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Fibnif. Moves one diagonally or makes a forwards or backwards knight jump.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Aurelian Florea wrote on Fri, Feb 9 07:52 AM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from 06:22 AM:

You are welcome!


Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Fri, Feb 9 06:22 AM UTC in reply to Aurelian Florea from Thu Feb 8 11:17 PM:

@Aurelian: oh thank you. I thought that Chess V2 was a chess variant where I could find the Lancer as a Fibnif.


Aurelian Florea wrote on Thu, Feb 8 11:17 PM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from 10:34 PM:

Here is the latest installer version: http://www.chessv.org/. But there are some much newer versions. I'll search tomorrow!


Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Thu, Feb 8 10:34 PM UTC in reply to Aurelian Florea from 09:26 PM:

I can't find chessV2. Where it is?


H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Feb 8 10:09 PM UTC:

As Aurelian explained, this was Greg's initiative. He wanted to get rid of all these silly names obtained from trying to pronounce the Betza move notation. So in ChessV Bede became Cleric, Half Duck became Lion, and he asked if anyone had an idea for Fibnif. Aurelian came up with Lancer, and we liked it, because the Fibnif is a narrow piece, and in battle Lancers cannot easily turn sideways, because of their long lance.


Kevin Pacey wrote on Thu, Feb 8 09:44 PM UTC in reply to Aurelian Florea from 09:26 PM:

Here's a preliminary version of a settings file of mine for one of my CV invention ideas in the works, which uses Fibnifs (aka Lancers) - the name of the CV was changed to something Fergus suggested to me, as the word Lancer(s) by itself has been used in the case of a few CVs published on CVP to date:

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Fibnif+Lancers+Chess&settings=default


Kevin Pacey wrote on Thu, Feb 8 09:36 PM UTC in reply to Aurelian Florea from 09:29 PM:

I emailed Greg late last year and his reply was short, like:

29 Dec 2023:

Happy holidays! I'm doing pretty well. How are you?

Yea, I haven't been on the CVP for a long time. I will probably return at some point but have been involved with other things...


Aurelian Florea wrote on Thu, Feb 8 09:29 PM UTC in reply to Aurelian Florea from 09:26 PM:

And by the way, has anyone news on Greg?


Aurelian Florea wrote on Thu, Feb 8 09:26 PM UTC in reply to Bob Greenwade from 08:23 PM:

Once, when writing code for CwDA, Greg Strong has asked the community for an alternative named to fibnif, as he did not like it. I have proposed lancer and donkey while favoriting lancer. He has chosen lancer for chessV2!


Bob Greenwade wrote on Thu, Feb 8 08:23 PM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from 08:20 PM:

@HG: I would like to know where this piece has been called Lancer. All Lancers I can find are different pieces, like mRcN or rotating piece.

Same here, except that I most often see a Lancer as a (2,4) leaper (aka Hare or Stag).


Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Thu, Feb 8 08:20 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 02:43 PM:

@HG: I would like to know where this piece has been called Lancer. All Lancers I can find are different pieces, like mRcN or rotating piece.


H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Feb 8 02:43 PM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from Mon Nov 18 2019 03:26 AM:

When I added the checkmating paragraph I also added the mention that this piece nowadays is also known as Lancer.

Perhaps someone who knows how to do this can add a link to the page in the Piececlopedia index under that name.


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

Thanks for the info, H.G.!


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 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?


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.

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.

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 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?

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