Hundreds
of different "Fairy" chess pieces have been used in chess problems over the
last one hundred years. And so many variant forms of chess have been designed
in recent years that it is hard to think of an appropriate name that has not
already been taken. We do not introduce any new fairy
pieces or chess variants here. However we do propose that:
The Cannon
(Pao), Vao and Leo (Chinese line pieces) are fairy chess pieces that move exactly
like the orthodox Rook, Bishop and Queen respectively, but to capture they must hop over one
piece of either color. Instructional examples and composed problems are presented
below to demonstrate their tactical potential. We have tried to make these
problems entertaining in themselves. Four criticisms of orthodox (European)
chess are listed and we argue that our second proposal above would meet these
criticisms and eventually develop an expanded game that has even more vitality
and sustainable international interest than orthodox chess.
CONTENTS:
1. The Chinese Line Pieces: Cannon,
Vao, Leo.
2. Chinese Line Pieces in Problems
and Endgame Studies.
3. Critique of Orthodox Chess.
4. Free Placement Chess.
5. Contact, Links and References.
DIAGRAMS:
INSTRUCTIONAL EXAMPLES: 1. The Cannon, Vao, Leo and Mao 2. Triple check
PROBLEMS AND ENDGAME STUDIES:
3. Mate in three 4. Mate
in three 5. White draws 6. White wins 7. Withdrawn 8. Helpmate in two 9. Series
mate in four (2) 10. Mate in three (3)
11. Mate in two 12. Mate
in two (published) 13. Mate in three
FREE PLACEMENT CHESS: A & B.
Burmese Pawn Placements.
The Cannon moves like an orthodox rook along a rank or file, but to capture must hop over one piece of either color (the "frame") and continue on the line beyond until encountering an opposing piece. This piece is then removed from the board and the Cannon occupies its square.
The Vao moves and captures like the Cannon, except that it operates on diagonals.
The Leo combines the movement and capturing of the Cannon and Vao,
as the orthodox Queen combines the powers of the Rook and Bishop.
The Mao moves to and captures on
squares a Knight's move away, but accomplishes this in two steps: (i) a one-step
orthogonal move to an unoccupied
square, and (ii) a one-step move on an outward diagonal from that square.
Its move is not sufficiently distinct from that of the Knight to justify
their both being present in a game. Further, we feel the unblockable move
of the orthodox Knight is to be preferred over the Mao, since it distinguishes
the Knight in a useful and pleasing way from line pieces.
The following lists all possible moves and captures by the Chinese Pieces
in Diagram 1.
White Cannon a1. Moves to a2 through a8. Captures on c1.
White Vao b1. Moves to a2, d3. Captures on h7. It can not move to
c2 because this would put the white King in check.
Black Cannon c1. Moves to c2, c3, c4, d1. Captures on a1.
Black Mao e1. Moves to
c2+, d3+. Captures on f3.
Black Leo f1. Moves to e2, d3, c4+, b5, a6, f2, g1, g2, h3. Captures
on f7.
We have designed this example so that it is a simple problem as well.
In a "helpmate" Black cooperates with White to produce a checkmate of the
black King as soon as possible. So, from a game perspective, Black makes
the worst possible moves. The convention is for Black to play first in a
helpmate. So for this position, can you "helpmate in one move"? This means
Black makes a certain move that allows White to checkmate on the very next
move.
The "Cannon" was introduced into Chinese Chess (Xiangqi) in the ninth century after artillery had been used in wars (Li, p. 222). The "Chariot" in Xiangqi moves and captures like an orthodox Rook, and the Cannon also moves like a Rook when "deployed," as by a chariot. But to capture (fire), the Cannon must employ a "frame" (a piece of either color), and the action then extends on the line beyond the frame. The Mao (Horse) was also present in early versions of Xiangqi.
Apparently neither the Vao (called an "Arrow" by Fergus Duniho) nor the Leo were ever used in a chess variant, Asian or otherwise, until recently. The Chinese pieces were introduced into Western "Fairy Chess" problems by T. R. Dawson around 1914 (Dickins). In problem literature a Cannon is usually referred to as a "Pao," which is Dawson's rendering of the Chinese word for Cannon, and he made up the words "Vao" and "Leo." We prefer "Cannon" since the terms "Pao, Vao, Leo, Mao" are singsong and easy to confuse, and "Pao" starts with a "P" as does "Pawn."
If new pieces are to be added to orthodox chess, the Chinese line pieces
(Cannon, Vao, Leo) are a logical choice. In earlier experiments I thought
the "Lion" was preferable. This piece both moves and captures as the Leo captures.
The Lion proved to be a terror in the opening but a tethered lamb in an endgame.
By contrast the Leo is always a mobile piece, though much weaker that an
orthodox Queen. The "Grasshopper" moves and captures like the Lion except
only to the one square immediately beyond the frame piece. Thus it is a much
weaker piece than even the Lion. It has been very popular in problems, usually
appearing in considerable numbers. This may be due more to fashion than function,
but in any case it is too immobile to add much interest as a game piece.
The "Nightrider" may make repeated Knight moves along a single direction.
It too has been very popular in problems, but children have enough trouble
learning how a Knight moves to ask them to master the Nightrider. Few other
powerful fairy pieces seem suitable for use in a "near-orthodox" game, perhaps
with the exception of the "Aldarider" (moves like a Queen except that it
hops over every other square, occupied or not). Surely the Chinese line pieces
are leading candidates to be added to orthodox chess, and to learn one is
to learn all three. They do not capture as they move, but this is not a total
breach of orthodoxy since the trait is shared by the Pawn. The apocryphal
text, Dodgson's "Frogs Manuscript" Decoded,
suggests Lewis Carroll planned to introduce Chinese line pieces into chess.
The Chinese line pieces (CVL = Cannon, Vao, Leo) have the following characteristics:
With both a Cannon and orthodox Pawns on the board the oddity of a triple
check (on three different lines) becomes possible. With an en passant capture
the Cannon can check on the rank of the capturing pawn. In Diagram 2 Black's
last move can be deduced ("retrograde analysis"). It could not have been
with the King. The only possibility would be Kc6 - b6, but on c6 there is
a double check by the Pawn on b5 and Vao on h1 that White could not have
produced with one move. Likewise Black could not have played Pawn c6 - c5
since there would have been an impossible double check by the Bishop on d4
and Cannon on d6. Thus the position must have arisen by White checking with
the Bishop on d4 and Black replying c7 - c5. White can now play b5 x c6,
en passant, which produces a triple check and mate. With free placement we
will argue that double pawn moves (and hence en passant capture) should be
abandoned. A. LEGAL POSITIONS
(1) Initially, it is preferred that each side have no more
than: 2 Rooks, 2 Knights, 2 Bishops, 1 Queen, 2 Cannons, 2 Vaos, 1 Leo and
8 Pawns. Each side must also have 1 King. The Bishops and Vaos may be of
any color. No fairy pieces other than Cannons, Vaos or Leos are present.
An initial position in which a piece had to result from the promotion of
a pawn may be legal, but should generally be avoided.
(2) An initial position should be constructible by alternate
legal moves from a free placement of all units (13 pieces plus Pawns) anywhere on each player's half
of the board with no checks given during placement.
(3) Pawns may have been placed on the first rank, and hence
may initially appear on a player's first rank in a composition. Pawns may
have been placed doubled, tripled or quadrupled on the same file, and hence
such a structure does not imply that captures were made.
B. LEGAL MOVES
(1) Upon reaching the last rank, a Pawn may promote to a Rook, Bishop,
Knight, Queen, Cannon, Vao or Leo. It may also "promote" to a Dummy Pawn,
hence it is legal for Pawns to initially appear on the last rank in a composition.
A Dummy Pawn can never move, capture or promote.
(2) If not on the last rank, a Pawn moves and captures like an orthodox
Pawn. Thus a double move by a Pawn on its second rank and en passant capture
are provisionally permitted. But since in a free placement game there is no
rationale for double Pawn moves, double Pawn moves (and capture en passant)
should generally be avoided as essential features of a CVL problem.
See Option (2) below.
(3) Castling is never an option.
C. OPTIONS
(1) A 10x10 board may be used. Then it is presumed 10 Pawns were
placed by each side.
(2) Double Pawn moves, and hence en passant capture, are disallowed.
We have used Alybadix,
a chess problem solving program designed by Ilkka Blom, to check all the
direct mate, helpmate and series problems below. "Fairybadix" is the component
of Alybadix that accommodates fairy pieces (over 220) and fairy conditions.
The Windows interface for Alybadix (APwin, developed by P. H. Wiereyn) was
used to produce the diagrams. The endgame studies were not checked by computer
- please report any errors. Links to the solution of each problem appear next
to the diagrams. The diagram is repeated on its solution page. You may use
any of the text and diagrams, but please retain all credits.
Diagram 3 presents a "direct mate" problem: The moves alternate with White
playing first. White must find the move on his first turn (the "key") that
results in a checkmate in the stipulated number of moves, regardless
of the defenses chosen by black. So for this problem White must checkmate
on his third move. An additional, unintended first move by White which also
solves the problem is called a "cook." With the availability of problem solving
computer programs, direct mate problems are rarely unsound now. A common way
to designate that a diagram represents a direct mate in n moves is by the
symbol "#n".
SOLUTION
Another direct mate in three moves. This employs a distinctively "Chinese"
theme.
The usual specifications for an endgame study are for white to win or
draw, but not in a fixed number of moves. Thus to win means White obtains
a clear material advantage, perhaps checkmates in some lines, or arrives
at a position known in the literature to be a win. The specification to draw
means that there are sufficient exchanges that neither side can force a
win, perhaps White or Black is stalemated in some lines, or a position can
be forced to recur. The use of fairy pieces in endgame studies is much less
frequent than their use in direct mate and helpmate problems.
SOLUTION
Diagram 6 illustrates the use of a Chinese piece, here the white Vao on
c2, to modify an existing composition. The original study by Holzhausen
and Sohege appears on the solution link.
SOLUTION
Many published problems with fairy pieces are "helpmates," in which Black
and White cooperate to achieve a mating move by White. It is conventional
for Black to move first, and for Black moves to be listed first in transcribing
a solution. Thus in Diagram 8, Black moves first, the players alternate moving,
and White's second move is a checkmate. Since there is no variational play
in a helpmate, it has become conventional in two move helpmates for there
to be two or more thematically related solutions.
SOLUTION
In a "series mate" only white makes moves, without any checking, until
the final move which must be a checkmate. Here Problem 1 is the diagram
and is straightforward. For Problem 2 replace the Cannon with a Rook. The
mating position in Problem 2 has probably been anticipated, and if Chinese
line pieces ever really do become incorporated into chess, this "problem"
will become as inappropriate as posing a standard smothered mate in orthodox
chess as a direct mate in four.
SOLUTION
Orthodox chess is vulnerable to criticism on the following points.
The rise of chess playing computer programs makes "memorization" a serious threat to orthodox chess as a game of wits. In the humiliating 1997 match victory of "Deep Blue" over then world champion Gary Kasparov, the huge opening repertoire of the computer was decisive (Chess Life, p. 45). Granted the best tactical chess players often excel at opening theory, and innovation in the opening demands a high order of creativity. But such praise can not apply to Deep Blue, which won the sixth and final game of the match by the automated retrieval of an opening variation. Does it speak well of chess that this capability is such an important factor in determining who wins?
Computers will Dominate.
A recent tabulation
lists 15 chess programs having a rating of over 2600. Shredder 7.04 was highest
at 2726. There are only about 100 players in the world with a rating of over
2600. So already the typical club player has virtually no chance against
many chess playing programs. One source claims
that the top 200 players in the world are holding their own against the robots
in the last three years. Perhaps, but just another doubling of chip speed
could reverse that. Computer domination of competitive chess is already a
fact. And think of the temptation to cheat in human tournaments by using a
concealed computer.
There are too many draws at high levels of play.
Whatever game is being played, it is difficult to prevent the combatants
from prematurely agreeing to a draw. But even without connivance, chess
at the highest levels is subject to excessive draws. In the 23 world championship
matches from 1951 to 2000 the draws numbered 321 out of 492 games (link), or 62 percent.
In the 1986 match between Karpov and Kasparov 40 of the 48 games were drawn.
Certain rules are arbitrary.
It is reasonable to judge that one set of rules is more "simple" than another
if the first set can be described in fewer words. Another criterion, more
important but more difficult to measure, would be how easy it is to learn
a set of rules.
The most arbitrary and difficult to learn rules of orthodox chess describe (1) the initial placement of the pieces, (2) castling, (3) en passant capture. Of course an adult masters these rules after a few hours of study and playing. But they are not so easy for children, who if unsupervised may play for years and still place a Queen on the wrong color, or not know about en passant capture.
Orthodox chess, with its fixed initial position and castling rule, is
unlikely to be independently invented, as by an extraterrestrial civilization.
By contrast, the Asian game Weiqi (Go) has such simple rules that if there
are five extraterrestrial civilizations as advanced as ours, I would guess
at least one of them plays Weiqi. Further support for this conjecture derives
from the Weiqi symbolism of flood control (Li, p. 140).
Perhaps the board could be other than 19 x 19, though even that feature
has its reasons.
Over the years there have been many suggestions to allow shuffling the positions of the major pieces in orthodox chess behind the line of Pawns on the second rank. One such proposal, involving randomization, was made by former world chess champion Bobby Fischer (Chess Life, p. 531). In this proposal castling is awkwardly maintained, as if it were an essential feature of chess. But if we allow all the pieces, including Pawns, to be placed freely within some "home territory" (such as the first three ranks), we at once make castling unnecessary since the King can be placed in a secured location on the side of the board. Free placement also removes the motivation for permitting a double first move by Pawns since they can start out on the third (or fourth) rank. Pawns might also be placed on the first rank for defensive purposes.
In recent years variants have been proposed that permit some freedom of placement. In "Free Programme Chess" the units are placed in turn anywhere in one's half of the board. The Kings are placed first. Pawns may be placed freely but can not be doubled or placed on the first rank. They retain the double move from the second rank. Bishops must be placed on opposite colors (Pritchard, p. 20). A master level tournament was held using these rules in Tbilisi, Georgia in 1995. Some free placement chess variants can be found on The Chess Variant Pages (for example, the variant called "Free Placement"). We suspect that the best game will result from free placement with restrictions. Just deciding what home territory should be is not easy. Murray (p. 454) claimed that early experiments "in which the pieces were rearranged so as to be more nearly in contact at the commencement of play," did not survive because with the advent of a much more powerful Queen and Bishop the forces were too close together. But if so, the forces can simply be moved apart one or more spaces, alternately employing straight pawn lines or an asymmetric Burmese arrangement (Diagrams A and B above).
If one still takes seriously the war analogy of chess, free placement
is more realistic and better training than starting play in one fixed arrangement
as in orthodox chess. Recent wars involve considerable positioning of forces
and supplies long before hostilities commence. And once they do, battle
lines no longer conform to traditional arrangements of foot soldiers, cavalry,
elephants, artillery, commanders, etc. as in centuries past.
Free placement provides the opportunity to introduce new pieces in the palette of Western chess. We have proposed that the Chinese line pieces are the best choice. With an increased force it is reasonable to expand the playing field, thus the use of a 10 x10 board would probably make the best game if, say, two Cannons, two Vaos and a Leo were added to each player's orthodox pieces. Murray stated that "enlarged games of chess have rarely shown any vitality," because they were too taxing to be recreational (p. 454). But a larger board may decrease complications that arise in a cluttered position. And the 12 x 8 "Courier Game" was popular from 1200 to after 1650, about the duration of orthodox chess so far.
Free Placement ameliorates each of the four problems with orthodox chess listed above. With thousands of viable starting positions the possibility of defeating an opponent by using a previously analyzed opening is greatly lessened. The placement phase should also make matters much more difficult for computer programs. It is noteworthy that they have not been very successful in Go (Weiqi). This is probably because Go requires long range strategic planning with an immense number of variations. This is the situation in freely placing chess pieces prior to game moves. Ultimately the computers would excel in this strategic effort also, but to do so will require a different and more interesting programming method than the current "brute force" evaluation of all possible moves. And during play, the use of a 10x10 board and additional pieces will increase the number of possible moves. If the number on each turn were increased by just 50%, after 12 "plies" (six moves) the number of variations to test increases by over 100 times. That should slow the robots down. There should be fewer draws also. An agreement to draw can be prohibited during placement, and the greater freedom of arrangement and loss of familiar guideposts should engender aggressive schemes and blunders. Also the penetrating power of the Chinese line pieces should make blocked positions more difficult to maintain. For example, the sacrifice of a Vao for two Pawns should be a frequent consideration since the Vao is a less valuable piece than either a Knight or Bishop. Finally, free placement can eliminate the most arbitrary rules of orthodox chess: the initial position, castling, double pawn moves and en passant capture. Only then will the following simple descriptions apply to chess.
(1) The empty board is homogenous. Only the edge of the board, and for Pawns their direction of movement, effect the power of a placed piece.The concept of "free placement" can be carried a step beyond alternate placement to form the starting position to a liberation of the players to start the game however they may agree to. This could include an agreement on whether to use an 8x8 or 10x10 board, and which, if any, Chinese line pieces to employ. Agreement on how to place the pieces could produce the following options.
(2) Only one piece moves at a time.
(3) A capturing piece always occupies the square of the piece captured.
(4) A game is non-historical. The possible moves and captures in a position are determined solely by the location of the pieces on the board and who has the move, regardless of the particular sequence of moves that produced the position.
Comments, corrections or suggestions are welcomed. Please contact me if you have any original compositions that may be suitable to include here, especially two move direct mates with inherently "Chinese" themes. Composed or actual games could also be of interest, as well as game-like compositions. Appropriate links would also be appreciated.
Email: Daniel W. VanArsdale
Index page of Daniel VanArsdale.
If you are interested in the doings of real fairy queens I suggest the
following links.
Tam Lin Balladry
"Tam Lin" - modernized
lyrics
Thomas Rymer and the Queen
of Elfland.
'O see not ye yon narrow road,
So thick
beset wi thorns and briers?
That is the path of righteousness,
Tho after
it but few enquires.
'And see not ye that braid braid
road,
That lies
across yon lillie leven?
That is the path of wickedness,
Tho some
call it the road to heaven.
'And see not ye that bonny road,
Which
winds about the fernie brae?
That is the road to fair Elfland,
Where
you and I this night maun gae.
-The Queen of Elfland, addressing Thomas Rymer
Child 37B
Alybadix. http://www.saunalahti.fi/~iblom/alybadix/index.htm
Chess Life, Special Summer Issue 1997,
Vol. 52, No. 7.
The Chess Variants Pages. http://www.chessvariants.com/
Dickins, Anthony. A Guide to Fairy Chess.
Dover Publications, New York. 1971.
Dodgson's "Frogs Manuscript" Decoded
Duniho, Fergus. Eurasian Chess. http://www.chessvariants.com/large.dir/eurasian.html
Li, David H. The Genealogy of Chess. Premier Publishing.
1998.
Murray, H. J. R. A History of Chess. Oxford
University Press, Oxbow Books reprint. 1913.
Pritchard, D. B. Popular Chess Variants.
B. T. Batsford Ltd, London. 2000.
Employ the Dead! - Sam Loyd's
Dummy Promotion
White, Alain C. Sam
Loyd and His Chess Problems. Dover Publications. 1962.
