Alfil

An alfil (or elephant) is a xiangqi piece and fairy chess piece that jumps two squares diagonally. In many chess variants, but not in xiangqi, it can leap over intermediate pieces.

The alfil jumps two squares diagonally, leaping over intermediate pieces.

The alfil is a very old piece, appearing in some very early chess variants, such as Tamerlane chess and shatranj. The elephant in xiangqi moves like an alfil, but has additional restrictions involving where it can move.

The piece was originally called an elephant, and two of its alternate names were hasty and gaja, two Sanskrit words for elephant. It was probably one of the original chess pieces, appearing in chaturanga and shatranj. However, its original move is uncertain; two possibilities, excluding the current alfil move, are the dabbaba move (jumping two squares orthogonally) and the move of the silver general from shogi. The variant using the dabbaba move eventually died out, but the other variant spread to Burma and Siam, where it became the move for the equivalent pieces in the Burmese (sittuyin) and Thai (makruk) variants of chess. The silver general move was stated by Henry Davidson to resemble the four legs and trunk of an actual elephant. However, H. J. R. Murray in his History of Chess considered the two-square diagonal leap to be the original move, and reasoned that the main reason for the changes that made the alfil and ferz stronger in modern chess during the Renaissance (becoming the bishop and queen, respectively) were that these were originally the weakest pieces in the game (except the pawns). The alfil can only reach one eighth of the squares on the board, while the dabbaba can reach one quarter and the silver general can reach every square on the board.

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