Ultimate Hexagonal Chess
Ultimate Hexagonal Chess is a two-player hexagonal chess variant invented by Max Koval in 2021 and first published on Chessvariants.com. This game uses a new board with 80 hexagonal cells and a set of 40 chess pieces.
My main idea of this variant was to create hexagonal chess in the closest possible way to its orthodox ancestor. This game saves some original chess features, not existing in other major hexagonal variants, such as the proportion between empty and taken cells (50% against 50%), its external design (black-celled white king, white-celled white queen, etc.) and rules (Unlike other vertical hexagonal variants, it actually retains both short and long castling).
This game uses the same rules and amount of pieces as in Koval's Hexagonal chess, with some minor changes in castling and the pawn's movement.
I hope you'll enjoy this variant. Please pay attention that the design of the pieces which I used in the following diagrams is not free, and if you want to use them in your projects, be kind to credit the artist. Any commercial reproduction of this board and pieces setup is prohibited.
Setup
White has: one king (41), one queen (31), two rooks (01,71), three knights (11,61,62), three bishops (21,22,51), ten pawns (02,03,12,23,32,42,43,52,63,72).
Black has: one king (40), one queen (50), two rooks (10,80), three knights (19,20,70), three bishops (30,59,60), ten pawns (09,18,29,38,39,49,58,69,78,79).
Pieces
The movements (as well as the names of the pieces) are logically similar to orthodox chess (with the remark that it is transcripted for a hexagonal board).
Rook (Orthogonal moves):
Bishop (Diagonal moves):
Queen (Combines both diagonal and orthogonal moves):
King (One cell in orthogonal or diagonal direction; cannot move to the cells attacked by the pieces of opposite color):
Castling is allowed:
White: K41-62 & R71-52 for short castling (0-0); K41-22 & R01-32 for long castling (0-0-0).
Black: K40-19 & R10-29 for short castling (0-0); K40-59 & R80-49 for long castling (0-0-0).
All the castling exceptions used in orthodox chess should be applied.
Knight (One cell in hippogonal direction):
Pawn (One cell orthogonally without taking straight forward and capture only diagonally forward):
The pawn can move only forward until its promotion (The promotion cells are 10,20,30,40,50,60,70,80 for White; 01,11,21,31,41,51,61,71 for Black).
Any pawn can make a double step (like in orthodox chess) if it is placed on 03,23,43,63 (White), or 18,38,58,78 (Black). The pawns, placed on 02,12,32,42,52,72 (White), and 09,29,39,49,69,79 (Black), can make a triple step (for instance, the white pawn on 12 can make a triple step to 15 or double step to 14).
En passant is allowed and works similarly to orthodox chess.
Rules
Ultimate Hexagonal Chess is a two-player board game based on chess. This game uses standard chess pieces (plus some additional) and should be played on a new board with 80 triple-colored cells.
The main difference between this game and orthodox chess are the castling rules, board shape, pawn movement (triple step), and the number of pieces.
Stalemate is counted as a draw if the attacking side still has their queens, rooks, or pawns on the board (or each of them in particular). In other cases, it is a victory for the attacking side.
The notation system and the stalemate rule are optional.
'White' moves first, 'Black' moves next. The main goal of this game is to checkmate the opponent's king and so on. All the rules are similar to standard FIDE chess.
Copyright © 2021 by Max Koval. No part of this text or images may be reproduced on other websites in any manner.
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 Max Koval.
Last revised by Fergus Duniho.
Web page created: 2022-01-01. Web page last updated: 2022-05-27