Check out Modern Chess, our featured variant for January, 2025.


[ Help | Earliest Comments | Latest Comments ]
[ List All Subjects of Discussion | Create New Subject of Discussion ]
[ List Earliest Comments Only For Pages | Games | Rated Pages | Rated Games | Subjects of Discussion ]

Single Comment

A Taxonomy. Categorizing several types of pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Jan 7 05:57 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 08:00 AM:

'Double' and 'triple' are more precise specifications of 'compound'. So I would just say 'double leaper' and 'triple leaper'.

As pointed out, a double leaper could be a piece that leaps twice, and a triple leaper could be a piece that leaps thrice. Sticking with the word compound makes what I mean less ambiguous.

'Hybrid' wouod be a useful designation for compounds of different move types, like leaper + rider or leaper + hopper.

One of the main contexts in which the word compound comes up is in speaking of the other compounds you could have of Chess pieces besides the Queen. If you called the Queen a compound but referred to the Knight-Bishop and Knight-Rook compounds as hybrids, that would confuse matters. So I am not in favor of using the word hybrid for a type of compound. It might be better used to describe a piece that combines the moves of two different pieces in a hybridized manner, such as the Chinese Chess Knight, which first moves as a wazir, then as a ferz, or bent riders, which start with a leap in one direction, followed by riding in a different direction.

As an afterthought, I could go along with speaking of hybrid compounds, which is different than substituting the word hybrid for compound. After Leapers, Riders, and Hoppers, I could include a new section on Hybrids, which includes hybrid compounds and other kinds of hybridized pieces.