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Thanks for the comment. It's nice to know people read this stuff. You make an interesting case for the evolution of the bishop. I don't necessarily agree, but I also don't disagree. I looked at your examples, and you have several good points. I freely admit (and have previously admitted - I also wrote a comment 'shatranj2chess' that I took most of for the MS discussion) that I offered speculation only on the origins of the modern FIDE game. What I did was to take the smallest possible changes from shatranj that moved it directly toward modern chess, and saw 6 of them in piece movement. I consider each one a least change from the previous state. I have little to no idea of the actual history of chess. I was merely trying to put together an easiest possible path in discrete steps from one to the other. As a path of least action, it could not include larger boards and more pieces. Your version is easily as likely to be 'right' as is mine, though I strongly suspect neither is. I also 'strongly suspect' (aka: 'know') there are people here who could give us accurate info. Again, thanks.