Jean Louis Cazaux

• The Old Texts -- A deeply detailed chronology of the known Chess sources. Note that this runs five pages -- don't miss the navigation bar at the end! Nicely color-codes the sources (Indian, Chinese and European) so you can keep track of these highly parallel histories. (more)
• Description on The History of Chess -- (more)
• Vida's Scacchia Ludus -- A transcription of a 16th century Latin poem about a chess game between the gods. Also, a full translation on a separate page. (more)
• The Enigma of the Birth of Chess -- A multi-page analysis of what we know about the early history of Chess (more)
• Description at the History of Chess -- Not a terribly detailed reconstruction. (more)
• Discussion at The History of Chess -- By far the most detailed discussion of this game that I know of. Mainly focuses on debunking the myths about the antiquity of this variant, arguing strongly that, while it is SCA-period, it isn't as ancient as folks usually claim. (more)
• Description on The History of Chess -- (more)
• Discussion on the History of Chess page -- Makes the point that we are working from very thin information here. (more)
• Description at The History of Chess -- (more)
• Alternate reconstruction of Grande Acedrex -- A very detailed reconstruction that goes back to the Alfonso MS and looks at it carefully. (more)
• Full Tamerlane Chess at The History of Chess -- Yet a further variant of Tamerlane's, with even more pieces. This is the most brain-breakingly baroque version of Chess I have yet encountered. One of these days, I may try making a set, just to try this mess out. (more)
• Medieval European Chess at The History of Chess -- A very good, not-too-long description of core SCA-period chess. (more)
• Jean-Louis Cazaux' speculations about Ashtapada -- This page has an in-depth discussion about why the author disagrees with HJR Murray's reconstruction, and provides his own best guess about how the game way played. (more)
• Description on The History of Chess -- (more)
• Discussion on The History of Chess -- (more)
• Jean-Louis Cazaux' History of Chess -- An excellent in-depth site, giving lots of information on the topic. Discusses the history, the archaeology, lots of papers about chess, many variations (including a lot of Eastern variants), etc. (more)
• Description at The History of Chess -- (more)
• Description at The History of Chess -- (more)
• Description at The History of Chess -- Goes into more detail about this game than most sites. (more)