Another person on my time travel hit list. Knights can control seemingly unrelated squares so you need to calculate them, and otherwise great moves are rendered bad because of simple knight forks.
The Genius who invented the Knight's move
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It can be explained with fairly simple geometry. A knight can move to any square closest to it that isn't on the same diagonal or file. Sometimes a knight's movement is taught this way.
A way to easily visualize this is to say on a 5x5 board, when placing a piece on the center square, a knight controls all the squares that a queen does not.
The knights moved diagonally 2x2 squares like the bishops. But someone modified it to become like Xiang Chi Horse. In Xiang Chi, there are elephants and horses, because Chinese like animal symbols. Even the zodiac take on animal symbols.
Nice to see so many replies yet, but my question was : who can tell us more about the genius who invented the knight's move, perhaps before chess was popular.
So, Zephyl and me are curious to know ; bean_Fischer's reply gives a good hint : "... someone modified it ..." during or after the Xiang Qi period ? !!
bean_Fischer wrote:
The knights moved diagonally 2x2 squares like the bishops. But someone modified it to become like Xiang Chi Horse. In Xiang Chi, there are elephants and horses, because Chinese like animal symbols. Even the zodiac take on animal symbols.
Nope, that was the elephant, who became today's bishop. The knight's movement has been the same probably since more than 3000 years, coming from indian chaturanga all the way through middle east shatranj, medieval and modern chess, the knight in fact, together with the rook, are the only pieces which movement didn't change.
AlxMaster wrote:
bean_Fischer wrote:
The knights moved diagonally 2x2 squares like the bishops. But someone modified it to become like Xiang Chi Horse. In Xiang Chi, there are elephants and horses, because Chinese like animal symbols. Even the zodiac take on animal symbols.
Nope, that was the elephant, who became today's bishop. The knight's movement has been the same probably since more than 3000 years, coming from indian chaturanga all the way through middle east shatranj, medieval and modern chess, the knight in fact, together with the rook, are the only pieces which movement didn't change.
It has been previously an elephant move, but chess already has the move of an elephant in the name of a bishop. So they modified it to become a horse move.
bean_Fischer wrote:
AlxMaster wrote:
bean_Fischer wrote:
The knights moved diagonally 2x2 squares like the bishops. But someone modified it to become like Xiang Chi Horse. In Xiang Chi, there are elephants and horses, because Chinese like animal symbols. Even the zodiac take on animal symbols.
Nope, that was the elephant, who became today's bishop. The knight's movement has been the same probably since more than 3000 years, coming from indian chaturanga all the way through middle east shatranj, medieval and modern chess, the knight in fact, together with the rook, are the only pieces which movement didn't change.
It has been previously an elephant move, but chess already has the move of an elephant in the name of a bishop. So they modified it to become a horse move.
No my friend, you should research first before saying whatever you think is true.
In Chaturanga, the oldest known form of chess, the knight moves exactly as in chess (3x2 or 2x3 leap), and the bishop (which was the elephant) moves a 3x3 leap.
FishGY wrote:
The part about the knight and the 'knight's tour' is interesting. To show the connection between the board and the way the knight moves, we can set a simple puzzle - place 8 queens on a chess board where none of them are blocked by another. I believe there are many solutions but this is the easy one. See how it represents the movement of the knight?
I can't see it. Where?
FishGY írta:
The part about the knight and the 'knight's tour' is interesting. To show the connection between the board and the way the knight moves, we can set a simple puzzle - place 8 queens on a chess board where none of them are blocked by another. I believe there are many solutions but this is the easy one. See how it represents the movement of the knight?
What do you mean by 'block'? In my interpretation a queen is not blocked if it can make any legal move that would be available to it on an otherwise empty board. In your solution the queens in the corners block each other since they take away one legal move from each other.
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The guy who invented the knight's move should be knighted, posthumously of course.
Knights were originally drunken elephants who could not go in a straight way and always missed their diagonal.
Well no one knows who invented it, nor even where chess was invented. Some say Persia, however some scholars think India, maybe it was Tsun Tsu.
I always found it interesting that the knight moves like a pawn moves on its first move, and captures. Its like infantry double timing it, and then attacking in other words (all at once). Also the attack right, or left (pawn) is curious because it represents a shielded man, or line of infantry that are shielded. Study ancient tactics, and you will know what I am talking about.
In addition to this, cav units are great at flanking enemy positions, they can easily out manouver foot units. Moving backwards, or sideways, and even jumping certain battlefield obstacles.
The Bishops might represent mounted archers.
CrimsonKnight7 wrote:
Well no one knows who invented it, nor even where chess was invented. Some say Persia, however some scholars think India, maybe it was Tsun Tsu.
I always found it interesting that the knight moves like a pawn moves on its first move, and captures. Its like infantry double timing it, and then attacking in other words (all at once). Also the attack right, or left (pawn) is curious because it represents a shielded man, or line of infantry that are shielded. Study ancient tactics, and you will know what I am talking about.
In addition to this, cav units are great at flanking enemy positions, they can easily out manouver foot units. Moving backwards, or sideways, and even jumping certain battlefield obstacles.
The Bishops might represent mounted archers.
Interesting, and what do the rook and the queen represent?
Rooks, archers on battlements, or fortifications, possibly even a war wagon, or siege tower. The Queen is a combination of mounted archers, and a fortified war wagon. Ancient China did have them.
CrimsonKnight7 wrote:
Rooks, archers on battlements, or fortifications, possibly even a war wagon, or siege tower. The Queen is a combination of mounted archers, and a fortified war wagon. Ancient China did have them.
Actually I imagine the rooks as wizards, since I played D&D for many years. The queen could represent a great hero or an archmage.
We have the same idea about the bishop representing an archer, knight and pawn obviously remind infantry and cavalry. King may be the general who gives the orders, or may just represent the safety of the kingdom itself?
In chaturanga, the rook was actually a chariot. Because this was actually how the indians fought: With infantry, horses, elephant and chariot (see Mahabharata/Bhagavad Gita).
Rooks, could also represent catapults, ballista, or even trebuckets/trebuchet. Any of these could be modified so they could be mounted in fortified wagons, as well.
It wasn't just the Ancient armies of India that used chariots, and yes, the rooks could represent them as well.
Do you know when Japanese chess was invented, also by who, Jadarite ?
I believe the ancient chess is not the same as today. It might be 5x5 or 6x6 squares. The stone age human might play with stones on the ground just liked tic-tac-toe. Then the game evolved very slowly before it reaches the current chess.
It might started 3x3 that could easily be solved, then 4x4, 5x5, 6x6,7x7 were also solved, hence not interesting anymore. It stops @ 8x8 today. With computer advances, it could be expanded to be 12x12 in the future.
The English novelist R.D. Blackmore (writer of Lorna Doone) said : " Think of the Genius who invented the Knight's move ".
As far as is known, the knight's move has been the same since chess began. It is possible that the Knight's move was derived from the " Knight's Tour " ; and this tour probably antedates chess !
( ... the Knight's Tour is the tour of a Knight over an otherwise empty board visiting each square once only ... )
Who can find more about that " genius " ?