Inventors of queen and bishop

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jsaepuru

Chaturanga and shatranj do not have queens nor bishops - they have ferzes and alfils.

When did queens and bishops appear?

By 19th century, they existed in India. For example, the Indian game of Maharaja and Sepoys seems to assume that the Maharaja, an Amazon, faces the army of chessmen including queen and bishops. With optimal play, the sepoys will checkmate the amazon.

If a Maharaja is confronted by Sepoys who did not include Queen nor bishops, just ferz and alfils, does the Maharaja still lose?

Also, into 19th century Indian chess did not have double initial move of pawn. Moheschunder Bannerjee and other Indian players accordingly favoured fianchetto in opening - occupying the centre with pawn moves would be slow.

But this is most favoured if bishops as long range pieces exist to command the centre.

Would fianchetto work with alfils? How should alfils be deployed in opening?

When did Indians adopt queens and bishops rather than ferzes and alfils? And where did queens and bishops first appear?

final_wars_warlord

Chess evolved slowly but also mutated quickly at some points in history.

Mutation was due to the influence of another game.

An example of mutation is the Oriental games that were influenced by the oriental game GO

These are Chinese / Korean / Japanese

An example of a branch that did not mutate and is most similar to the origin is South East Asia

These being Thai Makruk / Cambodian and Burmese (I prefer that name)

Burmese did actually mutate and Cambodian (Khmer) is a derivative of Thai Makruk

And now the part that all the "experts" missed

In Europe there was a game slightly different in each country that I call the Scandinavian or Viking game, google Ancient Viking Board Games, or something like that to find out more.

The important point of these games was that some of the boards were large and some of the squares were coloured, in other words the first partly checkered boards.

In the 12th century Persian chess on a 8x8 plain board mutated with the Scandinavian game somewhere in Europe and COURIER chess was born on a 12 x 8 board.

Queen moved like Fers (one step on the diagonal like Thai Makruk)

Ancient bishop moved like Indian, 2 squares on diagonal jumping over the first square

One extra piece that moved like King but was not royal (not checked)

One extra piece that moved like the stones in the Scandinavian game (one step up or down, left or right)

And important, 2 pieces, the COURIER, that moved like modern Bishop.

So you had the old bishops and the new bishops in the same game.

Also important in the starting position a central pawn and the pawn on each file on the edge of the board was already advanced 2 squares, in the starting position, the first occurance of a pawn double step.

And finally the most important change, a checkered board, influenced by the Scandinavian game and needed due to the introduction of the Courier (the modern bishop)

Then later somebody made a 8x8 checkered board, threw away the ancient bishop, threw away the piece that moved like a king, threw away the viking stone and you almost have modern chess.

Double pawn steps then later introduced at first only for the 2 central files (d and e) but later for all files.

Then finally about 500 years ago a powerful Spanish Queen was inaugurated and somebody combined Bishop + Rook = Modern Queen.

Originally called The Enraged Lady of Chess (French), Queens Chess or Mad Queens Chess (English) now simply called Chess

Note that Japanese (Shogi) also has a modern bishop (only one) but you can drop a captured unit back into the game so can have a bishop pair but board is 9x9 and not checkered.

Not sure if the Shogi Bishop influenced Courier Chess, probably not, will never know.

Conclusion

To answer your initial question, all of these changes in Europe then made their way back to the source, India, by way of trade - just like the original source travelled from India to say China along the silk road, etc, etc and boom you have your Indian variants.

Yes I know that all of you are "experts"

Warlord

Final Wars

www.finalwars.com

HGMuller

Chu Shogi, a Japanese Chess variant played on a 12x12 board, has been the most popular form of Chess in Japan for many centuries. (The invention of dropping captured pieces back onto the board eventually caused the smaller 9x9 version with drops to replace it.) The oldest historic references to this game are from the year 1350, but it is thought to have originated about 100 years earlier, so around 1250 AD.

Chu Shogi has 46 pieces per side, initially of 21 different types. Through promotion 7 additional piece types can be obtained. Amongst the pieces that are initially present are Bishops, Rooks and a Queen.

 

Grant Acedrex is a western Chess variant on a 12x12 board described in the Alfonso codex (1283 AD). It does feature a piece that moves as a Bishop (called 'Crocodile'), as well as Rooks, Pawns and King. The other pieces ('Giraffe', 'Lion', 'Unicorn' (meaning 'Rhino') and 'Griffon') are weird, but except for the Giraffe all stronger than Rooks. There is no Queen; the strongest piece is a Griffon, which is a slider with a bent trajectory, starting with a diagonal step, and then continuing orthogonally outward. (A double-barrel Rook, as it were.)

HGMuller
final_wars_warlord schreef:
Then later somebody made a 8x8 checkered (sic) board, threw away the ancient bishop, threw away the piece that moved like a king, threw away the viking stone and you almost have modern chess.

Actually they threw away the the ancient Queen, and left in the piece that moved as a King as the new(er) Queen. In Courier Chess the ancient Queen was standing right of the (white) King, so its deletion swapped K and Q.

final_wars_warlord

No you are wrong

4 files have been removed to go from 12 files down to 8

That is a fundamental physical change to the entire game board.

So discussing this piece swops with that piece is completely pointless.

In Courier chess the ancient Queen does not even start on the first or last rank, so discussing this piece stands next to that piece is also completely pointless.

In the diagram below the ancient Queen moves one step on the diagonal, after the change to a 8x8 board it still moved one step on diagonal.

And finally, for WHITE the ancient Queen on a 8x8 board starts on E1 (a dark square) but for BLACK it starts on D8 (a dark square) the Kings did not face each other so that the ancient Queens could engage on the dark squares. (as per Persian Chess, Thai Makruk and Cambodian but these games were played on a plain 8x8 board)

The actual change to modern Queen happened hundreds of years later and only then was the MODERN WHITE QUEEN moved to D1 and the WHITE KING to E1

 

Funny how you did not even mention any of the important stuff from my post.

1. the influence of the Scandinavian game.

2. the introduction of a checkered board.

3. the introduction of 2 Couriers (modern bishops) on opposite coloured squares.

Instead you focused on something trivial.

final_wars_warlord

phpF4fHPj.png

The usual bishop image is the ancient bishop.

The moon crescent image is the courier = modern bishop.

The upside down king moves like a king but is not checked.

The court jester image to the right of the white king moves like the viking stone, one step up, down, left or right.

The queen image is the ancient queen, one step on the diagonal.

This is the starting position of a game, note the advanced pawns, the origin of the pawn double step.

Courier chess is important because it is the first game that had a checkered board and the modern bishops.

Courier chess was popular in Europe for 200 years starting in the 12th century.

HGMuller
final_wars_warlord schreef:
Funny how you did not even mention any of the important stuff from my post.

1. the influence of the Scandinavian game.

2. the introduction of a checkered board.

3. the introduction of 2 Couriers (modern bishops) on opposite coloured squares.

What is there to say about that, then? You consider it debatable?

final_wars_warlord

phpfYP24j.jpeg

A viking game from some European country

Played from Ireland through to eastern Europe, maybe also Russia, not sure about that.

Different sized boards in each country, but always an odd number so that there was a central square on the board for the chief (king) stone. The board in the diagram is 11x11.

White wins if he gets his king stone to any edge of the board.

Black wins if he captures the white king.

Captures are made if you surround a stone horizontally or vertically.

All pieces move the same, one step up, down, left or right.

Here there are 2 stones Black and White next to each other on a row

- - - BW

Black moves a stone up next to the white stone

- - - BWB

The white stone is surrounded on 2 sides and is removed from the board

Works the same way vertically.

Note that the game models the way that vikings fought in those days.

A village in a valley would be surrounded using the hills around the village, once attacked the villages would try to escape into the surrounding hillsides.

Note the dark tiles on the board, the origin of the checkered board in chess.

These games were played for centuries in Europe before Persian chess finally migrated into Europe. 

final_wars_warlord

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