Grasshopper chess is a chess variant, in which the pawns are allowed to promote to a fairy piece, the grasshopper. The grasshopper (shown as an inverted queen) must hop over other pieces in order to move or capture.
In some variations grasshoppers may also be present on the board in the opening position, in addition to the usual pieces. For example, pawns can be moved forward and grasshoppers put along the second and seventh ranks as shown on the diagram at right. Another possibility is to replace queens with grasshoppers in initial position.
Famous quotes containing the words grasshopper and/or chess:
“A worm is as good a traveler as a grasshopper or a cricket, and a much wiser settler. With all their activity these do not hop away from drought nor forward to summer. We do not avoid evil by fleeing before it, but by rising above or diving below its plane; as the worm escapes drought and frost by boring a few inches deeper.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The trick, which requires the combined skills of a tightrope walker and a cordon bleu chef frying a plain egg, is to take your [preteen] daughter seriously without taking everything she says and does every minute seriously.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)