Princess (chess)

A princess (also known as a cardinal, archbishop, or simply bishop+knight compound) is a fairy chess piece that can move like a bishop or a knight. It cannot jump over other pieces when moving as a bishop, but may do so when moving as a knight. Below, it is given the symbol NB from Betza notation.

History and nomenclature

The princess is one of the most simply described fairy chess pieces and as such has a long history and has gone by many names. A generic name would be the bishop+knight compound. The most commonly used names for this piece are the cardinal, archbishop and princess.

The name archbishop was introduced by José Raúl Capablanca in his large variant Capablanca chess. He originally called it the chancellor, but later changed the names and the rook+knight compound became known as the chancellor. Both of these names refer to higher ranks than the bishop in the Roman Catholic Church, but archbishop does so more obviously to most people, and thus became more popular. In fact, the name archbishop has been used for other augmented bishops as well, such as the "reflecting bishop" (which reflects off the sides of the board) and the bishop+king compound. A similar approach was taken by Christian Freeling, the inventor of Grand Chess, who named it the cardinal. Both archbishop and cardinal are popular names for the bishop+knight compound.

Princess (Jam Hsiao album)

Princess (Chinese: 王妃) is Taiwanese Mandopop artist Jam Hsiao's (Chinese: 蕭敬騰) second Mandarin studio album. It was released on 17 July 2009 by Warner Music Taiwan. The album was available for pre-order, from 23 June 2009, as the Princess (First Press Limited Edition) (王妃 全球首日封榮耀限定款) which includes gifts and photobook. A further edition, Princess (Live Limited Edition) (王妃 Live 影音限定版 2CD+DVD) was released on 28 August 2009 with bonus CD and DVD containing live tracks and footage from Hsiao's Princess Live Concert Tour at Tainan, Taiwan.

The track "Say a lil something" is composed by label mate Khalil Fong and four tracks, "小男人大男孩" (Not A Boy, Not Yet A Man), "Green Door", "給愛人" (To My Beloved) and "寂寞還是你" (Lonesome for You) are composed by Hsiao. The music video for "我不會愛" (Don't Know How to Love) features Taiwanese actress Sandrine Pinna.

Reception

The album debuted at number one on Taiwan's G-Music Top 20 Weekly Mandarin and Combo Charts at week 29, and Five Music Chart at week 30 with a percentage sales of 33.1%, 22.76% and 24.45% respectively.

Princess (singer)

Desiree Heslop, best known as Princess, is a British singer who found chart success in the mid-1980s. In the late-1970s she worked with the group Osibisa. Her first solo album Princess (1986) was composed and produced by Stock Aitken Waterman which contained the hit single, "Say I'm Your Number One". The album spawned 5 charting singles, and was certified silver in the UK.

Heslop signed with Polydor and recorded her second album, All for Love (1987) in the United States, but neither the album nor its 3 singles had much success. In 1989, she released the stand-alone single "Lover Don't Go", which failed to chart. Her third album, "Say It", which was slated for release in 1990, eventually was never issued as Princess retired from the music scene and moved to the USA after the death of her mother and the assassination of her brother.

From 1991 to 2003 she lived in the U.S., before returning to England in 2003. That same year she formed her own music label with her brother Donovan, OnDa Ground Music Label, which has released all her music since, and released her first single in 14 years, "Ride", with rap ensemble EEDB. A music video was also filmed which referenced her retirement.

Princess (US automobile)

The Princess was an automobile built in Detroit, Michigan by the Princess Motor Car Company from 1914 until 1918. The original Princess was a light two-seater costing $475. It was powered by a 1.6-liter Farmer engine.

References

Chess annotation symbols

When annotating chess games, commentators frequently use widely recognized annotation symbols. Question marks and exclamation points that denote a move as bad or good are ubiquitous in chess literature. Some publications intended for an international audience, such as the Chess Informant have a wide range of additional symbols that transcend language barriers.

The common symbols for evaluating the merits of a move are "??", "?", "?!", "!?", "!", and "!!". In these cases, the corresponding symbol is juxtaposed in the text immediately after the move (e.g. Re7? or Kh1!?, see algebraic chess notation).

Use of these annotation symbols is subjective, as different annotators use the same symbols differently. Moreover, an annotator's use of symbols is often influenced by the player's strength: a positional misjudgment that an annotator might give a "??" if played by a strong grandmaster might pass unremarked if played by a beginner.

Annotators' use of punctuation also may possibly be influenced by the result of the game (regardless of the actual quality of the move); one possible example came in the 11th game of the 1972 World Championship, when Spassky played an unexpected move, 14.Nb1, retreating the knight to its initial square. Spassky won the game, and several annotators gave the move two exclamation points. Edmar Mednis asserted that if Spassky had lost the game, the move would likely have been given two question marks instead.

Computer chess

Computer chess is computer architecture encompassing hardware and software capable of playing chess autonomously without human guidance. Computer chess acts as solo entertainment (allowing players to practice and to better themselves when no sufficiently strong human opponents are available), as aids to chess analysis, for computer chess competitions, and as research to provide insights into human cognition.

Current chess engines are able to defeat even the strongest human players under normal conditions. Whether computation could ever solve chess remains an open question.

Availability

Chess-playing computers are now accessible to the average consumer. From the mid-1970s to the present day, dedicated chess computers have been available for purchase. There are many chess engines such as Stockfish, Crafty, Fruit and GNU Chess that can be downloaded from the Internet for free. These engines are able to play a game that, when run on an up-to-date personal computer, can defeat most master players under tournament conditions. Top programs such as the proprietary Shredder or Fritz or the open source program Stockfish have surpassed even world champion caliber players at blitz and short time controls. In October 2008 Rybka was rated top in the CCRL,CEGT, CSS,SSDF, and WBEC rating lists and has won many recent official computer chess tournaments such as CCT 8 and 9, the 2006 Dutch Open Computer Championship, the 16th IPCCC, and the 15th World Computer Chess Championship. As of February 03, 2016, Stockfish is the top rated chess program on the IPON rating list.

Chess (musical)

Chess is a musical with music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, formerly of ABBA, and with lyrics by Tim Rice. The story involves a politically driven, Cold War-era chess tournament between two men—an American grandmaster and a Soviet grandmaster—and their fight over a woman who manages one and falls in love with the other. Although the protagonists were not intended to represent any real individuals, the character of the American grandmaster (named Freddie Trumper in the stage version) was loosely based on Bobby Fischer, while elements of the story may have been inspired by the chess careers of Russian grandmasters Viktor Korchnoi and Anatoly Karpov.

Like several other productions, namely Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita, a highly successful concept album was released prior to the first theatrical production in order to raise money. In the case of Chess, the concept album was released in the fall of 1984 while the show opened in London's West End in 1986 where it played for three years. A much-altered U.S. version premiered on Broadway in 1988, but survived only for two months. Chess is frequently revised for new productions, many of which try to merge elements from both the British and American versions, but no major revival production of the musical has yet been attempted either in the West End or on Broadway.