Alfil
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/85/Indian_Elephant_King_Chess_Piece.jpg/220px-Indian_Elephant_King_Chess_Piece.jpg)
The pil, alfil, alpil, or elephant is a
Movement
a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | ||
8 | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | 8 | |||||||
7 | 7 | ||||||||
6 | 6 | ||||||||
5 | 5 | ||||||||
4 | 4 | ||||||||
3 | 3 | ||||||||
2 | 2 | ||||||||
1 | 1 | ||||||||
a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h |
The alfil jumps two squares diagonally, leaping over any intermediate piece. It captures enemy pieces in the same way. Some variants, such as xiangqi, use a version of the piece that cannot leap.
History and nomenclature
The name of the game in adjoining countries appears to be derived from chaturanga - chatrang in Persian, shatranj in Arabic, Chanderaki in Tibetan are examples. This suggests that the game, as well as its name, came from India. Also, as will appear, it was believed in Persia that the game arrived there from India.) variants of chess. When chess spread to China, the piece became the elephant in xiangqi.
The silver general move was stated by Henry Davidson to resemble the four legs and trunk of an actual elephant. However, H. J. R. Murray in his History of Chess considered the two-square diagonal leap to be the original move, and reasoned that the main reason for the changes that made the alfil and ferz stronger in modern chess during the Renaissance (becoming the bishop and queen, respectively) were that these were originally the weakest pieces in the game apart from the pawns. The alfil can only reach one eighth of the squares on the board, whereas the dabbaba can reach one quarter, and the silver general can reach every square on the board.
When chess came to
Value
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ef/Alfil_colorbound.svg/242px-Alfil_colorbound.svg.png)
The alfil by itself is not much more powerful than a pawn, but as an additional backup for other pieces, it is worth about half a knight. Its value is severely compromised by its being "thrice-colourbound", only being able to reach an eighth of the squares on the 8×8 chessboard; combining it with other pieces usually masks this weakness to some extent. A king and eight alfils, with each alfil covering a different eighth of the chessboard, can force checkmate on a bare king.
Symbol
Both white and black symbols for the alfil have been provisionally accepted for a future version of the
U+1FA55 WHITE CHESS ALFIL
U+1FA57 BLACK CHESS ALFIL
References
- ^ "Charlemagne". history.chess.free.fr.
- ISBN 978-0-7141-1153-7.
- ^ Bala, Gavin Jared; Miller, Kirk (22 December 2023). "Unicode request for shatranj symbols" (PDF). unicode.org. Unicode. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
- ^ Unicode. "Proposed New Characters: The Pipeline". unicode.org. The Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
- Dickins, Anthony (1971) [Corrected repub. of 1969 2nd ed., The Q Press, Richmond, Surrey, England]. A Guide to Fairy Chess. New York: ISBN 0-486-22687-5.
External links
- The Alfil by Ralph Betza, The Chess Variant Pages
- Piececlopedia: Alfil by Fergus Duniho and Hans Bodlaender, The Chess Variant Pages