<h4 align=center>What's the Value of a White Elephant?</h4> Here are some thoughts on a variant I've played around with, but never finished as I was uncertain about the balance. I thought they might be of minor general interest, so here they are. <P> Sometime back, after reading the Piececlopedia article on the <a href='../piececlopedia.dir/alfil.html'>Alfil</a>, I started thinking about the other sort of Elephant piece, the one that moves like a Ferz or one step forward (fWF), found in <A HREF='../oriental.dir/burmese.html'>Sittuyin</A> (Burmese Chess) as the Elephant, in <A HREF='../oriental.dir/thai.html'>Makruk</A> (Thai Chess) as the Thon, and in <A HREF='../shogi.html'>Shogi</A> (Japanese Chess) as the Silver General. <P> It's a simple piece, but what is it worth? A <A HREF='../piececlopedia.dir/ferz.html'>Ferz</A> is generally accepted to be worth about 1/2 a Knight (balancing colorboundness with a good forward move), but how much more does that single forward move add? I'm not as scientific about these sorts of things like Ralph Betza is, but it does add a lot. First, an Elephant is not colorbound like a Ferz is, and second, its forward moves are the same as a <A HREF='../piececlopedia.dir/man.html'>Commoner's</A>. In fact, you could look at an Elephant as 5/8's of a Commoner, which is generally considered a Knight-valued piece and about which Ralph Betza says: <BLOCKQUOTE> This is a very short-range and very flexible piece that is much weaker than a Knight in the opening, very strong in the middlegame if it can occupy the center, and almost always wins against a Knight or Bishop in the endgame. </BLOCKQUOTE> Of course, an Elephant is less flexible in the endgame where the opposing pieces very well might not be in front of it. But on the other hand, it has the three most useful moves of the Commoner for the opening. So we'll assume 5/8's of a Knight is about right; roughly two Pawns. <P> The next thought I had on the subject was what if I were to combine the Alfil and the Elephant? This produced a piece that moved one or two (jumping) diagonally or one square forward. Looking at this, I realized that if I added a two square jump forward (yielding fWFfDA) , I would repeat the shape of the Elephant's move (supposedly four legs and a trunk) on a slightly larger scale. Thus was born the 'Great Elephant'. <P> Now, what's the Great Elephant's value? It attacks 10 squares on an empty board, and it is neither colorbound nor colorchanging. The simplest calculation would be a Knight and a quarter -- 3.75 Pawns. The lack of colorchanging might kick it up to as much as 4 Pawns. <P> OK, the actual variant. Thinking about Ralph Betza's game of <A HREF='../d.betza/chessvar/ghost.html'>Black Ghost</A>, where black is given a piece worth less than a Pawn to balance white's first turn advantage, I decided to give white an Elephant-based army worth a tiny bit less than black's in order to balance white's first turn advantage. <h4 align=center>White Elephant Chess</h4> The rules for <B>White Elephant Chess</B> are as for <A HREF='../ichess.html'>FIDE Chess</A>, except where stated otherwise. <P> White's Bishops are replaced by Elephants (fWF), and Knight's by Great Elephant's (fWFfDA). Black's array is the usual FIDE array. <P> Pawns may promote to any non-Pawn, non-King piece that started the game on either side (Elephant, Knight, Bishop, Great Elephant, Rook or Queen). <hr> My suspicion (backed up unreliably by Zillions) is that white might be a tad <STRONG>too</STRONG> weak. I tried adding the Alfil's move to the white Queen's to produce the Queen Elephant, but that didn't seem right, either.