Hexagonal chess
Created | Updated Jul 30, 2003
Until the 15th century chess was played in many different forms. However, it has always been played on a 8 by 8 square checked board. There have been several investigations of playing chess on a non-square board, the most successful of which is hexachess, designed by Vladislav Glinski in 1936. It is played by around half a million people, and this number is growing1.
Hexachess presents different challenges to normal chess: there are more possible moves, and a greater number of pieces. In addition to this, pieces are more manoeuvrable, making games faster, and more fun to play socially.
Although this entry assumes no prior knowledge of chess, you may want to read how that is played before continuing.
The best place to find out more is on the chess variants website at www.chessvariants.com. Here you will find Hexachess playing computer programs, detailed histories of the game and it's players, and some sample games, including checkmate positions.
There is also the IHCF (the International Hexagonal Chess Federation).
The Board
The game is played by two players on a board of 91 hexagons (also called fields or cells), six to a side, which are coloured in 3 colours, so that no two consecutive colours are the same. The board is placed so that a white corner hexagon is in front of white, and a black corner hexagon in front of black.
The choice of colours varies, but it is best if one is white. The middle colour is referred to as grey, and the others by their names.
As you can see, the game is played with more pieces than normal chess: one extra bishop and one extra pawn.
The vertical columns of cells are called the files, and the horizontal rows are called ranks.
The Men
In order of decreasing value, the men are:
The King
From the cell that the king is on it can move over any edge onto a neighbouring cell, or over any corner to the nearest cell of the same colour.
Despite this lack of manoeuvrability, the king is the most valuable piece because the aim of the game is to get the enemy king into a position where it is attacked, but cannot escape. See the section "Mate and Checkmate".
The Queen
The Queen can move from her cell over any number of hexagon edges (marked by crosses), and along the corners of her cell in a straight line onto any other of the same colour (marked with dots).
This makes her the most valuable piece.
The Rook
This can move in a straight line any number of places, over the edges of cells.
The Knight2
The moves of this piece are difficult even in normal chess, and are complicated further in hexachess.
It is best to think about the knight as making a bishop type move for one cell only, and then a rook type move for one cell only, moving away from the origional cell. Thus, the square that it eventually lands on must not be accessable from the start cell by a rook move.
The knight is also the only piece that may jump over other pieces (ones that are in it's way).
The Bishop
The bishop can move any number of places in a straight line, over the corners of it's cell, onto another of the same colour. Since this means that a bishop can never move to a cell of a different colour, three bishops must be used so that the entire board may be covered.
The Pawn
Pawns are the least valuable piece, although they possess a special property: if you can get them to one of the eleven cells at the far side of the board (ie, the last two rows) they can be replaced by any other piece, which replaces them on the board.
Pawns can usially move only straight toward the opponent over the edge of their cell, one cell at a time, except for their first move, when they can move forward by two squares at once, if you wish.
However, they capture by moving along the corner of their cell, again going forward. On the diagram, the cells that the pawn may capture to are marked by dots.
En Passent pawn capture
If a pawn moves forward by two cells in it's first move, and if the cell it thus jumps over is threatened by an enimy pawn, then it is possible, for the next move only, to take the pawn as if it had only moved one square.
Corner moves
When a piece goes over the corner of it's cell, as in bishop moves, pawn captures, and some king and queen moves, any pieces that may be on the cells between the start and end cells can be ignored.
Castling
In normal chess, castling is a special move that lets you move both the rook and king simultaneously. There is no analogous move in hexachess.
The Game
Players must decide who plays as white, and who plays as black. White moves first.
The players take it in turns to move one of their pieces, in the manner described above. If they land on a cell which already has one of their opponents pieces in it, the latter is removed from the board, and the first piece replaces it. Once a piece has been captured it cannot be put back on the board, and players may not capture their own pieces.
Check and Checkmate
When the king is being attacked, it is said to be in check, and you must get it out of check if this is possible. If you can't, then the king is in checkmate, and you have lost the game.
Possible ways of getting out of check include:
- Moving the king so it is no longer under attack - either behind another piece, or out of the move of the attacker
- Putting another piece in the way of the attacker, so that it can't get at the king
- Capturing the attacking piece
Checkmating is the only way to win a game, for which you get one point.
Other rules
Some moves cannot be made: they are illegal. These inclued moving he king into check, and failing to move the king out of check if this is possible.
A draw may be declared under the following surcumstances:
- Agreement between the two players - when neither feels that they can win
- Three fold repition - if exactly the same position is reached on the board on three different occasions, with the same player to move
- Insufficient mating material - if neither side has sufficient pieces to force a checkmate
- Perpetual check - where it is possible for one player to keep the opponent king in check for ever
- The Fifty Move Rule - if a piece is not captured or a pawn moved for 50 moves
- Stalemate - where one player can make no legal move
In the case of stalemate, the player who cannot move gains 1/4 of a point, and the other gains 3/4.
Move notation
Each cell on the board can be identified by a number and a letter.
The vertical columns of cells (called files) are given letters between 'a' and 'k' (excluding 'j') from left to right.
The rows of cells are given numbers, from bottom to top.
These labels are drawn about the edges of all hexachess boards and diagrams.
To find a cell when given a coordinate, you must first find what file the cell is in. This is given by the letter. The cell is in the non-vertical row specified by the number. The number that you use (on the board) is the one on the side of the cell, ie, if the cell is in a file below 'f' (is on the left hand side of the board), use the left hand set of numbers; if the cell is in a file above 'f' (is on the right hand side of the board), use the right hand set of numbers.
All positions are given from whites point of view.
In addition, each of the pieces has a letter:
- K stands for King.
- Q stands for Queen.
- B stands for Bishop.
- R stands for Rook.
- N stands for Knight.
- Pawns don't have a letter.
Whenever a move is made which puts the opponent's King into check, a '+' is written after the move. If the move puts the king into checkmate, '++' is written.
