Oct 10, 2025
Author's Commentary #588:
Time to talk about Chapter 588: Elephant Bongcloud.
Based on the title, I'm sure you can guess what the opening is. That's right, it's something completely new, but it does stem from the Elephant Gambit, so if you guessed that, you were correct. To briefly explain the clue, chess used to feature a piece shaped like an elephant known as the alfil, which was eventually replaced by the bishop. It moved by jumping two spaces diagonally and could leap over pieces much like the knight. It is still used today in some chess variants.
Getting back to the game, Okisato decides to first employ the Elephant Gambit, also known as the Turkish Gambit. The theory is that instead of king e2, you either go e4 for the Elephant, Paulson Countergambit or bishop d6 for the Elephant, Maróczy Gambit, which is considered the Elephant Gambit proper. Since it's also known as the Turkish Gambit, I decided to have Okisato flex his multilingualism by speaking some Turkish. In a video game adaptation, since I prefer to use country names first for openings that have multiple names, the base gambit would likely be listed as the Turkish Gambit, but with the Maróczy Gambit being the Elephant Gambit as that is generally regarded to be the Elephant Gambit proper. The Elephant Bongcloud would be called Elephant Bongcloud though, but if 3. Kd7 were played instead, we'd call that the Nargile Gambit.
Now with Emmie humiliated, Mimoko and Iori have been avenged. Yuusuke's game will likely be next, but there's a good chance filler will be on the menu due to my backlog running out. I also don't know what I'm going to do with Mimoko, but since I don't want this season to be too long, I'll do my best to try and write everything.
That's all for this commentary. I hope you enjoyed it.
