A fairy chess piece, variant chess piece, unorthodox chess piece, or heterodox chess piece is a chess piece not used in conventional chess but incorporated into certain chess variants and some chess problems. Fairy pieces vary in the way they move. Because of the distributed and uncoordinated nature of unorthodox chess development, the same piece can have different names, and different pieces the same name in various contexts. Almost all are usually symbolised as inverted or rotated icons of the standard pieces in diagrams, and the meanings of these "wildcards" must be defined in each context separately. Pieces invented for use in chess variants rather than problems sometimes instead have special icons designed for them, but with some exceptions (the princess, empress, and occasionally amazon), many of these are not used beyond the individual games they were invented for.
Video Fairy chess piece
Background
Today's chess exists because of variations someone made to the rules of an earlier version of the game. The queen we use today was once able to move only a single square in a diagonal direction, a ferz. Today, this piece still starts next to the king, but has gained new movement and became today's queen. Thus, the ferz is now considered a non-standard chess piece. Chess enthusiasts still often like to try variations of the rules and in the way pieces move. Pieces which move differently from today's standard rules are called "variant" or "fairy" chess pieces.
Maps Fairy chess piece
Classification
Fairy chess pieces usually fall into one of three classes, although some are hybrids. Compound pieces combine the movement powers of two or more different pieces.
Movement type
Leapers
An (m,n)-leaper is a piece that moves by a fixed type of vector between its starting and destination squares. One of the coordinates of the vector 'start square - arrival square' must have an absolute value m and the other one an absolute value n. A leaper captures by occupying the square on which an enemy piece sits. For instance, the knight is the (1,2)-leaper. It is convenient to classify all fixed-distance moves as leaps, including moves to adjacent squares, because this allows all normal moves to be placed in two categories (leapers and riders) without the need to create a third category for the king and pawn.
The leaper's move cannot be blocked; it "leaps" over any intervening pieces. Leapers are not able to create pins, but are effective forking pieces. The check of a leaper cannot be parried by interposing. All orthodox chessmen except the pawn are either leapers or riders, although the rook does 'hop' over its own king when it castles.
In shatranj, a Persian forerunner to chess, the predecessors of the bishop and queen were leapers: the alfil is a (2,2)-leaper (moving two squares diagonally in any direction), and the ferz a (1,1)-leaper (moving one square diagonally in any direction). The wazir is a (1,0)-leaper (an "orthogonal" one-square leaper). The king of standard chess combines the ferz and wazir. The dabbaba is a (2,0)-leaper. The alibaba combines the dabbaba and alfil, while the squirrel can move to any square 2 units away (combining the knight and alibaba).
The 'level-3' leapers are the threeleaper (0,3), camel (1,3), zebra (2,3), and tripper (3,3). The giraffe is a level-4 leaper (1,4). An amphibian is a combined leaper with a larger range than any of its components, such as the frog, a (1,1)-(0,3)-leaper.
Riders
A rider is a piece that moves an unlimited distance in one direction, provided there are no pieces in the way. There are three riders in orthodox chess: the rook is a (1,0)-rider; the bishop is a (1,1)-rider; and the queen combines both patterns. Sliders are a special case of riders which can only move between geometrically contiguous cells. All of the riders in orthodox chess are examples of sliders. Riders and sliders can create both pins and skewers. One popular fairy chess rider is the nightrider, which can make an unlimited number of knight moves in any direction (like other riders, it cannot change direction partway through its move). The names of riders are often obtained by taking the name of its base leaper and adding the suffix "rider". For example, the zebrarider is a (2,3)-rider.
Hoppers
A hopper is a piece that moves by jumping over another piece (called a hurdle). The hurdle can be any piece of any color. Unless it can jump over a piece, a hopper cannot move. Note that hoppers generally capture by taking the piece on the destination square, not by taking the hurdle (as is the case in checkers). The exceptions are locusts which are pieces that capture by hopping over its victim. They are sometimes considered a type of hopper. There are no hoppers in Western chess. In xiangqi, the cannon captures as a hopper (when not capturing, it is a (1,0)-rider which cannot jump). The grasshopper moves along the same lines as a queen, hopping over another piece and landing on the square immediately beyond it.
Compound pieces
Compound pieces combine the powers of two or more pieces. The archbishop, chancellor, and amazon are three popular compound pieces, combining the powers of minor orthodox chess pieces.
When one of the combined pieces is a knight, the compound may be called a knighted piece. The archbishop, chancellor, and amazon are the knighted bishop, knighted rook, and knighted queen respectively. When one of the combined pieces is a king, the compound may be called a crowned piece. The crowned knight combines the knight with the king's moves. The dragon king of shogi is a crowned rook (rook + king).
Marine pieces are a compound pieces consisting of a rider (for ordinary moves) and a locust (for captures) in the same directions. Marine pieces have names alluding to the sea and its myths, e.g., nereide (marine bishop), mermaid (marine queen), or poseidon (marine king).
Games
Some classes of pieces come from a certain game, and will have common characteristics. Examples are the pieces from xiangqi, a Chinese game similar to chess. The most common are the leo, pao and vao (derived from the Chinese cannon) and the mao (derived from the horse). Those derived from the cannon are distinguished by moving as a hopper when capturing, but otherwise moving as a rider.
Pieces from xiangqi are usually circular disks, labeled or engraved with a Chinese character identifying the piece. Pieces from shogi (Japanese chess) are usually wedge-shaped chips, with kanji characters identifying the piece.
Special attributes
Fairy pieces vary in the way they move, but some may also have other special characteristics or powers. The joker (in one of its definitions) mimics the last move made by the opponent. So for example, if white moves a bishop, black can follow by moving the joker as a bishop.
A royal piece is one which must not be allowed to be captured. If a royal piece is threatened with capture and cannot avoid capture the next move, then the game is lost (a generalization of checkmate). In orthodox chess, the kings are royal. In fairy chess any other piece may instead be royal, and there may be more than one, or none at all (in which case the winning condition must be some other goal, such as capturing all of the opponent's pieces). With multiple royal pieces the game can be won by capturing one of them (absolute royalty), or capturing all of them (extinction royalty). The rules can also impose a limit to the number of royals that are allowed to be left in check. In Spartan chess black has two kings, and they both cannot be left in check even though they both cannot be captured in one turn.
Notable examples
The following table shows game pieces of unorthodox chess, from fairy chess problems and chess variants (including historical and regional ones), and the six orthodox chess pieces. The columns "Parlett" and "Betza" contain the notation describing how each piece moves. The notation systems are explained in the last sections of this article.
A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X, Y, Z
Relative value of pieces
While a large amount of information can be found concerning the relative value of variant chess pieces, there are few resources where it is in a concise format for more than just a few piece types. One challenge of producing such a summary is that piece values are dependent upon the size of boards they are played on, and the combination of other pieces on the board.
On an 8×8 board, the standard chess pieces (pawn, knight, bishop, rook, and queen) are usually given values of 1, 3, 3, 5, and 9 respectively. When the basic pieces wazir (W), ferz (F), and mann (WF = K), are played with a similar mix of pieces, they are typically valued at around 1, 1.5, and 3 points respectively. Three popular compound pieces, the archbishop (BN), chancellor (RN), and amazon (QN) have been estimated to have point values around 8, 8.5, and 12 respectively.
Apart from these, reliable estimates are not be well established for many other pieces. Even when the same game format is assumed (board size and combination of other pieces), there is often little agreement on the specific value of many other pieces. Compound pieces are sometimes approximated as the sum of their component pieces, or estimated to be slightly higher due to synergistic effects (such as it is for the archbishop and chancellor).
Notations
Parlett's movement notation
In his book The Oxford History of Board Games David Parlett used a notation to describe fairy piece movements. The move is specified in the form m={expression}, where m stands for "move", and the expression is composed from the following elements:
- Distance (numbers, n)
- 1 - a distance of one (i.e. to adjacent square)
- 2 - a distance of two
- n - any distance in the given direction
- Direction (punctuation, X)
- * - orthogonally or diagonally (all eight possible directions)
- + - orthogonally (four possible directions)
- > - orthogonally forwards
- < - orthogonally backwards
- <> - orthogonally forwards and backwards
- = - orthogonally sideways (used here instead of Parlett's divide symbol.)
- >= - orthogonally forwards or sideways
- <= - orthogonally backwards or sideways
- X - diagonally (four possible directions)
- X> - diagonally forwards
- X< - diagonally backwards
- Grouping
- / - two orthogonal moves separated by a slash denote a hippogonal move (i.e. jumps like a knight)
- & - repeated movement in the same direction, such as for hippogonal riders (i.e. the nightrider)
- . - then, (i.e. an aanca is 1+.nX)
Additions to Parlett's
The following can be added to Parlett's to make it more complete:
- Conditions under which the move may occur (lowercase alphanumeric, except n)
- (default) - May occur at any point in the game
- i - May only be made on the initial move (e.g. pawn's 2 moves forward)
- c - May only be made on a capture (e.g. pawn's diagonal capture)
- o - May not be used for a capture (e.g. pawn's forward move)
- Move type
- (default) - Captures by landing on the piece; blocked by intermediate pieces
- ~ - Leaper (leaps)
- ^ - Locust (captures by leaping; implies leaper)
- Grouping (punctuation)
- / - two orthogonal moves separated by a slash denote a hippogonal move (i.e. jumping like knights); this is in Parlett's, but is repeated here for completeness
- , (comma) - separates move options; only one of the comma-delimited options may be chosen per move
- () - grouping operator; see nightrider
- - - range operator
The format (not including grouping) is: <conditions> <move type> <distance> <direction> <other>
On this basis, the traditional chess moves (excluding castling and en passant capture) are:
- King: 1*
- Queen: n*
- Bishop: nX
- Rook: n+
- Pawn: o1>, c1X>, oi2>
- Knight: ~1/2
Ralph Betza's "funny notation"
Ralph Betza created a classification scheme for fairy chess pieces (including standard chess pieces) in terms of the moves of basic pieces with modifiers.
Capital letters stand for basic leap movements, ranging from single-square orthogonal moves to 3×3 diagonal leaps: Wazir, Ferz, Dabbaba, KNight, Alfil, THreeleaper, Camel, Zebra, and G (3,3)-leaper. C and Z are equivalent to obsolete letters L (Long Knight) and J (Jump) which are no longer commonly used.
A leap is converted into a rider by doubling its letter. For example, WW describes a rook, FF describes a bishop, and NN describes a nightrider. The second letter can instead be a number, which is a limitation on how many times the leap motion can be repeated; for example, W4 describes a rook limited to 4 spaces of movement.
Combining multiple movement letters into a string means the piece can use any of the available options. For example, WF describes a king, capable of moving one space orthogonally or diagonally.
Standard chess pieces except pawns (which are particularly complex) and knights (which are a basic leap movement) have their own letters available; K = WF, Q = WWFF, B = FF, R = WW.
All mentioned capitals refer to a maximally symmetric set of moves that can be used for both moving and capturing. Lowercase letters in front of the capital letters modify the component, usually restricting the moves to a subset. They can be distinguished in directional, modal and other modifiers. Basic directional modifiers are: forward, backward, right, left. On non-orthogonal moves these indicate pairs of moves, and a second modifier of the perpendicular type is needed to fully specify a single direction. Otherwise, when multiple directions are mentioned, it means that moves in all these directions are possible. sideways and vertical are shorthands for lr and fb, respectively. Modal modifiers are move only, capture only. Other modifiers are jumping (basic distant leap must jump, cannot move without a hurdle), non-jumping like the Chinese elephant, grasshopper (rider that must land immediately after first piece it encounters, instead of on or before it), pao (rider that can only land behind the first piece it encounters, instead of on or before it), o cylindrical (moving off one side of the board wraps to the other), z crooked (moving in a zigzag line like the boyscout), q circular movement (like the rose), and then (for pieces that start moving in one direction and then continue in another, like the gryphon).
In addition, Betza has also suggested adding brackets to his notation: q[WF]q[FW] would be a circular king, which can move from e4 to f5 (first the ferz move) then g5, h4, h3, g2, f2, e3, and back to e4, effectively passing a turn, and could also start from e4 to f4 (first the wazir move) then g5, g6, f7, e7, d6, d5, and back to e4.
Example: The standard chess pawn can be described as mfWcfF (ignoring the initial double move).
There is no standard order of the components and modifiers. In fact, Betza often plays with the order to create somehow pronounceable piece names and artistic word play.
Addition to Betza's notation ('XBetza')
Betza does not use the small letter i. It is used here for initial in the description of the different types of pawns. The letter a is used here to describe again, indicating the piece can make the move on which it is prefixed multiple times, possibly with new modifiers mentioned behind the a, which then apply to the second 'leg' of the move. Directional specifications for such a continuation step should be interpreted relative to the first step (e.g. aW is a two-step orthogonal move that can change direction; afW is a two-step orthogonal move that must continue the same direction).
To handle some frequently encountered special moves, e can be used next to m and c to indicate en-passant capture, i.e. capture of the piece that just made an move with i & n modifier, by moving to the square where the n implies it could have been blocked. (This makes the full description of the FIDE pawn fmWfceFifmnD.) An O with a range specifier is used to indicate castling with the furthest piece in that direction in the initial setup, the range indicating the number of squares the king moves (orthodox castling: ismO2). XBetza overloads some modifiers, by giving them an alternative meaning where the original meaning makes no sense. E.g. i in a continuation leg ('iso') indicates the length must be the same as the previous riding leg, useful for indicating rifle captures (caibR).
Non-final legs of a multi-leg move also have the option to end on an occupied square without disturbing its contents. To indicate this the modifier p is used, and thus has a slightly different meaning than on final legs; the traditional meaning can then be seen as shorthand for paf. To make the a notation more versatile, it can also be used when the moves of the two legs are not exactly congruent: g is an alternative to indicates a non-final leg to an occupied square, but in contrast to p it specifies a 'range toggle', converting a mentioned rider move into the corresponding leaper move (e.g. R <-> W) for the next leg, and vice versa (making the traditional g shorthand for gaf). A similar range toggle on reaching an empty square can be indicated by y, to indicate a slider spontaneously turns a corner after starting with a leap. Continuation directions will allways be encoded in the 8-fold (K) system, even when the initial leg only had 4-fold symmetry. Mention of an intermediate direction on a 4-fold-symmetrical move would then swap orthogonal moves to the corresponding diagonal moves, (e.g. W <-> F) and vice versa. (So mafsW is the xiangqi horse, move to an empty W-square, and continue one F-step at 45 degree, and FyafsF is the gryphon.)
See also
- Chess variants
- Correspondence chess
- Movement of the orthodox pieces
- Orthodox piece names in different languages
- Penultima--a chess variant in which fairy pieces are invented for each game
References
Bibliography
- Dickins, Anthony S. M. (1969) [1967]. A Guide to Fairy Chess (1971 Dover repub. of 2nd ed.). Richmond, England; New York: Q Press; Dover. ISBN 0-486-22687-5.
- Fabel, Karl; Kemp, Charles E. (1969). Schach ohne Grenzen (T.R. Dawsons Märchenschach) = Chess Unlimited (T.R. Dawson's Fairy Chess) (in German and English). Arnfried Haupt (cover design). Düsseldorf & Kempten/Allgäu, Germany: Walter Rau Verlag. ASIN B0000BQXG3. OCLC 601619310.
- Murray, Harold J. R. (1913). A History of Chess. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-827403-2. Link.
- Parlett, David (1999). The Oxford History of Board Games. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-212998-8.
- Pritchard, David B. (1994). The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. Godalming, England: Games & Puzzles Publications. pp. 132-33. ISBN 0-9524142-0-1.
- Pritchard, David B. (2007). Beasley, John D., ed. The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants (2nd ed.). Harpenden, England: John Beasley. ISBN 978-0-9555168-0-1.
- Schmittberger, R. Wayne (1992). New Rules for Classic Games. New York: John Wiley. ISBN 0-471-53621-0.
Web pages
- Betza, Ralph (1996-2000). "My Funny Notation". CVP. Retrieved 2006-05-13.
- Bodlaender, Hans L.; Howe, David; Duniho, Fergus, eds. (1995). "Index page of the CVP". The Chess Variant Pages. . §§: "Piececlopedia" & "Articles on Pieces".
- Cazaux, Jean-Louis (2000-2014). "History of Chess". History of Chess: chesspage of JL Cazaux. Also: "My Chess Variants".
- Derzhanski, Ivan A. (2001). "Who is Who on Eight by Eight". CVP.
- Howe, David (2011). "The Concise Guide to Chess Variants". CVP.
- Jelliss, George P. (2002-2012). "A Guide to Variant Chess". Mayhematics. British Chess Variants Society. § "All the King's Men". Retrieved 2010-07-20. §§: "Variant Chess Games"; "Introducing Variant Chess" & "Simple Chess Variants" [PDF] (2010)
- Jelliss, George P. (2000-2016). "Knight's Tour Notes". Mayhematics. § "All the King's Men". §§: "Geometry: Theory of Moves"; "History" & "Other Pieces".
- Poisson, Christian (2003-2011). "Catégories de pièces - Types of pieces". Problemesis (in French and English). Retrieved 2008-04-18.
- Poisson, Christian (2002-2006). "Pièces féeriques - Fairy pieces". Problemesis (in French and English). Retrieved 2008-04-18.
External links
- Piececlopedia An extensive list of fairy chess pieces, their history and movement diagrams
- Who is Who on Eight by Eight Compiled by Ivan A Derzhanski, shows also piece values
- Generic Chess Piece Creation System Easy ways to estimate piece values
- A Guide to Variant Chess: All the King's Men
Source of article : Wikipedia
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