Seirawan Chess

We've discussed chess variants at the club recently. One of the newer ones is called Seirawan Chess. It features two new pieces: the hawk and the elephant. The hawk has the combined powers of a knight and a bishop. The elephant has the combined powers of a knight and a rook. The new pieces are not on the board at the start of the game. Instead, whenever a piece moves from its initial square, either the elephant or the hawk can be placed on the vacated square. If either piece has not been placed by the time the other eight have all moved, it may not enter the game. Pawns can be promoted to either of the new pieces.

This variant is also called SHARPER Chess, as it was developed jointly by Yasser Seirawan and Bruce Harper, but Seirawan Chess seems to be sticking as a name because, let's face it, Yaz's name has more marketing power.

It should also be noted that House of Staunton sells the extra pieces, though they describe the pieces as having different moves than do Seirawan & Harper.

Anyhow, the link to Seirawan Chess above has a section on endgames that shows the powers of the new pieces (against c- & f- pawns, for example, the elephant is better than a queen in certain simple positions), and Yasser has also done an introductory video that can be seen on YouTube.

If anyone wants to give this a try at the club some time, let me know. I figure we can use pieces from another set to distinguish the hawks and elephants.