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nice page. this is something i had considered doing but never did, so you've saved me the effort. the only thing i can think to add is that in superchess (www.superchess.nl), haerington uses princess for his B+N piece; and the physical piece he designed to represent it is somewhat princess like - the piece has a shorter skirt and a crown. (he also uses empress for R+N, and the piece has a long dress and a fancier crown.)
An excellent summary, indeed. Just to establish the futility of trying to get a standard name out of all this, I noticed that my Thronschach calls the piece a Cardinal, and my ABChess later the same year calls it an Archbishop. :) History is on both sides, and for Princess as well. But I also like Fergus's reasoning for Paladin.
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Error on the big diagram! One of the dots should be blue instead of green! --Jared
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A Cardinal (or as I prefer, Paladin) can mate by itself, although it is not a force mate. _________________ | | | | | K | | | |____|_____|______| | | | | | | | | |____|_____|______| | | | | | | | P | |____|_____|______| P stands for Paladin, K for King, and they are (obviously) opposing pieces. If you can get the enemy king into the corner, this is a mate.
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Nice summary. I just want to add name and date for Janusschach: It was invented by Werner Schöndorf in 1978. Another game using this piece is my Quintessential Chess, designed 2002 for the 84 squares contest. I decided to use the name Janus for this piece.
Yes. King and 'Cardinal' can mate lone King: On an 8x8 board the checkmate takes 17 or fewer moves. See http://www.chessvariants.com/misc.dir/endgames.html (Analysis by Dave McCooey, who refers to the B+N as a 'Pegasus'.)
Repeating my 2001 comment. One web page for Cardinal Super Chess states: 'Because of the Cardinals' unique movement, a combination of a knight and a bishop, it gathers the initiative into one sweeping action.' This naturally leads to the mistaken conclusion that it is the usual B+N piece. But the second web page given for this commercial variant shows the move to be a non-leaping Camel. I tested the piece on the applet provided and saw the program move a Bishop to block my Cardinal check.
A fun position featuring the BishopKnight and RookKnight. white- BNg4 RNh4 black- Kg7 Nf6 Rg5 1.BNe6mate. A pure mate, it seems. Pure Fantasy. I hope readers enjoy this kind of comment, instead of debates about the 'correct' name for a piece, ect. I hope this generates some comments, maybe people should write about particular positions like this more often!?
From an altered Dolmatov endgame comes a BishopKnight position- White- BNd2 Kf1 Pf2,g3,h2 Black- Rc6 Qe5 Kh5 Pd4,f5,g7,h6 1.BNf3+ Kg6 2.BNxe5+ Kh7 3.BNxc6. The BishopKnight was driving, diving, jiving, and high-fiving!
Take a position from the 1973 Moscow Championship, switch a knight into a BishopKnight, make a few minor alterations and you get this: White- BNd4 Rd3 Be3 Kf3 Pg4,h3 Black- Ra2 Bc5 Nd7 Kg8 Pg7,h4 A quadruple attack! I like such positions, I think they're great.
Does this piece and king mate a lone king? How? Is it similar to KNB vs K? Does it work on any rectangular board?
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Use the "Try it" link in the Notes section, and start playing for black to see how it is done.
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