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Jeremy Lennert wrote on Tue, Dec 13, 2011 01:55 AM UTC:
I remain skeptical even of your revised claim.  Even when the components are non-overlapping and 'similar' (though I can only guess what that means), I see no obvious reason that having divergent capturing and non-capturing moves is better than having the same in the general case; only the capture or non-capture will be legal in any given position, so there is no loss due to 'overlap'.  In fact, I've seen the opposite argued, on the grounds that a divergent piece is easier to trap, since it is unable to attack enemies in its way.

When the combination lifts a special disadvantage (such as colorboundness), that is a special case; though it would need to eliminate a disadvantage from EACH of the components in order for that to make it stronger than BOTH, in general.  (And I am unconvinced that lack of triangulation is a disadvantage of any measurable significance.)  If the components were instead Crab and Barc, or Rook and Nightrider, what then?

Comparing a Pawn to a Point is like comparing a Queen/Knight divergent piece to a Knight; that is obviously the weaker parent (Ferz is already stronger than Wazir, and loses much less from the forward-only restriction).  I strongly suspect that the Pawn is weaker than a forward-only Ferz, despite the Ferz being colorbound, because the fF has more possible moves and does not need to capture to change files (the latter advantage being especially important if promotion is allowed).

What is your evidence or reasoning for valuing divergent pieces more highly?

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