Piececlopedia: Camel

Historical notes

The Camel is a piece that dates back at least to Tamerlane Chess. The piece is used in many more modern chess variants as well (see below for a complete listing).

The piece is still known under this name by composers of fairy chess problems.

Movement

The camel is a (1,3)-jumper. This means that it reaches its destination square by moving either three squares horizontally and one vertically, or one square horizontally and three vertically. The camel is a jumping piece, meaning it can move to its destination square whether the intervening squares are occupied or not. If the destination square is occupied by an enemy piece, then it captures that piece.

Movement diagram

Games

The camel is used in the following games:

Tamerlane Chess.
John William Brown's Centennial Chess
John William Brown's Millennial Chess.
Adrian King's Jupiter, in which it also promotes.
Mideast Chess, where it is called the chevalier.
Uri Bruck's Nahbi Chess.
Tom Hartley's Napoleonic Chess, where it is called light cavalry.
Jean-Louis Cazaux's Perfect 12.
Hans Bodlaender's Pick-the-Team Chess.
Tamerlane II.
Wayne Schmittberger's Wildebeest Chess.

Remarks

Like the bishop, the camel is a color-bound piece, meaning that it can only move to squares that are the same color as the one it starts on.

This is an item in the Piececlopedia: an overview of different (fairy) chess pieces.

Written by Hans Bodlaender and Ben Good. Diagram by Ben Good.

WWW page created: September 10, 1998. Last modified: October 4, 1999.

For author and/or inventor information on this item see: this item's information page.
Created on: September 10, 1998. Last modified on: October 04, 1999.