Lasca

Lasca

Emanuel Lasker’s column game, published in 1911 and named after him. He took draughts, shrank the board to 7×7, and made captures imprison rather than remove — so material is never destroyed, only buried.

Setup

7×7 board, play on 25 of the 49 squares. Eleven pieces per player on the three rows nearest them; the middle row is empty.

Pieces are soldiers until they reach the far rank, when they become officers.

Columns

Identical in structure to Bashni:

• A column is controlled by the player whose piece is on top, and moves according to that piece.
• A captured piece is placed below the capturing column, at the bottom.
• Only the top piece of a captured column is taken. What remains stays on the square, under new command.
• In a multiple capture, prisoners are placed at the bottom in the order taken.

Where Lasca differs from Bashni

Both games stack identically. Everything else differs, because Lasca is built on English Draughts and Bashni on Russian:

A column whose top piece is a soldier cannot capture backwards, so a player whose top man is taken cannot immediately take back — unless the piece uncovered beneath is an officer.

Capture

Compulsory. If a further capture is available with the same piece after one is made, it must also be taken — except where promotion has ended the turn.

Promotion

A soldier reaching the last row is crowned officer, and the move ends there, even if more captures appear to be available. Only the top piece of a column is crowned.

Winning

A player wins when the opponent has no legal move, has no pieces left in play, or resigns.

Attribution

Emanuel Lasker, 1911. Derived from Bashni. Public domain.