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Quite long time ago (i did not knew about chess variants at that time) i watched TV-show, where 2 teams of children was drawing pictures and modeling in plasticine. Theme of one of contests was chess. First, they had to draw chess kingdom, then sculpt new chess pieces and explain, how they move. Besides other pieces, there was 'Horse-o-elephant' (knight and bishop are called horse and elephant in Russian lunguage), moves like knight and bishop. Looks like, chanselor and archbishop are simpliest chess variant pieces, as children re-invented one of them.
Paladins, however, were the highest Christian knights, which would bring the bishop aspect in religiosity, though they were not actually bishops.
In history, a 'Paladin' was actually a sort of specialized KNIGHT. Nothing to do with bishops. Hey, presto, we have a simalar situation to the ones with 'Archbishop' and 'Cardinal'.
Take a position from the 1973 Moscow Championship, switch a knight into a BishopKnight, make a few minor alterations and you get this: White- BNd4 Rd3 Be3 Kf3 Pg4,h3 Black- Ra2 Bc5 Nd7 Kg8 Pg7,h4 A quadruple attack! I like such positions, I think they're great.
From an altered Dolmatov endgame comes a BishopKnight position- White- BNd2 Kf1 Pf2,g3,h2 Black- Rc6 Qe5 Kh5 Pd4,f5,g7,h6 1.BNf3+ Kg6 2.BNxe5+ Kh7 3.BNxc6. The BishopKnight was driving, diving, jiving, and high-fiving!
A fun position featuring the BishopKnight and RookKnight. white- BNg4 RNh4 black- Kg7 Nf6 Rg5 1.BNe6mate. A pure mate, it seems. Pure Fantasy. I hope readers enjoy this kind of comment, instead of debates about the 'correct' name for a piece, ect. I hope this generates some comments, maybe people should write about particular positions like this more often!?
Repeating my 2001 comment. One web page for Cardinal Super Chess states: 'Because of the Cardinals' unique movement, a combination of a knight and a bishop, it gathers the initiative into one sweeping action.' This naturally leads to the mistaken conclusion that it is the usual B+N piece. But the second web page given for this commercial variant shows the move to be a non-leaping Camel. I tested the piece on the applet provided and saw the program move a Bishop to block my Cardinal check.
Mention in two recent comments of the use of the term Pegasus is surprising, as the wings of that character suggest a bird or (metaphorically) a stately home, both of which lead to the Rook - and along with his basic horsiness the Marshal. Indeed when I was considering pieces with one symmetric and one forward-only element, Pegasus struck me as the best name for a Knight with just the forward Rook move added, and Paladin - one whose clerical element is short of the episcopate - for a Knight with the forward Bishop moves added. For Rooks and Bishops with the two forwardmost Knight moves I suggest the militarily authentic Vicemarshal and the (unless any of you know better!) clerically bogus Vicecardinal.
Yes. King and 'Cardinal' can mate lone King: On an 8x8 board the checkmate takes 17 or fewer moves. See http://www.chessvariants.com/misc.dir/endgames.html (Analysis by Dave McCooey, who refers to the B+N as a 'Pegasus'.)
Can a Cardinal and a King force a chackmate against a lone King?
Hugo Legler, about 1923, called this piece an archbishop, and S. S. Blackburn, about the same time, called it a pegasus.
Nice summary. I just want to add name and date for Janusschach: It was invented by Werner Schöndorf in 1978. Another game using this piece is my Quintessential Chess, designed 2002 for the 84 squares contest. I decided to use the name Janus for this piece.
A Cardinal (or as I prefer, Paladin) can mate by itself, although it is not a force mate. _________________ | | | | | K | | | |____|_____|______| | | | | | | | | |____|_____|______| | | | | | | | P | |____|_____|______| P stands for Paladin, K for King, and they are (obviously) opposing pieces. If you can get the enemy king into the corner, this is a mate.
Although I'm certain all Primates are primates, the word has an unfortunate (in this context) second meaning. How about Prelate or Monsignor? The piece you describe, B+W, has also frequently been called a Crowned Bishop.
The name Cardinal has grown on me since my last comment, as this piece is a Bishop with 8 extra moves and there is also a Bishop with 4 extra moves (those of the Wazir, known in Shogi as Dragonhorse) for which an intermediate church title would be more Anglophone-friendly (after all, they have their own names for our Bishop and Rook). I would suggest calling the Dragonhorse a Primate - a synonym for Archbishop but shorter and never (as far as I know) used for a Chess piece before - and the subject of this page a Cardinal. Does anyone know whether any names have been given to Bishop+Camel, Bishop+Zebra &c.? If not I have some ideas.
One problem with Princess is that the piece lacks the move associasted with the female rôle in mediæval society - that is, the home and refuge represented by the rook. Also the name is used only in only one of the variants listed, and so has a far worse claim than at least four alternative names.
Error on the big diagram! One of the dots should be blue instead of green! --Jared
While the Cardinal can give mate unassited to a King in the corner, can the Cardinal force mate (with or without the help of its own king)? If so, what is the technique?
An excellent summary, indeed. Just to establish the futility of trying to get a standard name out of all this, I noticed that my Thronschach calls the piece a Cardinal, and my ABChess later the same year calls it an Archbishop. :) History is on both sides, and for Princess as well. But I also like Fergus's reasoning for Paladin.
Excellent synthesis ! Good job !
I just corrected a mistake I made when I wrote this page two days ago. Capablanca did not introduce the name Cardinal. He introduced the name Chancellor. This was an error of confusion, not ignorance, on my part. The confusion stems from the fact that when Capablanca used the name of Chancellor for this piece, he called the Rook-Knight a Marshall, which is the same name Freeling uses in Grand Chess. And both Chancellor and Cardinal begin with the letter C. So I let myself get confused into thinking that Capablanca had used the same names as Freeling later used. But he did not use both names. He used only one of the names, namely Marshall.
nice page. this is something i had considered doing but never did, so you've saved me the effort. the only thing i can think to add is that in superchess (www.superchess.nl), haerington uses princess for his B+N piece; and the physical piece he designed to represent it is somewhat princess like - the piece has a shorter skirt and a crown. (he also uses empress for R+N, and the piece has a long dress and a fancier crown.)
Some more games using this piece:
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<table border=2 cellpadding=4>
<tr><TH>Year</TH><th>Game</th><th>Name of Piece</th><TH>Creator of Game</TH></tr>
<tr>
<td>1950-1980?</td><td><a href='../large.dir/cagliostro.html'>Cagliostro's Chess</a></td><td>Archbishop</td><td>Savio Cagliostro</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1998</td><td><a href='../large.dir/ericgr.html'>Eric's Great Chess</a></td><td>Vizir</td><td>Eric Greenwood</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2000</td><td><a href='../unequal.dir/dropchess.html'>Drop Chess</a></td><td>Crusader</td><td>Key McKinnis</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2001</td><td><a href='../large.dir/21st-century-chess.html'>Twenty-First Century Chess</a></td><td>Baron</td><td>Karl Munzlinger</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2000</td><td><a href='../large.dir/fantasygrandchess.html'>Fantasy Grand Chess</a></td><td>Cardinal</td><td>Peter Hatch</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2001</td><td><a href='../large.dir/gigachess.html'>Gigachess</a></td><td>Cardinal</td><td>Jean-Louis Cazaux</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2002</td><td><a href='../unequal.dir/abchess/abeced-home.html'>Abecedarian Big Chess (ABChess)</a></td><td>Archbishop</td><td>Glenn Overby</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2002</td><td><a href='../large.dir/full-double-chess.html'>Full Double Chess</a></td><td>Cardinal</td><td>Sergey Sirotkin</td>
</tr>
</table>
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More later!
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