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Joe Joyce wrote on Tue, Oct 20, 2009 05:34 PM UTC:
I have a question involving piece types and values. Consider 4 pieces, the
standard RN and BN, and the DWN and FAN. Using HG Muller's values, we see:

 RN = 9.00
 BN = 8.75
DWN = 6.33
FAN = 6.50

DWN/RN = 70%. FAN/BN = 75%. This says something about the value of
leaping, because I think lame 2-square pieces would test out as less than
70-75% of the archbishop and chancellor values. But the thing I find
interesting is the flip in relative values between the pairs of pieces. 

Why the flip?

The FAN has 8 forward squares to the DWN's 6, but the BN, from a
'rearward' central square has 11 forward moves compared to the RN's 8
from that same central square, so that doesn't account for the flip in
value. 

I've considered the relaxation of [color] boundedness. It seems pretty
feeble to me, but the numbers point in the right direction. The rook is
unbound, visiting all the squares on the board. The bishop is singly color
bounded, visiting half the squares on the board. The RN and BN combos are
unbound, so the bishop visits twice as many squares as it did by itself. 

The dabbabah is doubly colorbound, visiting 1/2 x 1/2 or one quarter of
the board. The DWN is unbound, allowing the dabbabah to visit 4 times as
many squares. The alfil is triply bound, visiting 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2, or one
eighth of the board, and the FAN is unbound, allowing the alfil to visit 8
times as many squares. 

Like I said, feeble. Suggestive, but feeble. Who's got any ideas? They
can't possibly be much worse than what I just suggested. Maybe
blockability, as one pair is unblockable and the other partially blockable.
Well? ;-)

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