The zebra 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 moves like a stretched

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 Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...

. It jumps three squares horizontally and two squares vertically or three squares vertically and two squares horizontally, regardless of intervening pieces; thus, it is a (2,3)-leaper. A lame zebra, which moves one step orthogonally and then two steps diagonally outwards and can be blocked by intervening pieces, appears as the elephant in

janggi ''Janggi'' (including romanizations ''changgi'' and ''jangki''), sometimes called Korean chess, is a strategy board game popular on the Korean Peninsula. The game was derived from xiangqi (Chinese chess), and is very similar to it, including t ...

Movement

Value

The zebra by itself is worth just below two

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 ...

s (appreciably less than a knight) due to its restricted freedom of movement on an 8×8 board. Its larger move is the main reason why it is weaker than a

camel A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. ...

on an 8×8 board, even though the camel is colorbound and the zebra is not. A

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

, a

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ...

, and a zebra can force

checkmate Checkmate (often shortened to mate) is any game position in chess and other chess-like games in which a player's king is in check (threatened with ) and there is no possible escape. Checkmating the opponent wins the game. In chess, the king is ...

on a bare king; a king, a knight, and a zebra cannot; and a king, a camel, and a zebra cannot. The rook versus zebra endgame is a win for the rook. (All endgame statistics mentioned are for the 8×8 board.) As a component of other pieces, the zebra has about the same value as the knight (both pieces can move to eight squares). Its long move carries the danger of causing unstoppable attacks in the opening and winning large amounts of

material Material is a substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an object. Materials can be pure or impure, living or non-living matter. Materials can be classified on the basis of their physical and chemical properties, or on their geolo ...

Ralph Betza Ralph Betza (born 1945) is a FIDE Master and inventor of chess variants such as Chess with different armies, Avalanche chess, and Way of the Knight. Invented chess variants * Multiplayer Chess (date unknown) * High-Low Chess (1968) * Strange ...

opined that the zebra's move was too large to be functional on an 8×8 board and that only on a 10×10 board or larger would it be worth its ideal value of about a knight.

References

Piececlopedia: Zebra
by Hans Bodlaender, '' The Chess Variant Pages''
Endgame statistics with fantasy pieces
by Dave McCooey, '' The Chess Variant Pages''
Ideal and Practical Values (part 4): Odds and Ends
by

, '' The Chess Variant Pages'' {{Chess piece Fairy chess pieces

Movement

Value

See also

References