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The Piececlopedia is intended as a scholarly reference concerning the history and naming conventions of pieces used in Chess variants. But it is not a set of standards concerning what you must call pieces in newly invented games.

Piececlopedia: Grasshopper

Historical notes

As far as we know, the scorpion was introduced in Variant Chess, spring 1999. It is sometimes used in fairy chess problems.

Movement

The scorpion is a king with additional grasshopper powers.

Thus, the scorpion can move one square in an arbitrary direction, or as a grasshopper.

A grasshopper moves on the queens lines, but must jump and lands at the first square after the piece he jumps. To be precise: the grasshopper moves in horizontal, vertical or diagonal direction until it meets a piece (either friendly or unfriendly). It jumps over the piece and goes to the first square on the line after the piece that it jumped over. If that square is occupied by a piece from the opponent, that piece is taken, i.e., the grasshopper takes in the same way as it moves without taking.

Scorpions are royal, i.e., they may not be placed in check.

Movement diagram









Games

The scorpion is used in
This is an item in the Piececlopedia: an overview of different (fairy) chess pieces.
Written by Hans Bodlaender. Diagram based upon diagram of Ben Good
WWW page created: November 9, 1999.