An ancient Burmese chess variant where you secretly arrange your own army before a single move is made.
Sittuyin is played on an 8x8 board and opens with a signature deployment phase: you place each of your pieces anywhere in your own half before regular play begins. After both armies are set, you move and capture toward one goal — trapping the enemy general in checkmate.
Sittuyin is the traditional chess of Myanmar, one more branch of the ancient family that began with India's chaturanga. Its very name looks back to those roots: it comes from a term meaning the “representation of the four arms of an army” — the same four divisions of foot, horse, elephant and chariot that gave chaturanga its name.
Like Thai makruk and the medieval shatranj, Sittuyin kept the old, short-stepping pieces. The counsellor — the Sit-ke — creeps one square diagonally, and the elephant — the Sin — moves one square diagonally or one straight forward, so games turn on patient maneuvering rather than long-range power.
What makes Sittuyin unique is how a game begins. The pawns are laid out along fixed diagonal lines, and then, behind them, each player arranges all their remaining pieces however they wish — there is no single fixed starting position, so the battle is half-decided before the first move is made. It is a game of preparation as much as of play.
Long played across Myanmar, Sittuyin survives as a distinctive regional chess with its own devotees. This is a free browser version of that old and unusual game.
Sittuyin is a centuries-old strategy game from Myanmar in the wider family of historical chess variants. This is an original, free browser version with an adjustable computer opponent (easy, medium, hard) plus pass-and-play and online options.