---
title: "Tamerlane Board"
url: "https://aigamehub.app/en/games/tamerlane-board-eb6ce8"
source: "https://github.com/pisan-labs/tamerlane-board"
source_type: "github"
play_url: "https://tamerlane-board.pisan.me"
platform: "unknown"
login_required: false
pricing: "free"
origin: "original"
ai_tools: ["Claude Code"]
game_languages: ["en"]
author: "pisan-labs"
author_handle: "pisan-labs"
category: "Puzzle"
categories: ["puzzle", "simulation"]
tags: ["betza-notation", "board-game", "browser-game", "chess", "fairy-chess", "tamerlane-chess"]
added: "2026-11-07T02:39:26.462Z"
updated: "2026-11-07T02:39:26.463Z"
locale: "en"
content_locale: "en"
---

# Tamerlane Board

A browser-playable implementation of Tamerlane chess, the 14th-century 11×10 variant, with an engine opponent and a piece-design lab.

## Description

Play Timur's chess on an uncheckered 11×10 board with citadels, either against a small engine, both sides yourself, or engine-vs-engine. A piece lab lets you define pieces with Betza-style notation, see their reach and estimated value, test balance, and share a link. The site also includes simplified classic chess and notation/rules references.

## Original post

Play Timur's chess, the 14th-century 11x10 variant with giraffes, war engines and citadels, against a small engine, or invent a piece in one line of Betza-style notation, see its reach, and test whether it is too strong. Built with Claude Code.

Topics: betza-notation, board-game, chess, chess-engine, chess-variants, claude-code, fairy-chess, game, tamerlane-chess, typescript

# Tamerlane Board Timur's chess (Tamerlane chess), the fourteenth-century variant with giraffes, war engines and citadels, playable in the browser against a small engine. Every piece, the historical ones included, is one line of a Betza-like movement notation, so the move generator, the highlight overlay and the engine read the same definitions. A piece lab lets you write a new piece, watch where it reaches, drop it into Timur or classic chess and play it, or have the engine play itself to see whether the piece is too strong. Live: [tamerlane-board.pisan.me](https://tamerlane-board.pisan.me) ![In the piece lab, the giraffe's F>R{3,} reach animates outward on the 11x10 board, then typing the cannon notation mR cpR and placing two enemy blockers shows it capturing by hopping over one](demo.gif) Built from idea 2026-10-15 n1 in [`pisanuw/daily-project-ideas`](https://github.com/pisanuw/daily-project-ideas), prompted by a Show HN post about Timur's chess. The idea's optional Claude API step (turning plain English into notation) is left out: there is no backend, and the lab offers clickable examples and a syntax table instead. ![Tamerlane Board: the 11x10 Timur board with both citadels, a white camel selected and its five reachable squares marked](desktop.png) ## The four tabs **Play.** Timur chess on its uncheckered 11×10 board, with each player's citadel sticking out beside their second rank. Play White or Black against the engine, both sides yourself, or watch the engine play itself. The engine gets 0.3 to 6 seconds a move. Click a piece to see its legal moves, its notation, its estimated value and a short history note. The game list also offers simplified classic chess and the current lab variant. **Piece lab.** Type a name, a one- or two-character symbol and a notation such as `F>R{3,}` (the giraffe) or `mR cpR` (a xiangqi cannon). The board shows every square the piece reaches, animated outward by distance, and a board tool places friendly or enemy blockers so you can check lame leaps, must-jump moves and hoppers. Readouts give the average reach on an empty board, a rough value in pawns, and how that compares with the piece it would replace. Then: - **Play it against the engine** swaps it in for both sides. - **Balance test** plays six fast engine-vs-engine games with your piece on one side only, alternating colours, and reports the points it scored. - **Copy share link** puts the whole spec in the URL (`#lab=…`; `#play=…` opens straight into a game). **The pieces.** One card per historical piece: its reach from the centre of an empty board, its notation, its value estimate and a note on where it came from (the ferz that became the queen, the alfil that became the bishop, the dabbaba's name surviving as the fairy D leap). **Notation & rules.** The full notation syntax and the rules as implemented. ## The notation A small dialect of Betza's funny notation: | Write | Meaning | |---|---| | `W F D N A H C Z G` | Leaps (1,0) (1,1) (2,0) (2,1) (2,2) (