Comments by maxkoval

@Jean-Louis Cazaux, that's an argumentative point, but I think you partially misunderstood me, due to my explanation and diagrams lacking enough clarity. The notation is simple - an odd number defines a line of dark cells, an even number defines white cells, etc. The columns are made of both white and dark cells except the very first. I didn't use numeral notation because it takes too much time to enter and place it on the diagram.

Bishop moves in a way similar to rook - it alternates between cells in an outer direction (meaning that it always should stay further from the starting point).

Instead of the rook with 6 directions, the bishop has 12. Red cells show a pattern like 'right-left-right-left' etc. For blue cells, it is reversed. From f6 you cannot move to e6 because it would violate the alternating pattern of both possible directions, and after reaching e5, everything continues from the initial perspective. Here's another take - if all dark cells will be converted to hexagons and combined together, the bishop's movement would look like a movement of an alternating hexagonal rook. It is the only way to achieve a constant movement without directions getting multiplied. A more clarifying diagram is added to cover all directions.

Knight's move is derivative of the rook's and bishop's move. You simply move the knight in any of three rook-alike directions, then in any bishop-alike, except g6, g8, and h8 for obvious reasons. The fact that it looks like the dabbaba's move purely lies on the board's geometry. I simply followed the principle borrowed from chess that after moving like a rook, it moves in a diagonal direction except for the cells placed directly to the starting cell.

Another formulation of the bishop's move:

1. Trigonal bishop is counted as an alternating hexagonal rook if the cells of the same color will be converted to vertical hexagons.
2. In this perspective, the bishop should move only forward, not sideways or otherwise.
3. And it should not move in a straight hexagonal rook-alike manner with more than two cells in a row to preserve the alternating pattern (for the rook it is a 'built-in' feature).

Why this way? a. The directions of the two sliding pieces are now opposite of each other, similar to chess; b both pieces use the same rule of movement; c since the bishop has 6 nearby 'diagonal' cells, unlike the rook with 3 orthogonal, it should have 12 directions of movement, not 6 like it was featured in other variants since rook already has 6. So, I think that the way the bishop moves is quite natural from the rook's perspective. The board is also naturally colored, and the pieces are arranged in a way similar to orthodox chess.

I feel that I may miss something, and I would be glad if someone could disprove this idea.

@H. G. Muller, the corrections were made.

To me the Bishop's move doesn't look very natural either. The fact that after an even number of steps each destination can be reached through two paths makes it essentially different from a normal slider, and more like a 'crooked' piece.

Sure, it's more like a kind of crooked piece, but the same thing goes with the rook, it simply looks like a straight path. It is the idea that was suggested, to make the rook and bishop work by the same rule.

But of course you can make the pieces move as you want; there doesn't need to be a justification.

Justification is the key element here, brought by this variant's idea. There's another way, which may suit the purpose better.

In the ideal condition for sliders, since the triangle has only three sides (and corners) and two of them are equal to each other in terms of trajectory selection, the branching of their directions should cover the whole board. That's what I also suggested with the only remark that the sliding pieces should always stay further from the initial cell and levels the piece already crossed, which can somewhat limit their power and make the game stable.

First, there are plenty of common chess variants which are actually unplayable to a bigger or smaller extent, like Shafran's hexchess, Capablanca chess, or some minor ones whose names are out of my memory.

Second, I didn't claim or post that this page is finished, which can be seen as a requirement, and I wanted to showcase the whole topic or a concept, since I tested different types of boards and found the whole concept to be playable. Anything that can potentially both work and being not described previously, can exist by default. Again, the proposed board is the most, default, basic way to represent that. It is an idea, and the description is unfinished.

There are not millions of chess variant ideas. In fact, they are limited. In a dramatic way.

Thrid, if not me, there would be someone to propose another original 8x8 modesty or something with RN and BN as new pieces and claim that it's the most revolutionary thing in the world which would solve world hunger and break the laws of thermodynamics if applied on a common level instead of orthochess. If it suits the intended way, I may step down.

No one complained about anything. You are right in the statement that it is better to finish the previous ones rather than submit more, but I simply forgot about this variant. I tend to delete variants which I hadn't edited for a long period of time rather than mess around with them even if they can potentially work, since I tend to rise my own criteria. OK. I'll remove this. I have more interesting stuff to offer, but as you decline it, I'll become a good guy and will never post anything beyond 8x8.

Which one of my other submissions, except this one and Trefoil chess (I gave up on both), fails to meet any quality standard? It's extremely interesting.

Not sure what to make of "Anything that can potentially both work and being not described previously, can exist by default." It doesn't seem to apply to this website. Things that have been described previously can be described here, as long as the author properly credits prior art, and 'potentially' doesn't seem good enough.

That's why there are thousands of chess variants, and at least a quarter of them sucks. The bottleneck board is an attempt at originality, again, purely theoretical, but which can be remade in another way, but it seems that it is not encouraged. OK

My claim about Capablanca's chess is proved by the reason why there are so many RN-BN variants. It is beyond non-absurd. Ed Trice, the inventor of Gothic Chess, already described and analyzed the subject and why it is unplayable. In Shafran's chess, after the first and most obvious move, you can attack both opponents' rooks with your bishop. Aside from an array of other flaws which result from this, this is already something that sounds off.

I once promised myself not to post or sell to anyone any rectangular variants, in which I am as uninterested as you in the hexagonal ones. I made a mistake. Sorry.

I never said that hexagonal topology is unplayable, my note was of the initial position, which makes that setup unplayable. I mentioned it as an example that even a common variant cannot be free from flaws, which makes it extremely difficult to invent a chess alike game that would be as good and interesting as orthodox chess. That's the sad truth, why chess variants are not as popular as they should actually be, like the variations on any other sport. I know from my playing experience that if a good player cannot do it well on hexagons, he's not a good chess player.

By mentioning 8x8 I didn't mean 'larger'. That's also a problem for this medium, and I don't like large variants except for Gross Chess and a few others.

I meant, 'different'.

Ideas that don't work, no matter how original, are not really of interest, IMO. If they could be made to work in another context, then just present those ideas in that context. If they are really worth persuing, that should not be too difficult.

That's not the idea that doesn't work, the setup which was the simplest way to show that, together with the others, and there was a disclaimer on it. That's what I wanted to do initially. That was just a live idea in a dead way which I thought to be the most simple.

By the way, if something works, I'm not interested in how difficult it is for someone if the difficulty comes from the natural organization, not just an attempt to make a really big playing field. That's not the case for this one though. Forget it.

Since I already explored most of the possibilities of hexagonal tesselation, I want to explore new spaces. As many as I can. The Wild West of chess. That's what drives it. If it is not what works here, I may leave.

The problem with Capablanca chess is the fact that on the first move, I can attack the unprotected black pawn, which leads to forced progressions. Ed Trice showcased them quite well. It may not be a flaw, but it is definitely a problem. People will simply exchange their chancellors and everything continues on the same, but worse, playing field.

[Editor's Note: This was moved from the same page as the previous comment.]

The first written introduction that was widely available for Shafran's chess was published in a Soviet paper named 'Nauka i Zhizn', (Science and Life), and was aimed at young auditory, where you were suggested to construct your own board. I don't own a copy of it, but I found the issue copy in a local library where the article about this variant first appeared. I learned about the article through the Web and I don't remember the issue number though, but it can be found.

Soviet chess player and writer Evgeny Gik showcased both Glinski and Shafran's hexagonal variants in one of his books on mathematical games.

In the Soviet Union, inventions of such fundamental kinds that can be used in propagandistic ways would usually get way more attention than in Western countries, especially due to the extreme popularity of chess in that period, even before Wladyslaw Glinski introduced his game to the general public in the seventies, in which case the promotion of almost the same game by the Soviets could be regarded as a copyright violation. I don't have any information that high-level chess players were interested in this variant, which in my opinion is unusual. I suppose to think they didn't react because this variant was flawed.

Before I do that, I might want to move some of your discussion about Shafran's Hexagonal Chess to the new page I have made about it.

I do not mind that, although I don't think my lame English will be worth it.

Besides Shafran's chess, another remark deserves to be added to Brusky's chess, which in my opinion is the closest possible translation of chess to a hexagonal board. The problem with it is the fact that the number of pawns there is not equal to the number of major pieces, and the fact that there are also forced defensive progressions from the very first move, which makes this variant unsuitable for high-level play. The pawn's movement rule was also slightly modified to make the variant stable.

It can be forgivable for Capablanca Chess or that Shogi variant revealed by H.G., but they are not as significant as hexagonal chess by their nature, I cannot see them being independent of Western chess and Shogi respectively. I'm not a shogi player again, I know nothing about it.

We are interested in hexagonal chess variants because they are played on a fundamental tesselation. As can be expected there are not plenty of tesselations available. So it should not be regarded as a variant of chess, but rather, another chess. To get the idea, I do not play chess because it is fun. I play it to find fundamental feelings of mathematics, or at least an illusion of them since chess by itself is an extremely artificial game, with plenty of questionable rules. But still, the roots of it are still fundamental, we can get them. A search of something initial.

So I would try to end my search for hexagonal chess on Glinski's chess. Yes, the pawn is a problem, but at least, this variant is not flawed. If chess was already full of artificial rules, the modified pawn can be seen as a slight extension (at least, there's no castling anymore).