20
votes
Accepted
Could two kings force checkmate against a lone king?
If these are two real kings, it is not possible. This is because one requirement of checkmate is that the black king is in check which cannot be achieved with any of the white kings, since it would ...
- 20.7k
18
votes
Could two kings force checkmate against a lone king?
A King and a Man (or commoner; i.e., a non-royal King) can mate a lone King. The longest distance to mate on a standard 8x8 board is 18 moves.
The result quoted above was obtained by H.G. Muller in ...
- 1,939
15
votes
Was there a chess piece—elephant, knight or rook—rendered as a being looking into two directions?
In shatranj, the game out of which chess developed, the rukhs (rooks) are portrayed a bit like the way you describe. That Wikipedia article contains this illustration of a 12th-century Iranian ...
- 6,265
13
votes
Accepted
How to solve this puzzle of Martin Gardner?
According to the FIDE Laws of Chess:
1.4 The objective of each player is to place the opponent’s king ‘under attack’ in such a way that the opponent has no legal move.
1.4.1 The player who achieves ...
- 94.5k
10
votes
Was there a chess piece—elephant, knight or rook—rendered as a being looking into two directions?
The Janus-Springer set includes such a knight.
- 1,368
9
votes
Controversy over the Xiangqi cannon piece?
The character 砲 (pào) gives a significant clue: compared to 炮, which is homophonous, the radicals of these characters are different. 砲 uses the 石 radical, which means stone, and 炮 uses the 火 radical,...
- 863
8
votes
Accepted
Fairy chess: KNNvK
The Wikipedia page on the Nightrider contains an example from T. R. Dawson, published in the British Chess Magazine in 1925, where a king, knight and nightrider force a mate against a lone king. I ...
- 24.8k
8
votes
Was there a chess piece—elephant, knight or rook—rendered as a being looking into two directions?
I don't really know the history; just was curious and will be presenting some of my google findings here.
First, I came across Rook (chess) heraldry on Wikipedia:
Chess rooks frequently occur as ...
- 181
5
votes
Would a piece that moved like a king – but could be captured (and could be moved en prise) – be considered a major or a minor piece?
This piece is widely used in different fairy chess variants. It appears under several names, including Commoner, Guard and Man / Mann.
While the table in the Wikipedia article also linked to in @...
- 24.8k
5
votes
Accepted
Amazon vs Chancellor endgame
This is a great question and a fun problem to mull over. Indeed the way it's written on wikipedia one gets the impression that amazon-vs-empress fortresses are trivial and easily attainable for the ...
- 12k
5
votes
Accepted
Would certain checkmates be possible if the king could move into check?
You could force a checkmate with two knights and a "king". Because the "king" does not fear being taken, it can move directly in front of the opponent's king, if it is protected by a knight. All it ...
- 18.4k
4
votes
How to solve this puzzle of Martin Gardner?
Ok, I think I got it. Your first move is Nc3-Nb5, threatening Nxc7 and Nxe8 in its next move, and since Black can't move their King they just can't prevent check mate.
EDIT: just to make it clearer, ...
- 2,114
4
votes
Accepted
Material value of the Berolina pawn
According to Gnu, which has a page dedicated to Berolina chess, the value of the Berolina pawn is the same as in standard chess, = 1. This is unsatisfactory because they give no explanation of how ...
- 94.5k
4
votes
Would a piece that moved like a king – but could be captured (and could be moved en prise) – be considered a major or a minor piece?
I haven't heard of that definition being used for a major piece, but it's a neat observation. Such a piece (call it X) should be able to force a checkmate in a K+X vs K situation.
Say White's pieces ...
- 19.8k
4
votes
Accepted
Chess variants-Anyone recall the name for one that has a "superpiece" with the movements of the queen and knight?
According to the Wikipedia variants page, there does not seem to be a variant with a specific name, but there are several variants that use the queen-knight hybrid, which is called an Amazon (...
- 32.4k
4
votes
Is this a sound elephant offer?
It's not a sacrifice, it's a trade after 1. Gxc2 G*b3 and taking the elephant on a3 next.
On the other hand, since doubutsu shogi is strongly solved, you can use an engine/tablebase (e.g. https://...
- 4,980
4
votes
Accepted
Fairy endgame statistics for KDDDDvKN (D=dabbaba; '2,0' leaper)?
I was unable to generate data for exactly what you want, but I managed something with a restriction to 6x6 board. I think it's reasonable to assume that it doesn't make a big difference from 8x8 for ...
- 258
4
votes
Accepted
What is the maximum number of squares 8 queens and 8 nightriders can attack on a 16x16 board?
It's possible to attack all squares.
Q - queen
N - nightrider
Yellow background - attacked only by a queen
Red background - attacked only by a nightrider
Orange background - attacked by pieces of ...
- 258
3
votes
Would a piece that moved like a king – but could be captured (and could be moved en prise) – be considered a major or a minor piece?
That is an interesting distinction theory. Although this king-like piece could deliver checkmate with the help of the king, I've always considered the difference to be based on the value of the piece....
- 5,159
3
votes
Would a piece that moved like a king – but could be captured (and could be moved en prise) – be considered a major or a minor piece?
The king is worth about 4 pawns if its loss didn't lose the game, which means it's neither a minor or a major piece, but something in between.
(Major pieces like the rook is worth 5+ pawns; minor ...
- 26.1k
3
votes
Could two kings force checkmate against a lone king?
Non-royal king is a combination of [0,1] leaper (wazir) and [1,1] leaper (fers) and in fairy chess called a erlking. About erlking, see my book Fairy chess endings on an n x n chessboard (2017), page ...
- 253
3
votes
Accepted
Marshall vs. Queen Endgame
Since my Stockfish fork for fairy chess variants already supports Almost Chess, I added Sort of Almost Chess with both sides having all promotion options (which is what you seem to imply in your ...
- 2,346
2
votes
Fairy chess: KNNvK
See my book Fairy chess endings on an n x n chessboard (2017), p. 345 and 414. The ending of king + two nightriders against bare king on board 8x8 is won for the stronger side and the longest win has ...
- 253
2
votes
What is the maximum number of squares 8 queens and 8 nightriders can attack on a 16x16 board?
This is my best attempt thus far, which I believe attacks 236 (all but 20) squares. I used the staircase solution for 8 queens on the central 8x8 region in order to consequentially fully cover the 4 ...
- 308
2
votes
Accepted
Is it possible for the hopper/locust to jump over unmovable squares?
Your question:
If a board with unmovable squares, such as Chessence, has a Cannon on
a1, and an enemy piece on a3, can the Cannon jump over the unmovable
square (a2) and capture the target?
Relevant ...
- 1,664
2
votes
Do amphibians usually have more synergy than other compound pieces?
Not just amphibians. Other pieces too!
Note: I'm assuming an 8x8 board. A different board size would have VERY different values!
Let's take the queen as a standard. Queen consists of Rook + Bishop, ...
- 21
2
votes
Given the value of a given piece is there a way to find the value of a similar piece that can only move, without capturing, or only capture?
Fairy-stockfish can help you with this. You can define pieces you described. To find the optimal piece values, depends on your starting position and board size. Create some start positions, do some ...
- 3,885
1
vote
Is it possible to put special pieces on a chess.com custom board?
Probably the most advanced diagram creator in the whole Internet is the Board Painter of Musketeer Chess. There are others, but none like this.
It has almost FOUR HUNDRED different fairy pieces for ...
- 11
1
vote
An online dictionary of fairy chess pieces indexed by move
There is the Wikipadia page "Fairy Chess Piece" with a table of popular and well known fairies. You can re-order the table by Betza notation or Parlett notation to get an ordering by move ...
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Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible