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Bishop. Moves arbitrary number of unobstructed squares diagonally.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Carlos MartÃn wrote on Mon, Dec 16, 2002 11:54 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

The article says nothing about the Spanish name of the piece, and I think
it would be worth a bit of explanation about it:

The Spanish name for the Bishop is 'Alfil' (which means nothing but a
Bishop in Chess), and this could be misleading because there's a different
piece whose English name is also 'Alfil' (also called the 'Elephant',
jumps 2 squares diagonally and is found in ancient Chess variants).

The Spanish name for the English Alfil is 'Elefante' which I think needs
no translation :)

Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, Mar 9, 2003 10:22 AM UTC:

The plot thickens. In Russian the Bishop itself is known by the word for an elephant, generally transliterated as Slon and rhyming with the English Pawn. Does anyone know how they distinguish the two - perhaps Novy Slon (new elephant) for the Bishop and Stary Slon (old elephant) for the Alfil? A book I read says that the Hungarians call the piece Futar, but gives no literal meaning. Does anyone know the literal meaning?

Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, Jun 8, 2003 07:00 AM UTC:

It is notable that three pieces of the type shown in the hexagonal diagram are required to cover the board, suggesting that its true nature is intermediate between the standard Bishop (2 required) and the 3d Unicorn (4 required). Indeed it is arguably more akin to Unicorn than to standard Bishop, as its move comprises steps of length root 3 and its directions, though exceeding the Bishop on a square board, are many fewer than the Bishop on a 3d board.

Charles Gilman wrote on Sat, Apr 3, 2004 07:15 AM UTC:

To English, Portuguese, and Icelandic can be added the Celtic languages, in which this piece's name takes forms such as Easpag or Esgob, obvious derivatives of Episcopus. It is notable that all these are languages of Europe's western edge.

Breadman wrote on Fri, May 21, 2004 11:31 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

Regarding the hexagonal move, I tend to think in the same way; a Bishop's move is along diagonal lines, without regard to the distance. In general, diagonal to me indicates having two spaces that are orthogonally adjacent to each of the two spaces considered, when the two spaces considered are not themselves orthogonally adjacent.

Charles Gilman wrote on Mon, Aug 2, 2004 07:44 AM UTC:

Well I have recently submitted a variant using FIDE pieces with their
square-board definitions on a 3d board on which the ranks are hex boards
on their sides, to preserve the square-board change-of-rank requirements
as with Quadlevel but through the nature of the pieces rather than any
weakening extra restrictions. Thus the Bishop in that game has no move
within a hex board.
Since my last comment here I have finally discovered the meaning of the
Hungarian Futar. It means runner, same as the German Laufer and Dutch
Loper.

Gergely BuglyÃ³ wrote on Tue, Aug 24, 2004 09:39 AM UTC:

In fact, 'futár' means 'messenger' in Hungarian, but in chess the bishop is called 'futó', which could mean 'runner' indeed. (I'm not sure if the word 'futó' is derived from 'futár'.)

Charles Gilman wrote on Tue, Nov 30, 2004 09:49 AM UTC:

It would have been nice if Gergely Buglyó had posted his information while
I was still trying to find out! Still, better late than never. In the
context of pre-industrial armies the terms runner and messenger are fairly
interchangeable.
	The variant with hex-prism cells and the described effect on the bishop
has now been posted
(http://www.chessvariants.org/hexagonal.dir/honeycomb.html).

Carlos wrote on Fri, Nov 18, 2005 03:54 PM UTC:

In spanish, this piece is called Alfil. It has no other meaning than 'that chess piece that moves diagonally'. As a spanish reader, I sometimes get confused when I see the word 'Alfil' not meaning the Bishop, because this is the piece I think about when I hear that word :)

Anonymous wrote on Fri, Mar 19, 2010 04:21 PM UTC:

There are many pieces called 'Elephant' (and Bishop in Russian is also Elephant), many pieces called 'Joker' (Bishop in French is also Joker), many pieces called 'Archer' (also Bishop in one of languages, i don't remember), and there is no Bishop in chess expect Bishop itself!