Top 10 forgotten pieces! Chess variants of history
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 15 авг 2024
- Welcome to the top 10 forgotten chess pieces! We visit several historic chess variants.
Chess has had a long evolution, and the pieces that we are used to today did not just arrive fully formed as we know them.
Many varied and exotic pieces have battled it out on chess boards all across time and space.
This list is a list of my favourites, ordered from weakest to strongest.
10. Elephant / Al-fil
9. Ferz / Advisor / Minister
8. Jester / Wazir / Schleich
7. The Man
6. Lion
5. Centaur / Princess / Archbishop
4. Unicornio
3. Empress / Chancellor
2. Aanca
1. Amazon
Some chess variants featured in this video:
Shatranj
Grande Acedrex
Capablanca Chess
Here are two very old games of Shatranj, featuring the Elephant and the Ferz, that I have covered in the past:
• The year 920 - Al-Suli...
• Second oldest chess ga...
#top10
#topten
#chessvariant
If you wish to support my channel and help make more chess videos:
BTC address: bc1qzgpf8z42klfh62gj3lfyyga6dgx8pfarn2a2vq
0:00 Introduction
0:36 10 - ELEPHANT
1:52 09 - FERZ
2:56 08 - JESTER
4:37 07 - THE MAN
5:37 06 - THE LION
6:39 05 - CENTAUR
7:58 04 - UNICORNIO
9:11 03 - EMPRESS
10:04 02 - AANCA
10:57 01 - AMAZON 
Развлечения
Man that joke at the start caught me off guard💀💀💀💀💀
😂
😂😂💀💀💀💀
Yea that shit was unexpected 😂💀
@@ChessMess ya know why the British are bad at chess?
they lost their queen
I like how this game started from one leap moves and arrived to pieces able to cover half the board by themselves
power creep crazy
Fun fact: A king is a frez and a spy
@@UWU2276 ferz and a jester
bro came at us reckless with that joke
The elephant evolving into the bishop is interesting because “alfil” is how you call a chess bishop in Spanish.
Yes, I agree!
most of these pieces seem either extremely weak or terrifyingly powerful
Yeah, in particular, I can't cope facing Unicornios.
I don’t know what was more effed up that joke or me laughing
Haha, we're probably both equally effed up. That's a nice looking channel you have, by the way, though Nascar's not my thing. :)
That joke in the beginning made me choke on my saliva.
Sick, bro.
Would be interesting to play some variant with all 16 pieces.
🤯
Or at least 8. The main 6 pieces plus Ferz and Jester... or Ferz and Elephant.
Elephant (feel) is still the name for the bishop in arabic, and wazeer is the queen. Wow.
Nice facts, thanks!
joke goes wild
1:42 promoting 6 pawns to elephants left the chat (2:53 never mind)
5:17 it's worth about as much as a king, expect it's not royal.
5:34 thanks for the suggestion!
Very Nice, but I think some aren't forgotten :)
The elephant is exactly the same as the 象 in Chinese chess. And 象 means elephant in Chinese. I just made the connection that the piece is literally called the elephant thanks to your video. I always thought it was another way to say bishop in Chinese or something. I guess this ties into the evolution of chess as it evolved differently in the East and the west.
Great realisation, I love it when connections are made with words like this.
China didn't have Christian influence until very recently so even if their chess had a piece which moves exactly like a bishop they wouldn't be calling it that.
elephant - xiang
xiangqi means elephant game
@@mariebcfhs9491 The bishop is pretty much only called the bishop in a few countries. In Spain, it's still known by the name el alfil, from the Arabic word for elephant. In France, the piece was called "the fool".
One difference is the elephant in Shatranj can jump over a square diagonally. The elephant in Xianqi can be blocked diagonally, on the other hand.
I've played some Shahtranj with Fairy Stockfish. The elephant is incredibly weak, even more than the pawn.
The easiest way to win the game, BTW, is simply to bare the board except the king, then you just win. It's got a somewhat different feel than modern chess, more like playing with alot of pawns, as most of the pieces have limited movement.
I've been playing quite a few games with my work mates, I like it a lot. We also argue a lot about whether the Elephants are worth more or less than pawns.
One great thing is that you can easily just use a standard chess set.
@@ChessMess The Elephant in Shahtranj is alot like real life. Scary, but not very useful. Once in a while he gets a lucky kill, but mostly he gets in the way.
-I rated this vid 9/11-
Fairy Pieces XBetza notation, value on 8x8 board
0:34 Alfil (A): 1 pawn
1:50 Ferz (F): 150 centipawn
2:54 Wazir (W): 1 pawn (less than Ferz cuz Ferz has more forwardness, tho Wazir is better than Ferz in the endgame)
4:37 Mann (K): 3 pawn
5:36 Lion (CH): 4 pawn (it lacks of short moves)
6:38 Archbishop (NB): 770 centipawn
7:56 Manticore (ympafsW): 7 pawn (color altenator so it don't have mating potential)
9:10 Chancellor (NR): 9 pawn
10:02 Gryphon (FyafsF): 8 pawn (less than Queen cuz it's first step is shared)
10:56 Amazon (QN): 13 pawn
-Also how 'bout forgotten fairy chess problem pieces?-
-Such as Zebrarider, Non-stop Equihopper, Vao, Rose, Moa, Contragrasshopper, Friend, Chameleon, Joker, Root-50 Leaper, Kangaroo, Loa, Mao-hopper, Andernach Grasshopper, etc-
Haha, 9 out of 11. Thanks for the piece values, really nice.
personally i think the alfil is worth 1 FIDE pawn but around 1.5 to 2 shatranj pawns
Thanks mam found it really informative.. and had a good glimpse of history.. would seek to see more of your contents
No worries! Thanks for the kind feedback.
People say that Americans are bad at chess until they see them saccing 2 rooks to checkmate bin laden
The Amazon isn't the only piece that can mate the king with no help, The archbishop does aswell!
OK, but I don't think it can be forced. :)
I know, but if you get a king in the corner with no pieces protecting it somehow.
hello, was fun to watch, thx :)
Your humor is crazy
No ONE piece should have all that power
Aanca is Arabic for phoenix
Cool fact, thanks!
The archbishop can also force unassisted checkmate.
In arabic countries we still call the bishop (alfil) and the queen (alwazir) although it looks like a queen lol
There is also the citadel from Mongolian variant of chess.
Nice, I will look into that one, I have never heard of it.
Well I can safely say I was not expecting the video to start with that
Wait, what program lets you play Grande Acedrex?
BTW, it's pronounced "A(rcher) + CE(ntral) + DREX".
Thank you for the pronounciation advice, I had a suspicion I was doing it wrong!
The program I used for everything except the Amazon was "xboard", running on Linux.
We still call bishops elephant( fil ) in Turkey
Sir Fil فيل is Bishop called in Sundhi , Urdu,
Wazir وزير is Queen . These are not literal translations but different names od exactly same pieces
Thanks for the facts!
The Jester is basically like how I was expecting pawns to be when I first started chess.
Nearly the same as me! My brother taught me that pawns moved like Ferzes.
Overkill Ecumenical Chess has most power full piece in chess history which has a piece which called actress which has combination of queen , knight and camel or we say combination of amazon and camel .
Move of camel like long knight.
That is a well-named variant!
Kraken
Piece able to move to any other cell, or to stay where it is. [G.P.Jelliss Chessics 24, 1985] = universal leaper + zero = universal sleeper.
@@ChessMess -Charles Gilman is in alternate universe in naming-
Heyy, what is the chess software that you are using? I want to use it for a vidro project. Please help me out with this👍
Hello, in this video I mostly used gnu xboard running on linux.
NOT THE TOWERS *OH GOD **_NOT THE TOWERS 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀_*
NIce video. For further reading: A World of Chess, McFarland, 2017.
Thanks for the recommendation, it looks good!
Very cool and interesting
Thanks for the nice feedback!
2:33 in iran we still call bishops and queen elephant and vezir(Minister)
Thanks, Persian friend!
I've always wanted to play chess with new pieces, is there anywhere I can play something like what you played?
Hello, for the Amazon segment I was using some variant board on chess.com, but I've forgotten exactly which one it was. They have a lot of different variants. You could also try lichess. And maybe greenchess.net, which generally let's you play longer games over several days, but they seem to specialise in variants.
For the rest of the segments in the video, I used free software called 'xboard' and 'fairy-max', but that doesn't let you play online.
@@ChessMess Thank you! I had loads of fun trying out some of the pieces. I wouldn't have found those websites by myself. Thanks again!
ChessCraft, Ominchess has multiplayer
Tho both doesn't support Unicornio, Gryphon
hi, may i suggest you to try shôgi then ? it's chess with some other japanese pieces :)
If you like slow games, Brainking is where you can choose from many variants and set number of days per move. And you can also play checker variants and few other games.
Hey I love this new pieces
Haha, new... old pieces!
I’m your 493rd subscriber!
The best 493rd subscriber I ever had!
@@ChessMess
What is the name of the game in which chess variants are played?
@@MohemedTidjani Hello, there are many variants and they all have different names, hence "variants" plural.
I was number 526!
Haha, is this going to be a thing now?
Compare bishop to most piece (except all rook variant since they're the same)they are actually very powerful even though bishop isn't very likely piece accord to me but I'd say it's very powerful
I agree, bishops are strong. The Grand Acedrex, mentioned in this video, had crocodiles, which moved the same as bishops.
in Russian bishops still called elephants too
Cool fact, thanks!
I could have sworn I heard somewhere that the Elephant was a rook.
Sometimes you see images of elephants with towers on their backs, so I get why you might have got that idea.
@@ChessMess This was an amazingly entertaining and educational video... Thank you for this... I knew about the Elephant, Rhynocerous/Unicorn and about the Advisor.... great to learn about the others...The Centaur, the Aanca specially the overpowered Amazon... Truly... thank you for this great video. Truly Amazing knowledge... specially since you also had their characteristics/moves. Bravo. Would love to see a board with all of these pieces on it....
@@rogerargueta5769 Thanks for the kind feedback! I am very glad you enjoyed it. Hopefully I will be able to get around to making more chess variant videos soon.
@@ChessMess Could you please do part 2 with top 11 to 20 forgotten chess pieces.... This was awesome
It is Indian. You can find details here: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Chess_names
well well well you also lost your queen
God save the King!
𝖎 would love more videos of obsolete chess pieces ❤ thanks!
Thanks for the kind words. I'm thinking about some sort of a sequel video, or a series on variants. Nothing set in stone yet. :)
@@ChessMess awsome! Have a good day!
Its a shame that we can't use these old pieces in a way that allows for a custom strategy chess game.
Who told u that u can't?
@@hy7864 aside from pieces like the unicornio, which of these pieces are all that useful?! I mean most of them are worse pieces of ones that we already have, though I think it would be interesting to be able to replace things like your pawns and knights with these pieces
Then just replace them
@@hy7864 "tHeN jUsT rEpLaCe ThEm"
How old are you, 5???
What stopping you from replacing them?
Hey im turkish and normally we are still calling the queen "vezir" and vezir is the prime assistant of the emperor and also we still call the bishop elephant in our language and we call the knight as horse and the rook as castle
Very nice facts, thanks Turkish friend!
Where is the artillery? Move like a rook and capture by jump over a pieces.
My Chinese friend told me about the "Cannon" in Chinese chess. It sounds like the one you mean. Indeed that is a special piece, and if I do a sequel to this video, I will include it for sure.
wait,doesnt the jester move like the last piece that the oppositting player moved?
The jester in this video is the historical one that appears in Courier chess. I guess there are some modern variants that have created a piece with the same name but different attributes.
@@ChessMess ok
So you’re not gonna mention the zebra 🦓 and no one is going to say anything about it?
Didn't make the top ten, haha!
the empress.is also called the chancellor
Indeed! Quite right.
It's also called the Knook
2. gryphon/aanca
They really liked horses huh
In russian they call bishops elephants
Nice fact!
What’s the name of the program you’re using ?
Hello. I am a Linux user, and in most of my videos I use lichess in a web browser. But in this one, I used a program called 'xboard' because it supports most of the variants. I switched to chess.com in a browser for the Amazon section.
Maybe one day I will make a "how to make a chess video" video.
@@ChessMess thanks for you response ! I now found that XBoard has a Windows port called WinBoad that’s basically a 1:1 port of xboard so it’s a nice thing to have
@@tamertamertamer4874 Nice, enjoy!
how to giraffe move looks like?
Hello, good question! It moves very much like a horse, but instead of a 2, 1 motion, it has a 3, 1 motion. Jumping 3 squares in a straight line, then 1 at a right angle.
@@ChessMessthat's actually the camel! 1,3 (so the lion in grant acedrex is better described as a compound of the camel and the threeleaper, the threeleaper being 0,3)
the giraffe is actually 1,4, not 1,3
btw the "giraffe" in grant acedrex actually moves like a zebra, a 3,2-leaper
@@Atlas-yh6vg cool, thanks for the correction!
I think Americans can win 50% of chess games. They just can't play with the black pieces.
The 54th Massachusetts might disagree! :)
Interesting that in Russian we name bishop elephan, and queen is ferz
Living history, thanks for your comment. :)
when Chinese Chess restricts the "elephant" and the "ferz ( commonly known as advisors)" even farther
Interesting - how does it do that?
@@ChessMess In Chinese chess the "Elephant" is restricted on your side of board, and the "ferz" is stuck in a "palace" area (if you look up "Chinese chess you will see a weird box on each side of the board, and that weird box is the "palace"). This makes the "elephant only a defensive piece, and the "ferz" is the piece that causes most stalemates.
Thanks, seems very different to have designated areas on the board for certain pieces.
@@ChessMess yeah Chinese chess is kinda cool like that, having some variation on the board other than size. Been a while since I played but there are rules about attacking over the river (middle of the board) and things like that. Also, the chariot is an interesting piece. Moves like a rook, but needs to leap over a piece to attack.
@@protercool8474 I have a good friend from China who tried to explain the game to me, but I didn't get it at all, haha. Maybe I will try again.
All invented by the spoilt kids who couldn't win a single match with the previous pieces I bet 😂
Ooooooooh, I thought amazon was a male, it's actually a female!
Hah, Bishops to this day are called 'elephants' (or officers) in Russian
Very interesting fact, I had not heard of "officers" before.
@@ChessMess when i looked it up, it's more common in Bulgarian
But it reached Russian too
Bruh
l see zebra moves?
ok?
cheese
Yes, Gromit.
The joke is really distasteful. Especially if you lost a loved one during 9/11. I didn't find that reference very funny at all. Anyways modern chess still has some of these pieces but it's in variants. Xiangqi, Makruk, and Seirawan Chess. So not all are forgotten just in other variants.
It doesn't make sense that the strongest pieces are represented by female characters.
lol start off the channel insulting YTs largest audience and making an inappropriate joke. good sub growth strategy there - I think I'll pass on any chess strategy you might have.
Quite right, having watched the recent US presidential debate, I can categorically state that the USA is a very serious country.
Good will and prayers to all my American friends, in all sincerety.
Referencing 9/11 in a "joke" is NOT funny. Can't write the name I called you because YT auto deletes comments that contain the word. But, you're English so you'll know what it is. Begins with a "C". Thumbs down and blocked.
I rate this comment 9 out of 11.