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Elephant Chess. Featuring the time-honoured Burmese Elephant.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

💡📝M Winther wrote on Sat, Apr 28, 2007 05:07 AM UTC:

The Burmese Elephant (Silver General) is a slow piece. Therefore it is placed in front so that it can partake in developing an initiative, otherwise it will lag behind. There is another way of solving this problem. In Makruk (Thai Chess) the 'Met' can make two moves when it is first moved. /Mats

Abdul-Rahman Sibahi wrote on Fri, Apr 27, 2007 09:01 PM UTC:

interesting concept, i wonder why the pieces weren't all stacked on one rank ?

💡📝M Winther wrote on Fri, Apr 27, 2007 04:42 PM UTC:

Another form of Crab appears in Bostick's Kung Fu Chess. With this febrile creativity name collisions cannot be avoided. Anyway, mine is a Crab pawn, which is different. It has vitalized Elephant Chess. This pawn isn't particularly wild, while the extra move doesn't occur often. But it decreases the draw risk very much, despite the fact that all pieces, except the rooks, are short-range. This is a confortable chess variant, and not so stressful. Quite strategic with good winning chances, thanks to the curious Crab jump.
/Mats

Sam Trenholme wrote on Fri, Apr 27, 2007 04:25 PM UTC:

I just want to note that the Crab is also a piece invented by Ralph Betza that is a half knight.  Betza's crab can move, from e5, to d7, f7, c4, and g4.  It's a useful piece because it is not colorbound and is worth half as much as a knight.  It can be used to create other pieces that are worth about as much as a knight: Crab + Wazir, Crab + Alfil, Crab + Dabbah, and Crab + Ferz, to name just four examples.

Might also be useful in a Capablanca variant to remove some power from the board.

💡📝M Winther wrote on Fri, Apr 27, 2007 12:50 PM UTC:

I have changed the rules for Elephant Chess. I have added the 'Crab' pawn instead of regular pawns. The Crab moves like a regular pawn. In addition it can jump to an empty square west-north-west, or east-north-east. This is only allowed if the Crab's forward movement is blocked. This type of pawn makes this variant much less drawish. It should be interesting to authors who use short-range pieces and create slow variants. There is also a Zillions file.
/Mats

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