Hippogonal

A hippogonal movement of a counter in a board game is a jump m squares in one of the orthogonal directions, and n squares in the other, for integer values of m and n. A specific type of hippogonal move can be written (m,n), usually with the smaller number first. By far, the most common type of Hippogonal movement is the Knight's Move: two squares horizontally and one square vertically, or two squares vertically and one square horizontally. The complete Knight's Move therefore looks like the letter L (or a rotation or reflection of it) and can be described as 2:1 hippogonal movement. The knight itself is sometimes referred to as a (1,2) hippogonal leaper.

Other hippogonally moving pieces include the camel, a fairy piece, which moves three squares in one direction and one in the other, and thus is a (1,3) hippogonal leaper.

The Knight's Move (left) and the Camel's Move (right) are both types of Hippogonal movements. Here, the Camel is represented with an inverted knight and the potential moves of both pieces are represented with blue circles.

It can be confusing to transfer a hippogonally-moving piece to a non-rectangular board, such as a hexagonal board, and different authors and game inventors have had different ideas on how to prescribe these movements.

Possible hippogonal movements of the knight on a hexagonal board are here shown with blue dots as in Glinski's Hexagonal Chess.

Hippogonal movement is utilized in Knight's Tour, Carrera de Caballos, and Campaign.