Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

David, that's a aice X-mas present for all of us!

There is one minor poiint I want to correct (it is not your fault; already Jeliss has this particular sentence wrong):

>null piece (Exotic): n. Piece that, combined with any other piece leaves it unaltered = Dummy = (0,0) leaper. Not the same as zero. Link(s): All the King's Men. [index] Source(s): [ATKM] Unique ID: [CVT-10825]

A dummy is a piece without any move; as a leaper it is an \emptyset-leaper, not a (0,0)-leaper. A (0,0)-leaper has one move to its starting square, essentially the piece-bound licence to pass a move.

This is always confounding to see that zero is something different from the emptyset.

Thank you. I used an Excel spreadsheet in combination with MS-Word mail merge to generate the web pages and index. As you might imagine, collecting, editing and generating the results took many months. After realizing that I could be working on this for years, I decided to just stop and get it out there.

Now I will be collecting suggested additions and modifications in preparation for the next version. Thanks for any feedback you can provide and Happy New Year to all!

Here's a first pack of additions, all from the following new source:


George Jelliss: Theory of Moves, Knight's Tour Notes 2001,
http://www.ktn.freeuk.com/9a.htm

Notes are mine and introduced by the tag Note:

Piece Names

caliph  - compound leaper (0,1)+(2,2)
          Note: This is different from Charles Gilman's caliph
          Note: synonyms are waffle (CwdA) and phoenix (large Shogi variants)

diamond - compound leaper (1,1)+(0,2)
          Note: synonyms for this piece are duke and kylin

emperor - compound leaper (0,1)+(1,2)
          Note: a synonym is marquis (Derzhanski's list drawing from Adrian  King)

ferfil - compound leaper (1,1)+(2,2)
         Note: most established synonym on the CVP is 'modern elephant'

frog - compound leaper (1,1)+(0,3). The simplest amphibian.

hospitaler - compound leaper (1,2)+(2,2)

prince - compound leaper (1,1)+(1,2)

pterodactyl - compound leaper (3,3)+(5,5)+(0,15). The simplest triple range amphibian
    Note: I love this piece *because* it is so 'over the top'

templar - compound leaper (0,2)+(1,2)

wazaba - compound leaper (0,1)+(0,2)
         Note: synonym woody rook (CwdA)

Piece terms

amphibian - A compound leaper who can reach any square on the chess board whose components aren't free leapers 

free leaper - A leaper that can reach any square on a given board. On the standard 8x8 board there are 5 free leapers: wazir, knight, giraffe, zebra, and antelope.

Here are a few additions sourced from:

Hans Gruber: Märchenschachlexikon, Schwalbe - Deutsche Vereinigung für Problemschach, zuletzt aktualisiert am 26.08.2011,
http://www.dieschwalbe.de/lexikon.htm

The source contains tons of information on fairy problem conditions and some pieces. Most of them are outside the scope of the Concise Guide to Chess Variants, but I propose the following additions:

Piece names

ibis - elemental piece, (1,5)-leaper

lancer - elemental piece, (2,4)-leaper
    Note: This piece has a different german name, Hase (engl. hare)

okapi - compound leaper (1,2)+(2,3)


Note. If the charset is mangled, then: ä ist ae (a-umlaut) and ü ist ue (u-umlaut)

A few miscellaneous entries from the Chess Variant Pages


Piece names

capricorn - a hook mover moving on diagonal lines. Occurs in several large shogi variants

hook mover - a hook mover on horizontal and vertical lines. Occurs in several large shogi variants

querquisite - a piece that has the moves of the piece on its current file in the FIDE starting position. Synonym: oddyseus
(see A. Sibahi: Querquisite Chess, http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSquerquisiteche )

Piece terms

divergent piece - A piece with different capturing and non-capturing moves. Synonym: Sniper
  Source: A. J. Winkelspecht: Divergent Chess http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/contest/divergentchess.html

hook mover - a piece that can optionally turn 90 degrees and move on. It can capture on its final square only. From large shogi variants.

igui capture - restricted rifle capture of lion movers, capture on a adjacent square without moving

lion mover - a piece that can do two moves in one turn, including the possibilities to capture two pieces in one turn, to pass the turn, or to capture one piece and then return to its starting square. Lion movement can be unrestricted (as in the lion of Chu Shogi) or restricted to certain directions (as in the soaring eagle or the horned falcon of Chu Shogi)

planar piece - a kind of lame hook mover, a piece that can optionally turn 90 degrees and move on as long as the rectangle spanned by the two legs of its move is free from any other piece, friend or foo. It can capture only on its destination square.
    source: Gavin Smith: Prince http://www.chessvariants.org/3d.dir/prince.html

the link given for George Jelliss: Theory of Moves, Knight's Tour Notes 2001,
does not work, but you can find it here, an interesting article (14 pages) he prepared for a talk to the Hastings and St Leonards Chess Club on 21 August 2010.
http://www.mayhematics.com/v/v.htm .. just click on 'simple chess variants', a pdf. Great fun for variant fans to read, from page 9 ..

All possible leapers with coordinates up to 4 have acquired special names, as follows: Dummy {0,0}, Wazir {0,1}, Dabbaba {0,2}, Threeleaper {0,3}, Fourleaper {0,4}, Fers {1,1}, Knight {1,2}, Camel {1,3}, Gi-raffe {1,4}, Alfil {2,2}, Zebra {2,3}, Lancer {2,4}, Tripper {3,3}, Antelope {3,4} and Commuter {4,4}.
Names for all two-pattern leapers with coordinates up to 2 are: King {0,1}+{1,1}, Wazaba {0,1}+{0,2}, Emperor {0,1}+{1,2}, Caliph {0,1}+{2,2}, Duke {1,1}+{0,2}, Prince {1,1}+{1,2}, Ferfil {1,1}+{2,2}, Templar {0,2}+{1,2}, Alibaba {0,2}+{2,2} and Hospitaller {1,2}+{2,2}.
Any combination of a piece with a free piece is obviously free. It can however happen that a two-pattern leaper is free even though its components are not. I call such pieces amphibians. The simplest cases are Frog {1,1}+{0,3}, Toad {0,2}+{0,3} and Newt {2,2}+{0,3}.
Many other two-pattern leapers are possible. Of particular interest, especially to those who know the theorem of Pythagoras are the Fiveleaper {0,5}+{3,4} and the Rootfiftyleaper {5,5}+{1,7}, which are the only two-pattern fixed-distance leapers on the 8×8.
The simplest three-pattern leaper is the Centaur {0,1}+{1,1}+{1,2} a combination of king and knight.

Sigh, link rot hits again. Fortunately, I have printed the Theory of Moves when it was available on the net.

Christine, you found another nice reference, and I immediately love the names toad and newt for the other simple amphibians!

This is a suggestion to David:

Add all contest winning games to the Game section.

This gives a nice overview of the activity of the CVP community over a decade.

lol, you know i didn't like the names when i first saw, 'toad', yuck, and 'newt', what's a newt?!, Newt Gingrich?, haha .. but when i read your comment and finished laughing, i looked up what 'newt' meant, and, yes your right, they are good names, they go nice with 'frog' name, hehe.
i can live with 'toad' name :)

Knight+Zebra is definitely Gazelle in all the contexts that I've read before. A piece moving according to which FIDE piece's file it is on is listed in Piececlopedia as a Zelig.
	One useful feature to add would be to distinguish usage in actual variants from problematist names largely ignored hy varint designers. For example, Prince is one of the commoner names used for a capturable Wazir+Ferz compound. (Did you see what I did there?) I do not recall any variant in which it is used for Knight+Wazir. Likewise Outback Chess uses Kangaroo is used for Knight+Elephant - and to answer a question on another thread I qualify the compound of the Xiang Qi counterparts as a 'Chinese-style' Kangaroo in my vartiant Xiangaroo - but no variant uses it for a Queenwise hopper requiring two intrervening pieces.
	The mention of further amphibian names I find riveting. I could have done with this info many years earlier. Now that Toad and Newt have been brought to my attention it seems sensible that I use them. As far as I am aware no-one used Treader, and Toad even has the T and D in it! Rosette I have used but am prepared to replace throughout with Newt. This has four further consequences for Man and Beast:
1	If Toad exists alongside Frog it makes nonsense of Tadpole being specifically an FO Frog. Therefore I will rename that piece as part of a grouping.
2	The name Newt ignores its piece's link to the Rose, and so all the other prefixed and suffixed Roses will be dropped. So will extrapolated names such as Macette, Bezette, et cetera. This will clear out several apparently uninspiring names.
3	Cubic boards add other amphibian radial pieces with maximum coordinate 3: Ferz+Viceroy, Viceroy+Trebuchet, Viceroy+Tripper, Trebuchet+Eunuch, Ferz+Zombie. Any ideas for names for these? Which other amphibian names have been used and which not?
4	Compounds of a twice- and a thrice-coprime piece were moved from page 6 to page 11 of Man and Beast to be after the Rose, Macel, et cetera themselves. It would make sense to reverse this when I drop the Rosette theme altogether and put them back in page 6 to group all the amphibians together.

Hi Charles,

I skimmed through my sources again and could not locate a reference to 'gazelle' as a synonym for the okapi (Knight-Zebra-compound). Where did you get it from?

I share your feelings with respect to the name 'prince': it is quite unspecific and used for a whole bunch of pieces, most notably the commoner. The aim of my comment was to give a summary of this important source.  Note that Jelliss gives prince for Knight+Ferz (not Knight+Wazir) following the male/female logic from the King/Queen pair. And problemists call the Janus/Palladin piece princess.

The name hospital(l)er is  worth mentioning for the knight-alfil compound, kangaroo as a synonym ist certainly worth mentioning, too. Outback Chess was a contest winning variant, at least.

Going through my sources I found a synonym for the newt: it is called counsellor in Quang Trung Chess and this name propagated in Töws' piece creation system and in Ivan Derzhanski's list.

Interesting, i know the Knight/Zebra compound as 'Gazelle' also, but doing a search i couldn't find anything, Jorg, where does the name 'Okapi' come from. Always interested in alternate names, but i do like the name 'gazelle' for this piece though.

Now Charles, you say 'One useful feature to add would be to distinguish usage in actual variants from problematist names largely ignored by varint designers.'
 
Well, i don't know, sounds a bit melodramatic to me, 'Quick, Joe Joyce has been hit by a pie in the face down by the old school road, curse those problematist's!!'.

I mean, piece names listed by problematists have many names accepted and used by game designers. And, even pieces that began their life as problem pieces like 'grasshopper' and 'nightrider' have been embraced by game designers (flamingo, locust?). 

Also, game designers don't just 'largely ignore' problematist names, i would say they largely ignore everyone, other game designers also. Game designers are like 'maverick's', they do as they please, nameing pieces as they wish.

Just look at the history of the rook/knight and bishop/knight compounds, and also the 'prince' piece you mention, 1 square all directions.
 
Possible first appearance in the 17th Century game 'Carrera's Chess', they were called 'Champion' and Centaur'. Then in 1874, 'Bird's Chess' they were called  'Guard' and 'Equerry'. Later, in 'Capablanca Chess' they appeared under the names 'Chancellor' and 'Archbishop'. Then a string of similar games followed ..

grotesque - guard equerry
gothic - chancellor archbishop
aberg's - chancellor archbishop
optimized - chancellor archbishop
embassy - marshall cardinal
ladorean - marshall cardinal
univers - marshal paladin
schoolbook - marshal archbishop
janus - 'janus' (archbishop) - no chancellor
new chancellor - chancellor - no archbishop
flanking archbishops - archbishop - no chancellor.

And then recently, Seirawan Chess amazingly calls these pieces 'Elephant' and 'Hawk' ... yep 'Elephant' name was used, could you throw a bigger spanner in the works, hardly, lol.

Now, a piece that moves 1 square in all directions, appears to me to first appeared in the 1000 year old game 'Shatranj Kamil', where it was called a 'War Machine' or 'Dabbaba'!!. Note in another variant of this game, the Dabbaba {0,2} appears under the name 'Camel'. And later, around the 12th century, in 'Courier Chess', this piece is called a 'Man'. Was it Jean-Louis Cazaux who first called this piece a 'Prince'?  Piececlopedia  lists under 'Man' and 'Commoner'. Joe Joyce calls it 'General'.

So it is clear to see, game designers not only ignore problematist names, but they ignore everyone, true mavericks, like mad scientists they put their games together and name the pieces as they see fit, ('fool's, i'll destroy them all'), and the chess variant community accepts this, game designers can do as they please, and most people don't mind.

Sure, certain names over time become accepted as the norm, but as we see, even big pieces (rook/knight and bishop/knight compounds) still go under multi-names. Sorry for long post. 

Hey, i saw a site listing old shatranj pieces and it gives the knight/bishop compound the name 'Karkaddan', saying it is an old piece in a game called 'Shatrank al-Kabir'. Piece is at bottom of page, and the game link is in piece description. Any thoughts?
http://filer.case.edu/org/cwrums/games/shat-pieces.html#shah

main page link for other info on games is here
http://filer.case.edu/org/cwrums/games/

i like it, what else do people call it?
and i like capa's name for knight/bishop

I am aware of the name Okapi for about a decade when I found it in several problem databases on fairy chess problems. However, a search here

http://www.softdecc.com/pdb/search.pdb

(enter PIECE='Okapi' in the query form)

reveals some problems going back to 1970, Most Okapi problems are authored by Erich Bartels, but other prblemists joined the crew. If you have ever seen an okapi (I did, the Franfurt/Main zoo is a proud owner of the rare species), it is a particulary well choosen name for a horse-zebra vompound.

Digging through references on Gazelle, I found it only as a synonym for Camel (the (1,3).-leaper) in Turkish great chess V

http://www.chessvariants.com/large.dir/greatchessv.html

This is confirmed by George Duke here:

http://www.chessvariants.com/large.dir/falconpatent.html

and George know more chess variant literature than I can ever dream of.

The Ferz-Knight compound has the synonym priest - again a very unspecific name. It occurs in Töws' Generic chess piece creation system and Derzhanski's list.

I once aggressively tracked names for compound leapers and noted them on paper, it looks like a good idea to put them on the CVP pages some time.