Nobody knows for certain, because the move was already in place in chaturanga, the Indian game chess grew out of around 1,500 years ago, and nobody wrote down why. The best explanation is that chaturanga was modelled on an army, and the horse stood in for cavalry, which could leap over foot soldiers and swing in from an angle. Thereâs some neat geometry in it too. The L covers exactly the squares two steps away that no straight or diagonal move can reach, which is why a knight always lands somewhere awkward, and always on the opposite colour.
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