Top 10 forgotten pieces! Chess variants of history

Welcome to the top 10 forgotten chess pieces! We visit several historic chess variants.

Chess has had a long evolution, and the pieces that we are used to today did not just arrive fully formed as we know them.
Many varied and exotic pieces have battled it out on chess boards all across time and space.
This list is a list of my favourites, ordered from weakest to strongest.

10. Elephant / Al-fil
9. Ferz / Advisor / Minister
8. Jester / Wazir / Schleich
7. The Man
6. Lion
5. Centaur / Princess / Archbishop
4. Unicornio
3. Empress / Chancellor
2. Aanca
1. Amazon

Some chess variants featured in this video:
Shatranj
Grande Acedrex
Capablanca Chess

Here are two very old games of Shatranj, featuring the Elephant and the Ferz, that I have covered in the past:

#top10
#topten
#chessvariant

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68 Comments

  1. In arabic countries we still call the bishop (alfil) and the queen (alwazir) although it looks like a queen lol

  2. ๐–Ž would love more videos of obsolete chess pieces โค thanks!

  3. The Jester is basically like how I was expecting pawns to be when I first started chess.

  4. Well I can safely say I was not expecting the video to start with that

  5. Heyy, what is the chess software that you are using? I want to use it for a vidro project. Please help me out with this๐Ÿ‘

  6. Referencing 9/11 in a "joke" is NOT funny. Can't write the name I called you because YT auto deletes comments that contain the word. But, you're English so you'll know what it is. Begins with a "C". Thumbs down and blocked.

  7. It doesn't make sense that the strongest pieces are represented by female characters.

  8. I think Americans can win 50% of chess games. They just can't play with the black pieces.

  9. The elephant evolving into the bishop is interesting because โ€œalfilโ€ is how you call a chess bishop in Spanish.

  10. NOT THE TOWERS OH GOD NOT THE TOWERS ๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€

  11. NIce video. For further reading: A World of Chess, McFarland, 2017.

  12. There is also the citadel from Mongolian variant of chess.

  13. in Russian bishops still called elephants too

  14. 2:33 in iran we still call bishops and queen elephant and vezir(Minister)

  15. Where is the artillery? Move like a rook and capture by jump over a pieces.

  16. I could have sworn I heard somewhere that the Elephant was a rook.

  17. Overkill Ecumenical Chess has most power full piece in chess history which has a piece which called actress which has combination of queen , knight and camel or we say combination of amazon and camel .Move of camel like long knight.

  18. Interesting that in Russian we name bishop elephan, and queen is ferz

  19. Hey im turkish and normally we are still calling the queen "vezir" and vezir is the prime assistant of the emperor and also we still call the bishop elephant in our language and we call the knight as horse and the rook as castle

  20. That joke in the beginning made me choke on my saliva.

  21. I've played some Shahtranj with Fairy Stockfish. The elephant is incredibly weak, even more than the pawn. The easiest way to win the game, BTW, is simply to bare the board except the king, then you just win. It's got a somewhat different feel than modern chess, more like playing with alot of pawns, as most of the pieces have limited movement.

  22. Its a shame that we can't use these old pieces in a way that allows for a custom strategy chess game.

  23. Sir Fil ููŠู„ is Bishop called in Sundhi , Urdu,
    Wazir ูˆุฒูŠุฑ is Queen . These are not literal translations but different names od exactly same pieces

  24. Man you are criminally underrated. Love your videos, earned a sub

  25. Compare bishop to most piece (except all rook variant since they're the same)they are actually very powerful even though bishop isn't very likely piece accord to me but I'd say it's very powerful

  26. Would be interesting to play some variant with all 16 pieces.

  27. wait,doesnt the jester move like the last piece that the oppositting player moved?

  28. most of these pieces seem either extremely weak or terrifyingly powerful

  29. Whatโ€™s the name of the program youโ€™re using ?

  30. The joke is really distasteful. Especially if you lost a loved one during 9/11. I didn't find that reference very funny at all. Anyways modern chess still has some of these pieces but it's in variants. Xiangqi, Makruk, and Seirawan Chess. So not all are forgotten just in other variants.

  31. So basically the unicorno is a queen in steroids

  32. Thanks mam found it really informative.. and had a good glimpse of history.. would seek to see more of your contents

  33. People say that Americans are bad at chess until they see them saccing 2 rooks to checkmate bin laden

  34. I've always wanted to play chess with new pieces, is there anywhere I can play something like what you played?

  35. I like how this game started from one leap moves and arrived to pieces able to cover half the board by themselves

  36. I donโ€™t know what was more effed up that joke or me laughing

  37. The Amazon isn't the only piece that can mate the king with no help, The archbishop does aswell!

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