The alfil, alpil, or elephant is a fairy chess piece that can jump two squares diagonally. It first appeared in shatranj. It is used in many historical and regional chess variants. It was used in standard chess before being replaced by the bishop in the 15th and 16th centuries.
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The alfil jumps two squares diagonally, leaping over any intermediate piece. It captures enemy pieces in the same way. Some variants, such as xiangqi, use a version of the piece that cannot leap.
The name of the game in adjoining countries appears to be derived from chaturanga - chatrang in Persian, shatranj in Arabic, Chanderaki in Tibetan are examples. This suggests that the game, as well as its name, came from India. Also, as will appear, it was believed in Persia that the game arrived there from India. [2] The alfil is a very old piece, appearing in some very early chess variants, such as Tamerlane chess and shatranj. It was originally called an elephant, hastīn or gāja in Sanskrit. It was probably one of the original chess pieces, appearing in chaturanga and shatranj. However, its original move is uncertain; two possibilities, other than the current alfil move, are the dabbaba move (jumping two squares orthogonally) and the move of the silver general from shogi. The variant using the dabbaba move eventually died out, but the other variant spread to Burma and Siam, where it became the move for the equivalent pieces in the Burmese (sittuyin) and Thai (makruk) variants of chess. When chess spread to China, the piece became the elephant in xiangqi.
The silver general move was stated by Henry Davidson to resemble the four legs and trunk of an actual elephant. However, H. J. R. Murray in his History of Chess considered the two-square diagonal leap to be the original move, and reasoned that the main reason for the changes that made the alfil and ferz stronger in modern chess during the Renaissance (becoming the bishop and queen, respectively) were that these were originally the weakest pieces in the game apart from the pawns. The alfil can only reach one eighth of the squares on the board, whereas the dabbaba can reach one quarter, and the silver general can reach every square on the board.
When chess came to Persia from India, the Sanskrit name was translated to pil, and when chess came to the Muslims from Persia, the move had not changed, and then the name changed into Arabic to fil, the already existing cognate to pil which comes from the Akkadian language and ultimately from the Egyptian language. The name thus became fil and then alfil (prefixing the Arabic definite article, al). The names sometimes changed even more when chess eventually reached Europe, but eventually started to refer to the modern bishop rather than the alfil. Although alfil is still the name of the bishop in Spanish and some other European languages, its former name alfil began to be used in chess problems in English to refer exclusively to the original alfil.
The alfil by itself is not much more powerful than a pawn, but as an additional backup for other pieces, it is worth about half a knight. Its value is severely compromised by its being "thrice-colourbound", only being able to reach an eighth of the squares on the 8×8 chessboard; combining it with other pieces usually masks this weakness to some extent. A king and eight alfils, with each alfil covering a different eighth of the chessboard, can force checkmate on a bare king.
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to distinguish it from related games such as xiangqi and shogi. The recorded history of chess goes back at least to the emergence of a similar game, chaturanga, in seventh century India. The rules of chess as they are known today emerged in Europe at the end of the 15th century, with standardization and universal acceptance by the end of the 19th century. Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games, and is played by millions of people worldwide.
A chessboard is a gameboard used to play chess. It consists of 64 squares, 8 rows by 8 columns, on which the chess pieces are placed. It is square in shape and uses two colours of squares, one light and one dark, in a chequered pattern. During play, the board is oriented such that each player's near-right corner square is a light square.
The rook is a piece in the game of chess. It may move any number of squares horizontally or vertically without jumping, and it may capture an enemy piece on its path; additionally, it may participate in castling. Each player starts the game with two rooks, one in each corner on their own side of the board.
The bishop is a piece in the game of chess. It moves and captures along diagonals without jumping over intervening pieces. Each player begins the game with two bishops. The starting squares are c1 and f1 for White's bishops, and c8 and f8 for Black's bishops.
A chess piece, or chessman, is a game piece that is placed on a chessboard to play the game of chess. It can be either white or black, and it can be one of six types: king, queen, rook, bishop, knight, or pawn.
Shatranj is an old form of chess, as played in the Sasanian Empire. Its origins are in the Indian game of chaturaṅga. Modern chess gradually developed from this game, as it was introduced to Europe by contacts in Muslim Al-Andalus and in Sicily in the 10th century.
Chaturanga is an ancient Indian strategy board game. It is first known from India around the seventh century CE, but it's roots may date 5000 years back, to the Indus Valley Civilization.
A fairy chess piece, variant chess piece, unorthodox chess piece, or heterodox chess piece is a chess piece not used in conventional chess but incorporated into certain chess variants and some chess problems. Compared to conventional pieces, fairy pieces vary mostly in the way they move, but they may also follow special rules for capturing, promotions, etc. Because of the distributed and uncoordinated nature of unorthodox chess development, the same piece can have different names, and different pieces can have the same name in various contexts as it can be noted in the list of fairy chess pieces.
Makruk, or Thai chess, is a strategy board game that is descended from the 6th-century Indian game of chaturanga or a close relative thereof, and is therefore related to chess. It is part of the family of chess variants.
Sittuyin, also known as Burmese chess, is a strategy board game created in Myanmar. It is a direct offspring of the Indian game of chaturanga, which arrived in Myanmar in the 8th century thus it is part of the same family of games such as chess, and shogi. Sit is the modern Burmese word for "army" or "war"; the word sittuyin can be translated as "representation of the four characteristics of army"—chariot, elephant, cavalry and infantry.
Tamerlane chess is a medieval chess variant. Like modern chess, it is derived from shatranj. It was developed in Central Asia during the reign of Emperor Timur, and its invention is also attributed to him. Because Tamerlane chess is a larger variant of chaturanga, it is also called Shatranj Al-Kabir, as opposed to Shatranj as-saghir. Although the game is similar to modern chess, it is distinctive in that there are varieties of pawn, each of which promotes in its own way.
The empress is a fairy chess piece that can move like a rook or a knight. It cannot jump over other pieces when moving as a rook but may do so when moving as a knight. The piece has acquired many names and is frequently called a chancellor or a marshal.
In chess, promotion is the replacement of a pawn with a new piece when the pawn is moved to its last rank. The player replaces the pawn immediately with a queen, rook, bishop, or knight of the same color. The new piece does not have to be a previously captured piece. Promotion is mandatory when moving to the last rank; the pawn cannot remain as a pawn.
The history of chess can be traced back nearly 1,500 years to its earliest known predecessor, called chaturanga, in India; its prehistory is the subject of speculation. From India it spread to Persia, where it was modified in terms of shapes and rules and developed into Shatranj. Following the Arab invasion and conquest of Persia, chess was taken up by the Muslim world and subsequently spread to Europe via Spain and Italy. The game evolved roughly into its current form by about 1500 CE.
Chaturaji is a four-player chess-like game. It was first described in detail c. 1030 by Al-Biruni in his book India. Originally, this was a game of chance: the pieces to be moved were decided by rolling two dice. A diceless variant of the game was still played in India at the close of the 19th century.
Senterej, also known as Ethiopian chess, is a regional chess variant, the form of chess traditionally played in Ethiopia and Eritrea. It was the last popular survival of shatranj. According to Richard Pankhurst, the game became extinct sometime after the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s. A distinctive feature of Senterej is the opening phase – players make as many moves as they like without regard for how many moves the opponent has made; this continues until the first capture is made. Memorization of opening lines is therefore not a feature of the game.
Courier chess is a chess variant that dates from the 12th century and was popular for at least 600 years. It was a part of the slow evolution towards modern chess from Medieval Chess.
The ferz or fers is a fairy chess piece that may move one square diagonally. It was used in orthodox chess and in Shatranj form of chess before being replaced by the queen.
The dabbaba, also known as the dabaaba or dabbabah, is a fairy chess piece that jumps two squares orthogonally, leaping over any intermediate piece. In algebraic notation, it is given the symbol D.
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