What is wazir in chess?

You won't find a wazir in your normal chess set, mate. So don't stress that you've been missing a secret rule or something.

The wazir is what's called a 'fairy chess' piece. Fairy chess is just a name for chess variants. These games use different rules, different boards, or pieces that aren't standard. It’s for people who want to try something new.

The wazir’s move is dead simple. It moves one square forward, backward, left, or right. That’s it. You can think of it like a rook, but it’s only allowed to move one single step. Another way to think about it is that it has the same move as a king, but without the ability to go diagonally.

Because it can only move one square at a time, it’s not a very powerful piece on its own. I reckon it's one of the weakest pieces out there. It's probably worth about the same as a pawn, maybe a tiny bit more because it can move backwards.

You mainly see the wazir in special chess puzzles. People who create these problems love using strange pieces like the wazir to make really tricky situations. You might also find it in some very old historical versions of chess from places like Persia.

So yeah, it’s not a piece you use in a regular game, just a special one for different kinds of chess fun. Hope that clears it up for you.

That’s a great question, and it actually points to a fascinating bit of chess history. The term ‘wazir’ isn’t used in modern chess, but it’s essentially the old name for what we now call the queen.

The name comes from the Persian word ‘vazīr’, which translates to ‘vizier’ or ‘chief minister’. This makes perfect sense when you look at the game’s origins. Chess began in India as ‘chaturanga’ before spreading to Persia. In those early versions, the piece next to the king wasn’t a powerful queen but a much weaker advisor figure, the vizier. This original piece could only move one square diagonally in any direction. It was a very limited and defensive piece, reflecting the role of a counsellor who stays close to the monarch.

The transformation of this piece is the biggest story in chess history. When the game reached Europe, particularly in the late 15th century, its movement was supercharged. The old ‘wazir’ was combined with the move of another piece, the ‘fers’, and its range was dramatically extended. It gained the ability to move any number of squares diagonally, horizontally, and vertically. This change turned it from the weakest piece surrounding the king into the most powerful one on the board. Around this same time, the piece’s name evolved from ‘vizier’ to ‘queen’, likely influenced by the powerful female monarchs of the era like Isabella of Castile.

So, if you ever read old chess manuscripts or hear a chess historian mention a ‘wazir’, they are simply referring to the queen but in its original, far more modest form. It’s a lovely linguistic relic that connects the modern game directly to its ancient roots.