Our Featured Variant: Try the Chinese game of Xiangqi, one of the most popular and enduring Chess variants in the world.
Rate this page! | Skip to comments
The Piececlopedia: Dragon
Historic remarks
The exact origins of this piece are unknown (if you have more
information, please let us know). The earliest reference I have to it
is in T.R. Dawson's Five
Classics of Fairy Chess in which there is a dragon problem
originally published in 1913. Although it has some popularity as a
problem
piece, I know of no games that use it.
Movement rules
The dragon has the combined powers of the normal chess knight, and the normal chess pawn. The dragon can capture en passant, but does not promote
upon reaching the eighth rank. A dragon on the second rank which has
not yet moved can make the intial double-step, and therefore can also be
captured en passant (in problems, if a dragon is on the second rank in
the problem's starting position, then it is considered to have not yet
moved, unless retro-grade analysis can prove otherwise).
Movement diagram
In the diagram below, the dragon, which is traditionally symbolized as a
sideways knight, can do any of the following:
- move, but not capture, to a square marked with a green circle.
- capture, but not move without capturing, to a square marked with a red
circle.
- move or capture, regardless of intervening pieces, to a square marked
with a black circle.
Dragon Mating Problem
In the problem below, White mates in 3. This problem is taken from part
5 of T.R Dawson's masterpiece Five
Classics of Fairy Chess.
Written by Benjamin C Good.
WWW page created: January 15, 1999.
Last modified: Monday, December 22, 2008
