Incerto rules
Incerto is a chess-based game in which the rank of every piece is hidden.
How a turn goes
- You pick a disc and learn which piece it stands for. Only that piece may move. If it cannot, the turn passes to your opponent.
- The piece that makes a capture is shown to your opponent.
- Mislead your opponent with the moves you make, bluff
- The game runs until one side's king is captured
Disc states
A disc’s state is all the information you have. It differs by shape and symbol, not by colour alone.
Hidden
Only the side and the square are visible. Neither player knows the value.
Selected
Solid ring. You revealed this disc and must move it: choosing another one is not possible.
Revealed
The value is shown. This is how a disc looks after a reveal or a capture.
Available
Dashed ring: the selected piece can move to this square.
Capturable
Red ring: this disc can be taken. On a capture both players see both values.
Turn skipped
Cross: the revealed piece has no moves, so the turn passes to the opponent. No action is needed for that.
What the board shows
You do not know your own pieces either. Two discs in the illustration are already revealed, the rest are closed to both players.
Setup
Two rows of six pieces: White on the first and second ranks, Black on the eighth and seventh.
The goal
Capture the opponent’s king. Not checkmate but an actual capture: while the king stands, the game continues.
The set
Each player has a king, a queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops and four pawns. The value is hidden: the disc is two-sided with the marking inside, and discs are shuffled before the game.
Capture
On a capture both players show both pieces — the capturing one and the captured one. The captured piece leaves the board, the capturing one hides again. There is no en passant.
Pawn promotion
A pawn on the last rank promotes to any piece. A pawn on the 1st/8th or 2nd/7th rank may move two squares.
Draw
- By mutual agreement.
- The same position has occurred four times (newly revealed information is not taken into account).
- For 50 moves no capture has been made and no pawn has been promoted.