Amazon (chess)

The amazon, also known as the queen+knight compound or the dragon, is a fairy chess piece that can move like a queen or a knight.

It may thus be considered the sum of all orthodox chess pieces other than the king (because it cannot castle and does not know when it is under threat via the check rule) and the pawn (because it cannot practice en passant).

The amazon is one of the most simply described fairy chess pieces and as such has a long history and has gone by many names.

In Russia, the amazon persisted into the 18th century; some players disapproved of this ability to "gallop like the horse" (knight).

In fact, the amazon does not even require its king's help to force checkmate (as an example of a checkmate position, the king is in the corner and the attacking amazon is a knight's move away from it), and this great power is the reason why it is not seen as often in chess variants as the princess or empress.