Tawlbwrdd rules

The game in short

Eleven by eleven. Twenty-four attackers in blocks around the rim against twelve defenders and a king in the middle. The attackers move first.

Two things separate tawlbwrdd from the eleven by eleven tournament codes. The corners have no power at all — they are plain squares, open to any piece — and the king wins by reaching any square on the edge of the board rather than a corner. That gives the defenders forty escape squares instead of four, and the attackers a much harder ring to hold.

Setting up

Files a to k, ranks 1 to 11. The throne is f6. The four extreme squares a1, k1, a11 and k11 are ordinary board.

Twenty-four attackers stand as four blocks of six, two rows deep, at the middle of each side.

• South: e1, f1, g1, e2, f2, g2.
• North: e10, f10, g10, e11, f11, g11.
• West: a5, b5, a6, b6, a7, b7.
• East: j5, k5, j6, k6, j7, k7.

Twelve defenders stand in a cross around the king on the throne at f6: f4; e5, f5, g5; d6, e6, g6, h6; e7, f7, g7; f8.

Movement

Every piece slides along a rank or a file over empty squares, any distance, and stops on an empty square. No diagonals and no jumping.

The throne is the only restricted square on this board. Only the king may end a move on it; other pieces may slide straight across it once he has gone. The corners, having no special standing here, may be entered and occupied by anybody.

Capture

Custodial and active. Move a piece so that an enemy soldier stands between it and another of your pieces along a rank or a file, and that soldier is taken off. A piece that moves of its own accord into a gap between two enemies is safe. A single move may capture on more than one side.

The throne is the only hostile square in tawlbwrdd. While it stands empty it acts as one half of a capture for either side. While the king is sitting on it, it is hostile to the attackers only, so a defender may pin an attacker against the occupied throne but not the other way round. The corners are not hostile and can never help make a capture.

The king is armed and joins in captures like any other defender.

Winning

• The defenders win the moment the king reaches any square on the outside edge of the board — any square on rank 1 or rank 11, or on the a-file or the k-file, including the four extreme squares.
• The attackers win by occupying all four squares orthogonally next to the king. The empty throne may serve as one of the four; nothing else on this board can.
• A side with no legal move at the start of its turn loses.

There is no shieldwall, no edge fort and no encirclement in tawlbwrdd. With forty escape squares available, the attackers cannot afford to think in those terms anyway: their whole game is keeping an unbroken ring between the king and the rim.

Repetition and the move limit

• A player about to repeat the same position for the third time must play a different move, and loses if they will not.
• A hundred moves without progress draws the game.

Sources

Everything on this page is written from scratch. These are the works it leans on, and what each one settles.

• Robert ap Ifan, tawlbwrdd figure, 1587

  The Welsh drawing that is the only real source for this game. It settles the shape — king, ring of twelve, blocks of attackers — while the board size, the count of twenty-four attackers, the plain corners and the edge-escape goal are the standard modern settlement used here.