English Chess Forum

I was at the National Finals of the Prep Schools General Knowledge quiz yesterday and a chess question featured. What is the only chess piece that must move more that one space at a time?
Quite amazingly all 44 competitors got the answer correct

So, what was the answer?

Andrew Camp wrote:So, what was the answer?

...are you serious?

-Leaves the forum-

"chess" questions in quizzes are generally easy, and require only a basic knowledge of the rules/number of pieces on the board to answer.

Technically, leaping isn't really moving through the intervening space on the board... Both knights and the shatranj piece the alfil (fore-runner of the bishop) leap, so they are not really moving more than one space, they are teleporting! (If you insist that the knight is moving more than one space at a time, ask yourself how many spaces it is moving).

Well its either moving two spaces or three spaces, but anyway its definitely more than one. Also the concept of movement includes "leaping" does it not?

Anyway, its rather an imaginative question, not one I've heard before.

Well, that was an easy catch.

Yeah, but it is not moving through the spaces, but over them. You could say that like the king and pawns after their first move, it is one of the only pieces that has to move from one square to another, not 'touching' any squares in-between. The difference being that the start and end squares are not adjacent. The other long-range (moving between squares that are not adjacent) pieces all have to have empty squares between the start and end squares. (Yeah, I know that's not the point of quiz questions, but arguing over such questions has a long tradition!)

The question didn't specify "through" or "over" though, it just said "move more than one space", so it's still valid as phrased. Anyway if it was phrased as "not touching any squares in between" its a dead give-away.

In any case, have to agree with Matthew that its amazing that everybody got it right.

A more pressing question might be, "how come in a bishop v knight ending, if I have the bishop it's always worse than the knight, whereas if my opponent has the bishop, it's always better than the knight?"

PeterFarr wrote:A more pressing question might be, "how come in a bishop v knight ending, if I have the bishop it's always worse than the knight, whereas if my opponent has the bishop, it's always better than the knight?"

I know the feeling

I was in a pub quiz a couple of weeks ago where the question came up “How many squares are there on a Chess board?” the other 4 heads in my team simultaneously turned to look at me

I think for a none/casual player that one would be a fairly hard one.

Jon Mahony wrote:I was in a pub quiz a couple of weeks ago where the question came up “How many squares are there on a Chess board?” the other 4 heads in my team simultaneously turned to look at me

I think for a none/casual player that one would be a fairly hard one.

You didn't say 64 did you? In one sense, that is a wrong answer. I can't remember what the other answer is though...

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:

Jon Mahony wrote:I was in a pub quiz a couple of weeks ago where the question came up “How many squares are there on a Chess board?” the other 4 heads in my team simultaneously turned to look at me

I think for a none/casual player that one would be a fairly hard one.

You didn't say 64 did you? In one sense, that is a wrong answer. I can't remember what the other answer is though...

204: (8x8)+(7x7)+(6x6)+(5x5)+(4x4)+(3x3)+(2x2)+(1x1)

Jon Mahony wrote:I was in a pub quiz a couple of weeks ago where the question came up “How many squares are there on a Chess board?” the other 4 heads in my team simultaneously turned to look at me

I think for a none/casual player that one would be a fairly hard one.

Yeah that can be trick question. I direct you to a sample idea:

There are 27 in this image.
And so with that in mind you can reach a total of 204!! on a chessboard

Greg Breed wrote:

Jon Mahony wrote:I was in a pub quiz a couple of weeks ago where the question came up “How many squares are there on a Chess board?” the other 4 heads in my team simultaneously turned to look at me

I think for a none/casual player that one would be a fairly hard one.

Yeah that can be trick question. I direct you to a sample idea:

There are 27 in this image.
And so with that in mind you can reach a total of 204!! on a chessboard

The big square: (4x4)+(3x3)+(2x2)+(1x1) = 16+9+4+1 = 30.
The two small squares: (2x2)+(1x1) = 5 each.

Total squares: 30+5+5=40 as demonstrated here.