Senterej

Senterej, also called Ethiopian chess, is a regional chess variant: the form of chess traditionally played in Ethiopia and Eritrea. It has an Amharic name written in Ethiopic script. It was the last popular survival of shatranj. According to Richard Pankhurst the game became extinct some time after the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s. Its most distinctive feature is the opening phase, in which each player makes as many moves as they like regardless of how many the opponent has made, until the first capture. Because of this, memorizing opening lines is not a feature of the game.