English Chess Forum

Via Rewind TV I was watching Season 1, Episode 4 of Jack Hargreaves' Old Country and was surprised to hear him discussing our game.

He mentioned a former (Russian) World Champion who tried to introduce the Herald piece and he also mentioned Capablanca who he thought was Mexican.

Anyone know if the Herald story had any truth to it?

I remember JH fondly from the HOW Thames Television series with Bunty James, Jon Miller and Fred DInenage.

I thought it was Capa who proposed adding two extra pieces?

Matt Mackenzie wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 06, 2025 3:18 pm

I thought it was Capa who proposed adding two extra pieces?

Pietro Carrera was probably the first to propose adding two extra pieces to each side. I don't know what a Herald piece is - googling suggests that it a strange one with the power to prevent adjacent pieces (both friend and foe) from moving, but surely the piece John is talking about is something different to this?

JH suggested that the Herald piece replaced the bishop.

I read a reference to Hort talking about a Herald piece but not sure how reliable that is in these days of unreliable AI generated search results.