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Fibnif. Moves one diagonally or makes a forwards or backwards knight jump.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Charles Gilman wrote on Wed, Jul 16, 2003 06:57 AM UTC:
Two components I recognise: the Japanese Hon. Horse and the Ferz of mainland Asia. But what do the backward Knight moves reprsent? A Dishonourable Horse, perhaps?

Anonymous wrote on Wed, Jul 16, 2003 11:08 AM UTC:
This piece could be considered a combination of the Ferz and the Heavenly Horse(Wa Shogi).

Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, Oct 26, 2003 10:03 AM UTC:
Viewed as Ferz+Heavenly Horse this piece combines two bound pieces into an unbound one (as B+U does in 3d games). The Heavenly Horse is bound to a quarter of the board, like a sort of skewed Dabbaba.

Charles Gilman wrote on Thu, Nov 11, 2010 06:43 AM UTC:
Further to my previous comments, I notice that this piece also always moves an odd number of files and therefore cannot lose the move.

Kevin Pacey wrote on Sun, Nov 17, 2019 05:35 AM UTC:

Does anyone know if 2 fibnifs can force mate against a lone K, say on 10x8 or 12x8 rectangular boards?

While I'm at it, a bigger challenge might be the off-topic question: Can 2 compound pieces force mate vs. a lone K on 12x8, if they are both a lame knight (that is, a Chinese Chess horse) plus wazir movement compound piece?


H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, Nov 17, 2019 10:01 AM UTC:

Note that as part of an attempt to get rid of the ridiculous names of some of the CwDA pieces it was decided the Fibnif should be renamed to Lancer.

And yes, a pair of Lancers is pretty good at checkmating. An overview for various board sizes:

board size won lost worst-case/average DTM
8x8 98.3% 69.8% 21 / 12.4
10x8 98.4% 74.1% 23 / 15.0
12x8 98.4% 77.0% 27 / 17.9

Given that Knight + Wazir is already won, and that blocking plays virtually no role at all in the late end-game (especially when the losing side cannot block because the squares where this could be done are attacked by the piece itself), two WazirKnights should have no problem at all. My EGT generator does not do lame leaps, but with a pair of NW the stats are:

pieces board size won lost worst-case/average DTM
N + W 8x8 93.7% 61.0% 45 / 28.4
N + W 10x8 92.9% 64.6% 56 / 36.2
N + W 12x8 92.4% 67.5% 69 / 44.2
2 x NW 8x8 99.9% 73.9% 11 / 6.3
2 x NW 10x8 99.9% 78.0% 13 / 7.6
2 x NW 12x8 99.9% 81.1% 16 / 9

Note that the winning percentage for N + W is not as high as commonly found in general wins. This is because a Wazir can easily be chased to doom by a King, when it happens to wake up cut off from the rest of its army. So there are a lot more positions where the strong side loses a piece despite the fact that he has the move (which otherwise are usually limited to forks in configurations where one of the pieces cannot move away while protecting the other, or attacked pieces trapped against an edge or in a corner).


Kevin Pacey wrote on Mon, Nov 18, 2019 03:26 AM UTC:

Thanks for the info, H.G.!


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