Zuse Chess

Berlin, 1941. Play Against History.

What You're Playing

Konrad Zuse's 1941 chess algorithm. Building on the pioneering work of Rojas et al. (1998) who first implemented it in Java, we've made it playable in your browser. The movement functions, board representation, and minimax search: all from Zuse's original manuscripts.

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Status

White to move

Move History

Game start

From The Manuscript: Movement Functions

SOURCE: [ZIA-0367], page 10

S (Springer/Knight): dx=1,dy=2 OR dx=2,dy=1
T (Turm/Rook): dx=0 OR dy=0
L (Laeufer/Bishop): |dx| = |dy|
D (Dame/Queen): Rook OR Bishop movement
K (Koenig/King): |dx| <= 1 AND |dy| <= 1
B (Bauer/Pawn): dx=0, dy=1 (forward) OR dx=1, dy=1 (capture)

Authenticity Notes

VERIFIED from manuscripts: All 6 piece movement functions (page 10), minimax game tree structure, G0/G1/G2 game states.

NOT in manuscripts: Pawn double-move, castling, en passant, pawn promotion, piece point values, alpha-beta pruning (1958).

Pawns move ONE square only, exactly as Zuse wrote it. See DEVIATIONS.md for full documentation.

View Source on GitHub