Check out Symmetric Chess, our featured variant for March, 2024.

Hexagonal Chess with Hexagonalers

This page contains one or more presets for playing a game online with Game Courier, an online server for playing Chess variants by correspondence.

The way to think about this variant is that the pieces move analogous to how they move in FIDE - pawns move vertically forward and capture diagonally. Rooks move orthogonally. Bishops and ferzes diagonally.

Pieces

Logs for Hexagonal Chess with Hexagonalers.

Introducing Hexagonalers which slide around in hexagons, as illustrated by this diagram. Hexagonalers can start these slides from any adjacent diagonal space. As you can see, Elephant Hexagonalers describe a larger hexagon, one which encloses the smaller hexagon.

Rooks move horizontally or vertically (vertically along the lines in between hexagons).

Bishops move as regular bishops, diagonally.

Regular pawns move without capturing one step at a time vertically and capture diagonally. Can also be captured en passant at either of the two hexagons it passes by on its vertical step. Berolina pawns (which start vertically in front of rooks) move one step at time diagonally or capture vertically (so they have the option of capturing opposing berolinas on first move).

Guards move one step in any direction, orthogonally or diagonally.

Ferzes, one step in any diagonal direction.

Rules

Pawns, including berolina pawns, can be promoted on seventh or third rank to wazirs, which move one in any direction along lines in between hexagons.

Object is to checkmate opponent's king.

No castling.

No initial double pawn step.

Notes

This variant was born out of my feeling that Glinski's and some of the more well-known hexagonal variants, good as they are, require one to associate familiar pieces in a completely different way.

We also use this opportunity to introduce two exotic slider pieces, the hexagonalers.

Eventually, I hope to use them to compete also against the FIDEs in a CDA for a "Horrible Hexagons" army.

Thanks to the great variant inventor Graeme Neatham for pointing the way towards this type of variant and creating a working preset for a predecessor game. Thank you so much, Graeme.


This 'user submitted' page is a collaboration between the posting user and the Chess Variant Pages. Registered contributors to the Chess Variant Pages have the ability to post their own works, subject to review and editing by the Chess Variant Pages Editorial Staff.


By Jeremy Gabriel Good.
Web page created: 2009-07-31. Web page last updated: 2009-07-31