The amazon, also known as the queen+knight compound, is a

fairy chess piece A fairy chess piece, variant chess piece, unorthodox chess piece, or heterodox chess piece is a chess piece not used in conventional chess but incorporated into certain chess variants and some chess problems. Compared to conventional pieces, fair ...

that can move like a queen or a

knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...

. It may thus be considered the sum of all orthodox chess pieces other than the

king King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the ti ...

and the

pawn Pawn most often refers to: * Pawn (chess), the weakest and most numerous piece in the game * Pawnbroker or pawnshop, a business that provides loans by taking personal property as collateral Pawn may also refer to: Places * Pawn, Oregon, an his ...

. The amazon can force checkmate on an enemy king without the help of any other friendly piece. Chess moves in this article use ''A'' as notation for the amazon.

Movement

The amazon's movement combines those of the queen and the knight. Thus, it may move to any square on the same rank, file, or diagonal as long as it does not jump, or it may move to any of the nearest squares not on the same rank, file, or diagonal.

History

The amazon is one of the most simply described fairy chess pieces and as such has a long history and has gone by many names. It was first used in Turkish Great Chess, a large medieval variant of chess, where it was called the ''giraffe''. Later, it was widely experimented with in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

to replace the slow

ferz The ferz or fers is a fairy chess piece that may move one square diagonally.Piececlopedia: Ferz
at ''< ...

, and it competed with the modern queen for this role; the modern queen eventually won out, as the amazon's power was deemed excessive. In Russia, the amazon persisted into the 18th century; some players disapproved of this ability to "gallop like the horse" (knight). The book '' A History of Chess'' by H. J. R. Murray, page 384, says that some Mr. Coxe, who was in Russia in 1772, saw chess being played with the amazon. The amazon is most well-known for its appearance in the chess variant Maharajah and the Sepoys, where it is the ''maharajah''. It is royal and White's only piece.

Value

The amazon's value is estimated to be 12 or 13 points in the

chess piece relative value In chess, a relative value (or point value) is a standard value conventionally assigned to each piece. Piece valuations have no role in the rules of chess but are useful as an aid to assessing a position. Valuation systems almost always assign ...

system, as the amazon is extremely mobile, can control every square surrounding itself in a 5×5 area, and can force checkmate by itself. In contrast, although the gryphon (or ''griffin'') from

Grande Acedrex Grant Acedrex is a medieval chess variant dating back to the time of King Alfonso X of Castile. It appears in the ''Libro de los Juegos'' of 1283. Rules The following rules are from the reconstruction given on the website of Jean-Louis Cazaux, b ...

(which moves one step diagonally before continuing outwards as a rook) would seem to have the value of two rooks (10–11 points), the squares it attacks are more dispersed, and it is more easily defended against than the amazon. In the endgame of king and amazon versus king and

empress An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother (empr ...

(rook+knight compound), the amazon usually wins; however, in a few positions, the weaker side may force a

draw Draw, drawing, draws, or drawn may refer to: Common uses * Draw (terrain), a terrain feature formed by two parallel ridges or spurs with low ground in between them * Drawing (manufacturing), a process where metal, glass, or plastic or anything ...

by setting up a

fortress A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

. Such a fortress forces the side with the amazon to give

perpetual check In the game of chess, perpetual check is a situation in which one player can a draw by an unending series of checks. This typically arises when the player who is checking cannot deliver checkmate, and failing to continue the series of checks give ...

; otherwise, the side with the empress can force a simplification or give its own perpetual check. King and amazon versus king is a forced win for the side with the amazon; checkmate can be forced within four moves. In comparison, the queen requires 10 moves and the rook requires 16. In fact, the amazon does not even require its king's help to force checkmate (as an example of a checkmate position, the king is in the corner and the attacking amazon is a knight's move away from it), and this great power is the reason why it is not seen as often in chess variants as the princess or empress.

Symbol

Both white and black symbols for the amazon were added to version 12 of the

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, whic ...

standard in March 2019, in the Chess Symbols block: 🩎 U+1FA4E WHITE CHESS KNIGHT-QUEEN
🩑 U+1FA51 BLACK CHESS KNIGHT-QUEEN

Notes

References

Bibliography
Piececlopedia: Amazon
by

Hans Bodlaender Hans Leo Bodlaender (born April 21, 1960) is a Dutch computer scientist, a professor of computer science at Utrecht University. Bodlaender is known for his work on graph algorithms and parameterized complexity and in particular for algorithms relat ...

and Fergus Duniho, ''

The Chess Variant Pages ''The Chess Variant Pages'' is a non-commercial website devoted to chess variants. It was created by Hans Bodlaender in 1995. The site is "run by hobbyists for hobbyists" and is "the most wide-ranging and authoritative web site on chess variants" ...

''
Endgame statistics with fantasy pieces
by Dave McCooey, ''

''
Amazon Chess
by

, ''

''
Factors that Contribute to Piece Values
by Ralph Betza, ''