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Man and Beast 03: From Ungulates Outward. (Updated!) Systematic naming of the simplest Oblique Pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Tue, Jun 23, 2009 11:00 PM UTC:
All oblique coprime leapers are switching in 2-D, either changing rank and file from odd to even or vice versa, or changing binding (the latter the odd-SOLL ones). How about SOLL in cubes? We found one-step Bishop there root-2 and one-step Unicorn triagonal root-3, making their basic SOLLs 2 and 3. Covering in detail oblique cubes' movers will be ''M&B05: Punning by Numbers'' later. For Forward Only FO, Gilman names Shogi Knight HELM. FO Flamingo 6,1 is of course MALLET 6,1 through 'Alice in Wonderland' croquet. FO 3,1 HUMP, merely a Camel FO, is the one causing so much trouble 5 years ago, as to appropriateness, for members' then, as now, carelessly reading, or not reading, Gilman's (or any quality producer's) straightforward definitions. Gilman concludes 'M&B03': ''No piece's long coordinate exceeds 13. This is partly as simple pieces with a longer leap are weak on any reasonable sized-board, partly for want of names for triangulating compounds.'' Adrian King's Jupiter is 16x16 and Gilman should name at least all the 15s. Their long dimension would leap from back-rank to back-rank of Jupiter, not too much to ask. If you can name the 13s, you can name the 15s. And ''weak''? In general, of course the longer solitary leap loses strength, but there are tradeoffs, not least the board. Namel 7,1 was critical even on regular 8x10 to solve one Problem Theme in 2007. No other shorter leaper would have worked. Think of Ramayana board of only 84 with outlier squares in Archipelago and expand it. A long leaper can sometimes get in one jump 11, 12, or 15 away it takes sliders several moves to reach, if they ever get there at all. The particular 13,5 TOMEL or unnamed 15,11 may be of greater piece-value than Zebra or Giraffe on a case basis. Nomenclature should be open-ended and ever-growing.