M Winther wrote on Fri, Apr 14, 2006 01:15 PM UTC:
David, thanks for the info. I have corrected my homepage. I had missed the
'White Elephant' implementation. It's an interesting concept with
different armies, i.e., the Burmese Elephants pitted against the bishop
pair, etc. Luckily, my 'Elephant Chess' differs very much from Peter's
inventions. Nor did I know that this piece is the same as the 'Silver
General' in Shogi. It is an interesting piece. Its qualities are much
different from the orthodox chess pieces.
Aronson discusses the strength of the Burmese Elephant and compares it
with the Fil (the other kind of Elephant) in Shatranj. This is a
surprisingly weak piece, about equal to a centre pawn. To me it's obvious
that the Burmese Elephant is much stronger since it can reach all squares
of the board, while the Fil can only reach a quarter of them. The Fil is
an awkward piece. I cannot understand how they could bear with it for more
than a millenium. But I suspect that they originally played with dice. Then
the piece makes much more sense.