About Lasca – a little-known abstract game

LASCA, sometimes called Laskers, is a very intriguing and exciting board game invented by the great chess master Emanuel Lasker. At first sight the game resembles draughts; it is played with draughts pieces on a chequered board, and the pieces move like draughtsmen. However, the similarity ends there, and as the game proceeds the soldiers, as they are called, become stacked into columns, sometimes containing the other player’s soldiers as prisoners underneath. Soldiers are promoted to officers, or are captured, and soon a violent battle rages on the board, with many possibilities for subtle strategies and tactics.

Despite the game’s obvious superiority to draughts, it seems to have remained relatively obscure, and it is certainly very surprising that Lasca has not taken its place alongside the other great board games.

 

Origin

Emanuel Lasker was born on Christmas eve in 1868. in Berlinchen, Germany. He studied mathematics at university, though his interests included philosophy, the natural sciences, and games playing. He is perhaps best remembered for his brilliant and original chess, and in 1894 he took the title of world champion from Wilhelm Steinitz. He defended the title for an astounding 27 years until 1921 when José Raúl Capablanca dethroned him.

As well as the books he published on chess [1], he also wrote some less well known books on board games [2] and card games, and in his spare time was a keen lawn tennis player. It was during his reign as world chess champion that he invented the game he called Lasca, and it is described in a booklet published in 1911 entitled 'The Rules of Lasca, the Great Military Game'. The rules have since been reproduced in a few collections of games, though some incorrectly attribute the game to Eduard (or Edward) Lasker, who has written several books on chess and Go.

 

The Pieces

SOLDIER: A single man, plain face uppermost. It can move only diagonally forwards. When it reaches the opponent’s side of the board, it is promoted to an officer.

OFFICER: A single man, marked face uppermost. It can move in either direction, forwards or backwards diagonally.

COLUMN: A stack of two or more soldiers or officers of one colour, possibly containing prisoners of the opposite colour underneath, moved as a single piece. The top man. the commander, determines who owns and moves the column.

COMMANDER: The top man of a column. Only if it is an officer may the column move in either direction.

 

The Board

Lasca is played on a 7 x 7 chequered board, and an ordinary chess board can be used if an edge file and rank are covered with strips of paper. There should be a white square at each corner. Eleven draughtsmen of each colour are used, and they should be flat so that they can be stacked into columns (some concave plastic draughtsmen are unsuitable). One side of the men should be easily distinguishable from the other, so if they are symmetrical they should be marked with a spot of paint on one side. At the start of the game these soldiers are laid out, plain side uppermost, in three rows on the white squares at each end of the board.

The board originally designed by the Lasca Association in Cambridge is more elegant, though topologically equivalent, since the unused black squares have been reduced in size, and can easily be drawn on a piece of cardboard; the circles should be about 4cm. in diameter:
The Lasca board, with the initial arrangement of pieces.

In this and the following diagrams the pieces are shown edge-on, with spots to identify officers.

Moves

In play the pieces move forward diagonally, one square at a time, as in draughts. They capture by leaping an enemy piece into a vacant square beyond; but here is the important difference between Lasca and draughts which makes Lasca the more exciting game. A captured man is not removed from the board, but is picked up under the attacker as a prisoner as he leaps over it:
1. Here the white soldier at A1 captures the black soldier at B2, producing a two-man column at C3.

The column produced as the result of a capture is now moved as a single piece, in this case belonging to White.
2. Note that when a column is attacked, only the top man or commander is captured. Thus in this position the black soldier on D2 can capture the column’s commander.
3. This has the result of both capturing a white soldier and releasing the black prisoner. In one move White has lost a piece and Black has gained one!
As play continues the number of pieces on the board becomes less and less as the men become stacked into larger columns, and no men are ever removed from the board. Incidentally, it is not possible to have an alternation of colours such as white-black-white in a column.

 

Forcing capture

Pieces must capture if in a position to do so, and if further captures are then possible, these must be performed too. This rule is extremely important, as will be realised after a few games, since it enables a player to force his opponent into disadvantageous situations.

The following example illustrates this:
1. White sacrifices a soldier. 2. Black is forced to capture it.
3. This sets up Black for an attack by White. 4. White captures, liberating a prisoner.
Further captures can produce columns containing large numbers of men, and theoretically the game could end with all the men in one column although in the author’s experience this has never happened.

 

Promotion and captures

When a column reaches the opposite end of the board, the opponent’s front line, its commander is promoted to the rank of officer and is turned over to reveal the spot or marked face. A single soldier is likewise promoted.

An officer, or a column commanded by an officer, may move either backwards or forwards. The following examples illustrate two points as regards captures:
1. Here a soldier is shown about to reach the back line. However, promotion only comes at the end of a move.
2. The black officer may not therefore go on to capture the white soldier on B4 until the following move, assuming it does not move away as shown here.
Also, a piece may not attack the same piece twice in the course of a single move.
Thus in this position the black officer may only jump over the three-man column once, not three times.
If captured, an officer retains his rank for use if later released.

 

The end of the game

The game ends when one player cannot make a legal move, and this can come about in one of two ways. Either when the other player has command of all the pieces, or when his opponent has blocked him in. It is impossible for the game to end in a draw.

There are examples of both types of victory in the problems given in this Web site; see Lasca problems. The reason for using a 7 x 7 board is to remove corners containing two adjacent white squares; this would allow one player to move an officer repeatedly between the two squares and so prolong the game in a tedious way.

Because no pieces are ever removed from the board, a single rash move when you are almost winning can allow your opponent to attack, liberating a number of his prisoners and thus turning the tables. On the other hand it is reassuring to know that all your men are still on the board, if you can only release them.

Column strengths vary, and it is important to bear this in mind when deciding which of your opponent’s pieces to attack, or conversely which of your own pieces to defend.
Of these two white columns the left-hand one is by far the stronger. Black has only to leap the right-hand one once to release a powerful five-man column, and White would do well to keep it near the edge of the board protected by an officer.
A good arrangement for doing this is to use an officer as a guard, as shown below: The officer prevents a black piece from luring the weak column into the centre of the board:
This ties up two white pieces, obviously not a good idea. A better policy is to avoid forming weak columns by spreading the capturing between several pieces.
For example, here White has a choice of captures. All other things equal A3 is the best piece to attack with.
Columns, such as the left-hand one shown above, are extremely powerful as they have several lives. Indeed it may sometimes be advantageous to sacrifice several men to your opponent with the ultimate aim of recapturing them as a single powerful column.

These strong columns can be used for a delightfully simple and effective one-handed attack, shown in the following examples:
Here Black offers himself as bait: You can verify that after four moves the result is this:
Black rather surprisingly still has a three-black column, but the two white soldiers have become prisoners. Note that for the attack to succeed the black attacker must have more black men in the column than the white column has white men. Also they must all be able to move in the direction of the attack; in this case, the black men must be officers.

There are no restrictions on examining either your own or your opponent’s columns to see which of the men are officers. Beware of other pieces which could interfere, such as a black soldier at F4 in the above example.

These samples from play should have suggested one outstanding fact about Lasca; it is a game of attack rather than of defence.
Consider this example, where Black threatens the white soldier on C3. Moving C3 to D2 achieves very little; a much better and more aggressive move is B2 to C1.
In Lasca it is important to risk short term losses for a long term gain.

 

Bibliography

[1] For example, Lasker’s Manual of Chess, Dover Publications.

[2] Brettspiele der Volker (192S).

This Web page was adapted from an article I wrote years ago for Games & Puzzles, 'Lasca - A little-known abstract game'.