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Dabbabah. Historical piece leaping two squares horizontally or vertically.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
David Paulowich wrote on Fri, Dec 2, 2005 12:12 AM UTC:

The Arts and Science pages of the Case Western Reserve University Medieval Society have movement definitions and diagrams for many pieces from old shatranj variants. A pair of 10x10 variants (both called Shatranj Kamil) are believed to date back 1000 years. One added the orthogonal leaper we now call the Dabbabah. The other variant added a (nonroyal) King.

Courier Chess uses the wazir under the name 'schleich', which is sometimes translated as 'fool'. Ralph Betza may be the first to use the 'wazir-dabbabah' piece in a chess variant, but there are also the 'knights' in Cohen's Error Chess (1977). Jean-Louis Cazaux calls this piece a 'machine' in his 14 x 14 variant Gigachess (2001).