🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Apr 12, 2020 03:54 PM UTC:
As to the Alfil: the move was changed without changing the name. Betza changed the move of the Aanca, but kept the name. Sounds like it is the same thing.
Here's the difference. Players of Chess were using certain equipment with certain piece names, and while doing this, they changed some of the rules, including how some pieces moved. Ralph Betza read in a book about a game that was not played by anyone he knew. The description of the game gave Spanish and English names for the pieces. He got an idea for a piece similar to one of the pieces in the game, and he decided to name it after the Spanish name for the piece it was similar to. This would be like reading about Chinese Chess, learning about the Cannon, coming up with the idea for a diagonal moving counterpart to the Cannon, and calling it a Pao after the Chinese name for the Cannon.
Here's the difference. Players of Chess were using certain equipment with certain piece names, and while doing this, they changed some of the rules, including how some pieces moved. Ralph Betza read in a book about a game that was not played by anyone he knew. The description of the game gave Spanish and English names for the pieces. He got an idea for a piece similar to one of the pieces in the game, and he decided to name it after the Spanish name for the piece it was similar to. This would be like reading about Chinese Chess, learning about the Cannon, coming up with the idea for a diagonal moving counterpart to the Cannon, and calling it a Pao after the Chinese name for the Cannon.