps, as material odds, e.g. pawn and move or even pawn and two moves, to compensate for the difference in skill between the two players. All this changes the nature of the game and is not done anymore.

The most interesting aspect I think would  be a much weaker queen. It must result in a dramatically different game. These days when one promotes a pawn barely makes sense to have rook and bishop (if it even is an option) as options, only knight, and only like three times in a lifetime for someone who plays chess for a living.

Instead of a weapon of mass destruction, the queen would more likely be just like the king's "body guard", I guess. And active more or less in the same manner as an active king, in the endgame.

But the game would surely be quite slower. It could be curious perhaps to watch engines "playing" with a second or so per move.

You cannot change any rule and law by yourself, now, so forget thinking about a weaker queen and/or changing the promotion rules.   As I said, the nature of the game should not be changed.  

Back to post 1, par. 4 : in The Even More Complete Chess Addict, by Fox and James, you will find on pages 203 and 204 two games of Shatranj, dating from the tenth century.

In the same book two examples of giving odds, on page 44 the queens rook is taken off the board an on page 54 a pawn and two moves.

Have a look on the forum called "What a 8th century game would look like" here on chess.com ( or ... an 8th ... ) and you get a lot of answers on your questions !  Regards, RomyGer. 

The 'old game' you refer to was ancient Arabic/Persian Chess, called Shatranj. It did not only have a weaker Queen (called General), but a still weaker Bishop (called Elephant, and only jumping 2 diagonally). And it was called 'Shatranj'.

It can still be played on ICC, as one of the variants they offer.

It is supported by WinBoard/XBoard, and there are several engines that can play it. (e.g. Fairy-Max (ShaMax) and Pulsar come with the standard WinBoard install).

It is an excessively boring game to watch, and the draw rate is ~70%. Problem is not just that the Queen is weak, but that it has no promotion choice: you must promote to the weak Queen, and Rooks or Knights are not an option. You can win by baring the opponent King, though, so that you don't have to worry about checkmating with K+N vs K, as you have already won in that case.

Note that in Chess the modern Queen was introduced quite late, and that there has been a significant period between Shatranj and modern Chess where the Queen had the same moves as a King. The modern Queen was not a western invention, though. It already occurs in the Japanese Chess variant Chu Shogi, (which was played already in the 13th century, on a 12x12 board), where it is called 'Free King', and appears there together with Rooks and Bishops (called Flying Chariots and Angle Movers; Rook of course is Persian for 'Chariot'). Chu Shogi is still reasonably popular in Japan, and people play it on 81dojo.com .

So western chess is like the MMA of checkerboard games, huh? I didn't know that.

I haven't ever seen a game of shogi, but I imagine it must also have a drasticly different dynamic as the "pawns" take forward, rather than in diagonals, or so I've heard/read. So instead of the clash from either side creating a barrier/closed game, it probably is just the initial step for the open game "stage", that I guess should be rather frequent/unavoidable. 

It surely looks like it would be rather boring, specially if you're reading it rather than watching a fast video/animation (which is more what I had in mind). It makes me wonder how it was ever played and why they even bothered recording the whole match.

And of course I can't change anything, except on informal OTB matches or game engines, if I could code. It's not like the chess police would come and arrest me or ban me from ever playing chess with standard rules. And actually even here one can create custom positions to start with, at least on the correspondence mode, so there's one of the sort of tweaks of the Morphy/romantic era available. Probably not many people do that thouth, to play against someone of a more drasticly different rating, trading for pieces or position. 

I thought the "old chess" didn't have a different name, or at least not the immediate predecessor (I thought that there were more "intermediate" stages, one with the current pieces but only this rule differing, a weak queen, still inheriting the moves of the "vizier"). I'll see if there's something on youtube searching for "shatranj" and arabic or persian chess, thanks.

Shogi (not to be confused with Shatranj, the old Persian game where Pawns capture as they still do in Chess today) is Japanese Chess, and indeed has Pawns that capture and move straight ahead. Shogi has also evolved over the ages, and modern Shogi (played on a 9x9 board) is an extremely exciting game, compared to which orthodox Chess is rather boring. The reason is that captured pieces can be dropped back on the board. So it is more like Crazyhouse than Chess. (Actually Crazyhouse was inspired by Shogi.)

So....Nobody actually posted a recording of an old game. I am really interested to watch the games if there is any.    

Going to start an old chess club.

Always thought the nuclear queen need a bit toning down.

You had to roll a die 🎲 to decide who moves