Raumschach (German for "Space Chess") is a game of three-dimensional chess by Ferdinand Maack (1861–1930). It is the first 3D variant of chess with complete rules that are extant.
Game type:Friendly
FriendlyClassicalRapidBlitz
No time control. Play at your own pace.
Play as:
AI strength:Easy
BeginnerEasyNormalHard
Show AI strength descriptions ▾
Beginner — plays randomly from legal moves; good for learning the pieces and rules. Easy — looks 2 moves ahead; plays reasonable moves instantly. Normal — looks 3 moves ahead; a genuine challenge, thinks for a second or two. Hard — looks 4 moves ahead; uses the full evaluation function; may take several seconds per move.
Maackesgeist (the “Spirit of Maack”) is the name of this Raumschach engine. It uses minimax with alpha-beta pruning and evaluates positions according to the piece value hierarchy of Vol. VI — The Piece Monographs of The Complete Raumschach Theoretical Series (Claude, 2026): Queen = 12.0 P, Rook = 5.0 P, Unicorn = 4.0 P, Bishop = Knight = 3.5 P. Positional bonuses are applied based on centrality.
Show piece movement rules ▾
Movement is explained best in relation to a cube. A cube has 6 faces, 12 edges, and 8 corners.
Rook (R; ♖︎♖︎) — moves through faces of a cube. Bishop (B; ♗︎♗︎) — moves through edges of a cube. Unicorn (U; ♘︎♘︎) — moves through corners of a cube. Queen (Q; ♕︎♕︎) — moves as a Rook, Bishop, or Unicorn. King (K; ♔︎♔︎) — moves as a Queen but only 1 step. Knight (N; ♘︎♘︎) — moves 2 steps through a face, then 1 step through an orthogonal face, leaping from its origin to its destination. Pawn (P; ♙︎♙︎) — moves 1 step to advance through a face toward its promotion rank, which is level E rank 5 (White) or level A rank 1 (Black). Thus a white pawn at Cc3 has 2 possible moves: forward (Cc4) or upward (Dc3). Or, each pawn moves 1 step to capture through an edge toward its promotion rank. Thus a white pawn at Cc3 has 5 possible captures: Cb4, Cd4, Db3, Dc4, Dd3.
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Raumschach
White to move
♔︎White
90:00
Classical 90 + 30
♔︎Black
90:00
White captured:
Black captured:
Move List:How to read the move list ▾
Move notation:PieceLevelFileRank – LevelFileRank (Maack, 1909) Piece letters: R = Rook B = Bishop U = Unicorn Q = Queen K = King N = Knight P = Pawn Levels: A (bottom, White home) through E (top, Black home) Example: The Knight on level A, file b, rank 1 moves to level B, file c, rank 3. NAb1–Bc3 Capture: Replace – with × when a piece is captured. e.g. RAa1×Ba1 Promotion: Append =Q when a pawn is promoted. e.g. PEa4–Ea5=Q Check: Append † when the King is in check. e.g. QBc1–Cc4† Boardmate: Append †† when the King is in check and mated on its current level, but may flee to an adjacent level. e.g. QCc3–Dc3†† Spacemate: Append ††† when the King is in check and mated on its current level, and cannot flee to an adjacent level; the game is over. e.g. QBc2–Dc4††† Stalemate: Append ≡ when there are no legal moves for any piece and the King is not in check; the game is drawn. (Our addition; Maack did not symbolize stalemate.) Move numbers count White’s move first, then Black’s; e.g. 1. NAb1–Bc3 NEb5–Dd3