wazir

The Wazir was a piece that already appeared in some very early variants of chess, like the about 600 years old Tamerlane chess . The translation of the name of the piece is vizier . The Wazir moves one square orthogonally. It takes in the same way as it moves without taking. The Wazir cannot inflict checkmate on a rectangular board with only assistance of its own King, and is thus a minor piece. Even with a pair of Wazirs you cannot force checkmate on a bare King, but paired with another minor this is sometimes possible. Try it! The Wazir moves to the adjacent squares that share an aresta with it's current position, or, for more than 2D boards, to the adjacent (hyper)volumes that share a (hyper)face with its current position. In the standard board, these are the four squares in front of, to the left, behind and to the right. It takes in the same way as it moves without taking. The two diagrams below show the (generalized) Wazir move on a hexagonal board and a board, typically for wargames. Text and pictures by Hans Bodlaender and Alberto Monteiro. AI image by Fergus Duniho.