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Piececlopedia: Rose
Historical notes
The rose is a semi-well-known fairy chess problem piece.
The only game I know of that uses the rose as a piece is Ralph Betza's
Chess on a Really Big Board,
the idea being that the board gives
the rose enough room to complete a full circle in all directions. (One
can also find a diagram of the rose movements with the description of
that game.)
Movement
The rose can be described as a circular nightrider. More specifically, the rose makes a series of
continuous knight moves, except that unlike the nightrider, which continues
in the same direction, the rose must make a 45 degree turn with each
leap. Like the knight, it can jump over intervening pieces, and like
the knightrider, each square it actually comes into contact with must be
empty.
If the path if unblocked, it is legal for a rose to travel in a complete
circle and end its turn on the same square as it started from.
Movement diagram
In the diagram below, the rose can move to all the squares marked with a
black or red circle. The red circles are used to distinguish a single
path by the rose (b4-c6-e7-g6-h4-g2-e1-c2, or the other way around,
b4-c2-e1 etc).
Note that for the rose to get from b4 to e7, he can travel either
b4-c6-e7 or b4-d5-e7. Either c6 or d5 must be vacant, or the rose can
not move to e7. If the rose moves to g6 moving clockwise, b4-c6-e7,
both b4 and c6 must be vacant (the rose can not move b5-d5-e7-g6, each
turn must be in the same direction).
The rose can also continue around in a complete circle, and end its turn on b4.
Rose Helpmate Problem
The following problem, in which it is Black to play and help White mate
in five, is taken from Strategems Magazine issue #4.
The solution will appear in SG6, due
out in April. In the problem below, the board is considered to be a
vertical cylinder, meaning that the a- and h-files are joined. Thus a
rook moving g8-h8 could continue to a8-b8-c8 etc.
Adam Sobey
England
H#5, Rose on d3
Vertical Cyluinder
This is an item in the Piececlopedia: an overview of
different (fairy) chess pieces.
Written by Ben Good. Some changes by Hans Bodlaender, with thanks to
Alfred Pfeiffer for corrections.
WWW page created: January 15, 1999. Last modified: January 22, 1999.
Last modified: Monday, December 22, 2008
