Bob Greenwade wrote on Wed, Dec 27, 2023 03:52 PM UTC:
162. Sissa. This is a more popular piece around here than I would've expected, and it took me a good two months before I really understood how it moves, and it wasn't until I was mapping out the move that I looked closely enough to really get it. It makes a Rook or Bishop move, then turns either 45 or 135 degrees left or right and moves the exact same number of spaces (aivsQ). It can't make a single-space move, or move fewer spaces on the second leg; both legs of the move must be equal and unobstructed.
For the diagram, I mapped only the second leg of any given move. The blue arrows are orthogonal first, with a 45-degree turn; the green arrows are orthogonal first, with a 135-degree turn; the magenta arrows are diagonal first, with a 45-degree turn; and the mustard arrows are diagonal first, with a 135-degree turn.
Interestingly (at least to me), this gives the same destination squares as a Chancellor, but with different ways to get there.
A visual representation is hard to come up with, since the Sissa is named for a person (the legendary inventor of Chaturanga, from which Chess is descended). Since Sissa himself was Indian, I took a cue from the usual 2D icon and used the 24-spoked wheel of the Ashoka Chakra, which figures on the Indian flag, as a basic model. I'm not sure I did it justice.
162. Sissa. This is a more popular piece around here than I would've expected, and it took me a good two months before I really understood how it moves, and it wasn't until I was mapping out the move that I looked closely enough to really get it. It makes a Rook or Bishop move, then turns either 45 or 135 degrees left or right and moves the exact same number of spaces (aivsQ). It can't make a single-space move, or move fewer spaces on the second leg; both legs of the move must be equal and unobstructed.
For the diagram, I mapped only the second leg of any given move. The blue arrows are orthogonal first, with a 45-degree turn; the green arrows are orthogonal first, with a 135-degree turn; the magenta arrows are diagonal first, with a 45-degree turn; and the mustard arrows are diagonal first, with a 135-degree turn.
Interestingly (at least to me), this gives the same destination squares as a Chancellor, but with different ways to get there.
A visual representation is hard to come up with, since the Sissa is named for a person (the legendary inventor of Chaturanga, from which Chess is descended). Since Sissa himself was Indian, I took a cue from the usual 2D icon and used the 24-spoked wheel of the Ashoka Chakra, which figures on the Indian flag, as a basic model. I'm not sure I did it justice.