The Mao-hopper is a variant of the Mao, a piece known as the knight
from
Xiangqi
and Korean
Chess. The Mao is a popular piece in fairy chess problems; the mao-hopper is less known, but also
in use in some problems. Where the Mao must pass an empty square, the mao-hopper must hop across an occupied square.
Movement
The mao-hopper is similar to the chess knight
- it ends up the same distance away, but the difference is that it must
jump over a piece. The mao-hopper is
considered to move first one square orthogonally, and then one square
diagonally (away from the starting square) to its destination square.
The intermediate square must be occupied by a piece.
Movement diagram
In the diagram below, the White mao-hopper on d5 can move to all the squares
marked with a black circle. It can also capture the Black mao-hopper, even
though the Black mao-hopper can not capture the White one. Also note that the
Black king is not in check.
